Cabinet signs off on new housing measures in effort to boost supply

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

The government has announced new housing measures in an effort to encourage the supply of homes.

The changes to the Housing For All plan, agreed by Cabinet on Tuesday, aim to make it cheaper to refurbish homes, to speed up home construction and to reduce building costs.

Development levies are to be scrapped for 12 months to encourage building by saving up to an average of €12,650 per home.

The measure takes effect from Tuesday and the government will cover the cost for local authorities to fund public infrastructure and services that would have been done through the levy.

The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant will be increased from €30,000 to €50,000 for vacant properties and from €50,000 to 70,000 euro for derelict properties, extended to cover houses built up to 2007, and will be available for properties intended for rental as well as owner-occupied.

Work is to start on thousands of affordable apartments to rent which have planning permission but which are not being progressed, which the minister for housing Darragh O’Brien said was due to a “viability gap”.

The government is to “bridge” that gap by committing up to €750 million via the Land Development Agency and other providers to complete between 4,000-6,000 additional affordable apartments if they are part of the cost-rental system.

Speaking at the announcement of the measures, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pledged to build 35,000 homes next year.

"Housing for All is working. At the moment about 400 people are buying their first home every week, which is the highest since the Celtic Tiger.

"We have the best social housing output since the 1970s. After a slowdown, commencements are bouncing back. And we are likely to meet our overall target again this year. But we need to do more.

“We know that merely meeting our own targets won’t be enough. We have a huge deficit in housing, and we’re playing catch up. Our mission is to restore the social contract and make home-ownership affordable for the majority again."

He said he expects the new measures to have an immediate impact and increase the number of homes built in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Mr O’Brien said that viability and affordability are “two sides of the same coin” as the scrapping of the development levy aims to activate dormant permissions, which in turn is expected to boost supply.