Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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374. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the Land Development Agency will be able to apply for either the cost rental equity loan or the affordable housing fund for the provision of affordable housing. [46679/21]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Land Development Agency (LDA) was established on an interim basis in September 2018, by way of an Establishment Order made under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971. The Land Development Agency Act was recently signed in law and, on enactment, the LDA will be established as a commercial State agency.

The LDA Commercial Agency will be funded by way of a €1.25 billion equity investment from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) as well as borrowing capacity up to €1.25 billion. As such, it is not intended that the LDA will avail of the Cost Rental Equity Loan Scheme or the Affordable Housing Fund in delivering homes for affordable purchase or cost rental on its own lands. In situations where the LDA is providing services to local authorities to develop housing projects under Section 15 of the LDA Act on local authority land, it is open to the relevant local authority to avail of relevant funds and schemes for these local authority projects.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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375. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the criteria that will be used to assess whether an organisation can be designated a cost rental provider under the Affordable Housing Act 2021 and related secondary legislation. [46680/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Affordable Housing Act 2021 was enacted by the President on 21 July 2021. On 18 August, I signed the Affordable Housing Act 2021 (Commencement) (Parts 1 and 3) Order 2021, which commenced Parts 1 and 3 of the Act from 19 August, and brought into operation the Cost Rental elements of the Act.

On 19 August 2021, I made the Affordable Housing Act 2021 (Cost Rental Designation) Regulations 2021. These Regulations govern the process by which the owners of dwellings may obtain the designation of their properties as Cost Rental dwellings, provided they commit at the outset to the property remaining in the Cost Rental sector for a certain minimum period.

Applications for designation of a property as Cost Rental will be accepted from any applicant who is the legal owner of the property, provided they have the appropriate consents from any incumbrancers, such as lenders, to apply for this designation and to have the resulting legal burden placed on the property.

It is anticipated that in the initial years of the development of this new sector, Cost Rental homes will be primarily provided directly by Local Authorities, the Land Development Agency (LDA) and the Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), initially funded by State lending from the Housing Agency and Housing Finance Agency.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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376. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the categories of organisations that will be eligible to apply for the cost rental equity loan and the affordable housing fund (details supplied). [46681/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The implementation of Cost Rental is being supported by the new Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) scheme, under which Government loans to Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) on favourable terms will finance up to 30% of the capital costs of new homes for Cost Rental. CREL was allocated €35m under Budget 2021. The Housing Finance Agency also made available €100m to AHBs in very competitive commercial debt funding, to cover the remaining capital costs of CREL-approved projects in the first tranche. At present, CREL funding is exclusively available to AHBs.

The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) will provide Exchequer funding support to Local Authorities to assist in the delivery of affordable housing for sale or cost rent, under the provisions of the Affordable Housing Act 2021.Whilst eligibility for the Affordable Housing Fund is specific to local authorities, under Section 6 of the Act, a housing authority may make dwellings available for the purposes of sale to eligible applicants under affordable purchase dwelling arrangements. A housing authority may enter into arrangements with the following bodies for this purpose;

- arrangements with an approved housing body;

- arrangements with a community led organisation, a housing co-operative or a community land trust;

- arrangements with the land development agency; and

- public private partnership arrangements.

As such, the provisions allow local authority led partnership arrangements between housing authorities and these bodies for the provision of homes under the affordable purchase dwelling arrangements.