An Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution will recommend to the Government that local authorities should designate areas for social housing under their development plans and should not have to pay the full market value for land acquired for social and affordable housing.
Its draft report, which suggests also that taxes or development levies be used to recoup windfall profits accrued by property speculators when their land is rezoned, will be most unwelcome to those individuals and companies that made fortunes through the hoarding and slow release of building land. By concluding that a Constitutional referendum will not be necessary, the Oireachtas Committee accepted the view of the Kenny Report, published in the mid-1970s, which said that reform of property rights could be introduced through legislation.
Successive governments have ducked this thorny issue, arguing that Constitutional rights might be involved. Last October at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis however, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told delegates that exorbitant prices for new houses were not sustainable, nor were exorbitant profits. Developers who hoarded land would be dealt with decisively through legislation or by other means, he said. Some months earlier, the Labour Party had published a Bill to cap the price of building land for social and affordable housing at 25 per cent above its unzoned cost. And, last week, the Green Party made the provision of affordable housing a priority.
The cost of housing has made life very difficult for tens of thousands of newly-married couples. And many young people have given up hope of ever owning their own homes. As a consequence, local authority housing lists have continued to grow. But the number of council homes being built failed to reach targets set in the National Development Plan because of a lack of finance. In spite of that, a record number of new homes were built in the private sector last year.
The Oireachtas Committee is proposing that social housing should be regarded as an integral part of "public infrastructure and facilities" under the Planning and Development Act of 2000. The provision of social housing, it maintains, should be part of the basic supports of a civilised society. And councils should not have to pay the full market value for land acquired for both social and affordable housing.
During the past 15 years or so, the price of building land has risen dramatically. A site now accounts for 40-50 per cent of the price of a new house, compared to about 10-15 per cent at the start of the economic boom. It is, as the Taoiseach said, an unsustainable situation.