Written answers

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government

Housing Provision

Photo of Brendan GriffinBrendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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347. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if local authorities will consider constructing clusters of rural cottages in shared sites with communal ancillary services to keep local persons in their native rural locations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62908/21]

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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As Housing Minister, my priorities in relation to housing delivery are set out under Housing for All; they are to ramp up State building of social homes to help eliminate homelessness and address waiting lists, as well as supporting homeownership and increasing affordability. Under Housing for All there are unprecedented resources available to support public housing programmes. Implementation of these programmes at local level, in terms of priority and location, will be matters for our local authorities in meeting their housing needs. In that regard, each local authority is now finalising new Housing Delivery Action Plans to set out details on how and when they will deliver their housing targets, including the alignment with the National Planning Framework (NPF), in particular compact growth objectives. These Action Plans should also provide an outline of locations where housing will be delivered (e.g. towns, villages, urban areas, rural areas, etc.) and the planned numbers of homes to be delivered in each area.

The NPF is the national planning policy document providing overall strategic policy for the future development of Ireland. It fully supports the concept of the sustainable development of rural areas and the need to ensure their continued function as places to live, work and invest in. The NPF seeks to encourage their growth and to arrest the decline of areas that have experienced low population growth in recent years. Chapter 5.3 ‘Planning for the Future Growth and Development of Rural Areas’ of the NPF features several specific National Policy Objectives that aim to support the overall rural and small town pattern of development in Ireland and deliver strengthened and diversified rural communities.

In support of this, Housing for All contains commitments in relation a new Croí Cónaithe (Towns) Fund to provide serviced sites for the construction of new homes and refurbish vacant properties in regional towns and villages; a new Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Programme to tackle vacancy in towns and villages; and new rural housing guidelines to provide updated guidance to planning authorities in devising such policies in their county development plans.

There are also a range of actions relating to housing and associated areas in the Government’s framework for the development of rural Ireland over the next five years, ‘Our Rural Future: Rural Development Policy 2021-2025’.

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