Chambers Ireland welcomes innovative measures in housing action plan

Chambers Ireland has welcomed the publication of  the Government’s housing and homelessness plan entitled ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, which plans to kick-start the housing industry with 47,000 social houses to be delivered in six years. The 114-page document aims to accelerate all types of housing supply and targets an annual overall build of 25,000 units per year.

Responding to the publication of the Government action plan, Mark O’Mahoney, Director of Policy and Communications, Chambers Ireland, said: “There are a number of innovative measures in the Rebuilding Ireland Action plan that will help to alleviate the acute housing pressures being felt in many of our urban areas. We have long been advocating for the prioritisation of measures to increase the supply of housing to meet demand at affordable prices, and there are a number of measures within the action plan that will achieve this aim.

O’Mahoney added that Chambers Ireland is especially encouraged by the action plan’s decisive move towards active land management. “The cost of land is a major driver of the high price of housing development and Chambers Ireland has in the past called for active land management strategies as a means to address this,” he said. “The proposed reforms to the planning system will see a streamlining of the planning process for large developments. This will provide greater certainty in the planning process and reduce the overall costs of planning for developers.”

He continued: “The allocation of a €5.35 billion investment in social housing provision over the next few years is welcome; increased investment in social housing supply is overdue and will go a long way to increasing Ireland’s housing stock. We are very pleased to see flexible measures such as the establishment of an NTMA funding vehicle and the creation of an Affordable Rental Scheme included in the action plan. We believe that if the measures included in the plan are swiftly delivered on it will go some way towards addressing the complex issue of affordability and lead to an alleviation of the housing crisis in the short term.”