Land agency ‘can be used to ramp up supply’ hit by hiatus in building homes

THE Land Development Agency (LDA) can be used to ramp up housing supply in the wake of an expected shortfall in delivery due to the coronavirus restrictions.

The LDA is central to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s housing proposals for a coalition government.

A well-placed source told the Irish Independent that the agency will be able to “take up some of the slack” that’s inevitably going to be left by building work grinding to a halt.

As few as 18,000 homes may be built this year as construction stopped at most sites due to the pandemic, according to one estimate.

That’s 7,000 short of the Government target of 25,000.

The LDA is said to be “gearing up” and hiring staff and is set to play a “very significant role in bringing stabilisation to housing supply”.

The new agency was established to open up State-owned land for development.

The source said that it would be “another player in the market” and it would open up lands that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible to developers, local authorities and approved housing bodies.

An example given is the grounds of the old Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Co Dublin.

There are plans to build 1,200 homes at the site and the LDA is working on a number of other projects elsewhere around the country.

While the pace of house building this year has taken a battering due to the coronavirus restrictions, the LDA is expected to be a “positive factor” in accelerating supply that “wasn’t there up until now”.

The source said the LDA would have “very ambitious, but realistic targets” and that the role it could play in the recovery of supply from the coronavirus building hiatus “is by bringing more opportunities to a construction stage that otherwise would not have been opened up”.

Government talks with the Green Party have turned to housing this week.

Empower

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael singled out the LDA for facilitating the delivery of housing as they promised to place the State “firmly at the centre of the Irish housing market” in a framework document of proposals sent to the Greens and other smaller parties.

They pledged to “empower and fund the Land Development Agency to build homes on public and private land, to deliver new homes for affordable and private purchase, social housing, and cost-rental accommodation”.

Eamon Ryan’s party has argued that public land should be used exclusively for public and cost-rental housing but the two larger parties have fallen short of committing to this demand by the Greens.

The Green Party has placed an emphasis on a cost-rental model for providing affordable housing.

The LDA is said to be keen to “actively encourage and promote” this form of tenure amid a belief that it has the potential to help tackle the high rents that have arisen in recent years.

Housing may yet become a contentious issue in government formation talks.

In the Dáil, Green Party TD Francis Noel Duffy last week sought a commitment from Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy that post-Covid-19, public land would exclusively be used for cost rental and affordable homes and not for “any further private development and exploitation”.

Mr Murphy said public land should be used towards the public good.

“That does not just mean pubic housing, but mixed housing developments including cost rental, affordable to buy, social housing and private housing,” he added.

He said the real debate was over what the mix should be and that the LDA would have powers to make that determination on a site-by-site basis depending on the needs of the wider community.