Increased funding is needed to enable the scaling up of social housing construction under new Government targets, the new Minister for Housing has been told by his Department.
The social housing build target for 2025 is 10,000, which is only achievable “if adequate funding is made available”, briefing notes prepared by Department of Housing officials for James Browne say.
Local Authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) are “approaching capacity under existing structures and resourcing”, and changes need to be made to enable scaling up, the briefing notes state.
The Programme for Government set out a target of building an average of 12,000 new social homes a year over its lifetime.
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This would be a significant increase on previous years, with the latest available figures for 2024 showing 2,119 new social homes were built by the end of the third quarter. There were 8,110 built in all of 2023 and 7,433 built in 2022.
The briefing notes point to a need for more direct building by local authorities and AHBs, using standardised house types and building contracts which could allow for more efficient tendering and supply of new homes. This is seen as a priority issue for the Department, with just 22 per cent of new social housing delivered by direct building by the local authorities.
The Department also intends to change the way local authorities manage their housing stock, moving away from a “response” form of management to a more strategic and informed maintenance approach, which would include stock surveys.
Another challenge in relation to the building of social homes is the issue of land banks (large areas of land bought with the intention of future development) and infrastructure problems, which need to be fixed to “facilitate the scaling up of social housing delivery”, the briefing notes say.
The Department also says there is a “strong appetite” among local authorities for acquisitions, including under the Tenant in Situ scheme which saw 120 homes acquired by the Housing Agency last year at a cost of €31.73 million.
[ Government not limited to its 303,000 housing targetOpens in new window ]
Under the Tenant in Situ scheme, the State buys houses from landlords in cases where their plans to sell up could result in homelessness for the tenants.
The briefing notes for Mr Browne, who succeeds Darragh O’Brien as Minister, say a decision on the format of any such scheme for 2025 will need to be made and funding provided “at the earliest opportunity”.
Meanwhile, changes to the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) will be recommended following an investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman, the briefing notes say.
The investigation “is in the process of being finalised” and “will recommend a number of changes to the administration of the scheme at local authority level, as well as amendments to the scheme at policy level,” it says. “The department is in the process of engaging with the Office of the Ombudsman in relation to the investigation.”
An increase in the amount local authorities can pay over and above HAP rates, known as the HAP discretion, is also indicated. Councils have discretion to pay up to 35 per cent above HAP limits where households can’t find accommodation within the limits. A review of the 35 per cent discretion is under way, it says “in the context of increasing rental costs”.
A report on reform of rent pressure zones (RPZs) will be published before the end of March. The Housing Agency report is looking for RPZs to be replaced with a system known as “reference rents”, where rents would be regulated by being benchmarked or “tied” to rents already being paid for similar-quality buildings in the same area.
“It is expected that this review will be completed by the end of quarter one, 2025,” the briefing notes state.
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