Q&A: What is in the 'Housing for All' strategy that will deliver 300,000 homes?
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The Government will on Thursday announce its new Housing For All strategy — its plan to tackle the housing crisis.
Seen as a key initiative for the Government and particularly Fianna Fáil, Housing for All is the Government’s plan to 2030 and contains a range of actions and measures which aim to provide 33,000 social, affordable, cost rental and private homes, on average, each year up to and including 2030.
Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien says this plan is different because the measures are supported by more than €4bn in guaranteed State funding every year.
Nobody can ignore the reality of the housing crisis. Housing was one of the two main issues in last year's general election and all three Government parties are keenly aware that the next election will be fought on the success or failure of solving the housing crisis. This document sets out how, not just how the crisis will be fixed, but how it will be paid for.
The proposals will replace the Rebuilding Ireland strategy, which was a €6bn plan to lift the overall supply of new homes to 25,000 a year by 2020, but was at just 21,000 in 2019 before the pandemic hit.
Housing For All goes far above and beyond this figure, aiming to deliver 300,000 homes by the end of 2030, with 33,000 per year being built by 2025.
It was due to be announced before the summer, but was delayed for a number of months after internal wrangling between ministers on targets and financing. It is understood some at Cabinet felt the level of funding was not aligned with what was being delivered to support housing in terms of school building, infrastructure and transport.
The plan aims to make more affordable and social houses available and to tackle the rising costs of both purchases and renting homes. The strategy will pledge to build 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes along with 156,000 homes being put on sale or for rent on the private market.
Being dubbed by Government as the "single largest investment in housing since the 1960s", much of the plan will focus on increasing supply as well as revitalising towns and villages. This will see new powers and funding given to local authorities to directly build new homes, as well as a major focus on reducing vacant homes in towns and cities, including above-the-shop units in city and town centres.
A key measure to be announced will be a so-called "land sharing value". This would see landowners or developers forced to pay up to half the increase in the value of land which is rezoned for housing. There is also likely to be a grant fund of up to €500m aimed at revitalising town centres and lowering building costs. A vacant site tax will also be examined.
The plan will commit to a "national review of rightsizing", but a mooted cut in stamp duty to encourage so-called empty nesters to give up their homes will not feature. The review will look at whether a one-stop resource for those downsizing is feasible, as well as whether a halving of stamp duty to make the process attractive can be done in the future.
The Land Development Agency, which gained statutory powers in June, will play a big role in the plan. It will be allowed borrow an extra €300m on top of the €1.25bn originally envisaged. This, combined with €1.25bn from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, will give the LDA a considerable war-chest to deliver homes on State lands.
It is already due to deliver up to 5,000 homes in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kildare, Limerick and Westmeath but the Housing For All document will set out even more sites on which homes will be built.
It will also be used to help fulfil some of the thousands of planning applications that have yet to break ground on private lands in urban areas under a new scheme.