Housing For All has ‘policies, scale and investment’ to address crisis – Burke

The government’s €40bnHousing for All plan has “the policies, scale and investment to address our housing crisis”, Minister of State Peter Burke says.

Published last week, the new policy document outlines plans to address the housing crisis by increasing annual supply to 33,000 homes over the next 10 years, including 90,000 social housing homes, 36,000 affordable homes, 18,000 cost rental homes and 170,000 private homes.

In addition to providing affordable housing to the huge numbers of people priced out of the market, Taoiseach Micheál Martin also pledged to eliminate homelessness over the course of the plan.

For rural communities, one of the objectives of the plan is new County Development Plan guidance for zoning and density levels, as well as new planning guidelines that will “give certainty” for people looking to build one-off homes in their locality.

The investment commitments in Housing for All will be consistent with the revised National Development Plan (NDP). The NDP is the government’s multi-billion capital investment plan. It will have ambitious housing targets, sustainability and regional development at its core.

Deputy Burke, Minister of State in the Department of Housing, says the new initiatives for affordable housing, cost rental, social and private delivery will see the huge demand for housing met over the coming years, with targets of 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030.

The plan commits €40 billion, €4bna year, the highest ever multi annual commitment, which will come from exchequer funding, the Housing and Finance Agency as well as the LDA.

“This plan will see a new affordable housing scheme, whereby people locked out of the housing market can purchase homes at affordable prices, either through the local authority or privately. A Cost Rental Scheme is being introduced for the first time, where households who earn less than €82,000 can enter into a rental agreement where the rent is set at a 25% reduction of market levels.

“Social housing build has been ramped up significantly in the last number of years, we can see the evidence of this in every county in the country. More needs to be built to keep up with demand and to house the increased numbers on our social housing list, and the plan outlines that 90,000 more social homes will be built by 2030.

“There are also elements on the planning side, which fall under my jurisdiction. I am bringing legislation forward which aims to strike a balance in relation to judicial review, so that spurious objections to planning permission can have a less of a detrimental affect on our ambitious housing and development plans. While there always must be an opportunity for citizens to be heard and consulted in relation to development, at present the system is weighted too much in favour of objectors and NGOs with very few members and who face no costs.

“There also is a new scheme which sees sites with planning permissions in place be incentivised to move, but only where developers are making the units available for purchase on the open market. This will significantly aid the activation of 80,000 planning permissions nationwide which have been granted but not yet commenced.

“As minister with responsibility for housing for older person and people with disabilities, I am eager to see more units being developed in both the private and social housing sector. Under the new plan, local authorities will have to publish action plans in December of this year, outlining how many people they currently have on their social housing lists, a breakdown of the age and number of people with disabilities, how many units they need to build to cater for these numbers and how and when they will meet this demand.

“For the first time, we will know exactly who needs social housing and where it is needed, expressed within a plan which clearly states how this will be delivered. This is a really positive step and the outcome of significant work done by both the department and our councils in establishing the exact numbers and projections for housing.

“I also welcome increased protection for renters, with rent increases now linked to the rate of inflation, which is approx. 0.5%, rather than 4% annually allowed to be charged in Rent Pressure Zones. Tenancies of indefinite duration will be progressed and increased regulation to curtail the expansion of short-term leasing on websites such as AirBnB in areas which have constrained supply of rental properties. This is urgently needed in Westmeath and across the midlands, where rental property numbers continue to dwindle.

“We are working too to increase the number of construction workers and specialised skillsets within the industry, as without these skills, we will not be able to reach these targets. Numbers of construction workers are still down since the pre-Covid March 2020 levels. We are working with the CIF to increase these numbers, we are ramping up investment in apprenticeships to 10,000 per year.

“The housing market continues to present challenges but we will not be found wanting when it comes to policies and investment over the coming years. It is government’s number one priority and we must now work to put these policies into practice immediately,” Minister Burke says.