Government aims to deliver 300,000 new homes by end of 2030 under plan to be unveiled

The Government aims to deliver 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030 under the €4 billion-per-year Housing for All plan to be unveiled today.

The plan to ramp up supply in a bid to finally tackle the housing crisis will also include a pledge to end homelessness by the end of the decade.

The success of the plan will be crucial for the future fortunes of the three Coalition parties.

The Cabinet is to provide the final sign-off on the plan today before Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien will formally launch it alongside Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.

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Almost 90,000 of the homes to be delivered are to be social housing, with a target of a further 36,000 affordable properties over the next nine years.

Another 18,000 homes will be designated cost rental, where rents will be at least 25 per cent below the market rate.

The remaining 156,000 homes – 52 per cent of the total – are to be delivered through the private market.

A source described it as a “massive” construction programme on a scale that exceeds the heyday of social home building in the past.

New builds

Of the average of 10,000 social homes to be made available per year over the course of the plan, 9,500 are to be new builds, with the remainder to be provided through a repair and leasing scheme for bringing vacant properties back into use.

Affordable homes will be provided either through a shared equity scheme or the separate Local Authority Affordable Purchase Scheme.

With just more than half of the housing to be delivered by the private sector, sources pointed to plans to activate dormant planning permissions – of which there are 80,000 nationwide with half in Dublin – as part of efforts to encourage development.

A plan, code-named Project Tosaigh, would see the Land Development Agency (LDA) – which is tasked with delivering housing on State-owned land – play a role in activating such planning permissions.

Another initiative, Croí Cónaithe – a €500 million fund to help developers and local authorities make the development of sites viable – was also cited as a measure to boost development in the private market. Developers with planning permission for high-density apartment blocks in cities will be able to apply for this fund on the condition the benefit is passed on to an owner-occupier buyer.

Spending power

The LDA is to see a €1 billion increase of its expected spending power to €3.5 billion.

Other measures in the plan include a vacant property tax and “land value sharing” whereby property owners and developers will have to pay the State up to half of the increase in the value of land when it is rezoned for housing.

The plan will initially be funded over the next five years to the tune of €20.5 billion, including €12 billion in direct exchequer funding, €5 billion provided through the Housing Finance Agency and the €3.5 billion from the LDA.

Sources said the intention is that the €4 billion per year funding would be maintained, with up to €36 billion being spent by 2030.