Local authorities will be instructed to reopen their county development plans and rezone more land for residential use by the end of the year, Minister for Housing James Browne has said.
The revised National Planning Framework was approved by the Government on Tuesday, allowing it to progress through the Dáil and Seanad.
This progress should happen “in the coming weeks”, Mr Browne told reporters at the Housebuilding Summit organised by the Construction Industry Federation and the Irish Home Builders Association.
“When that’s completed, I will then give a direction to all the local authorities to open up their county development plans and to rezone a very significant additional amount of land so that land is available for builders to build the homes that people need across the country,” Mr Browne said.
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He said he expects “this to all be done by Christmas. It can be done. It’ll be up to the local authorities to move with speed, but it can be done.”
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The National Planning Framework (NPF) was first published in 2018 and guides high-level strategic planning and development for the country.
The national housing targets set out in the framework are used as a guide for Local Area Plans, which are drafted by the various councils, as well as the rezoning of land for housing development.
However, the NPF now requires updating due to the increase in population and need for increased housing targets.
The revised NPF, which includes new housing targets of 50,000 homes to be built every year to 2040, has been stalled and without Government approval for months until today.
Planning experts have previously told The Irish Times that without the implementation of the revised version, it is very difficult to secure planning permission for the amount of homes needed to address the current crisis.
The Minister also said he expects the Strategic Housing Activation Office to be “up and running in the coming weeks”, with the department “in the process now of seconding people from various utilities”.
The Irish Times reported last week that National Asset Management Agency (Nama) chief executive Brendan McDonagh was the Government’s preferred option to head up the office.
Mr Browne said on Tuesday the office will be a small team “of between eight and 12 people” who would be seconded from various utilities and would be “operational on the ground, identifying where there is land that can be used and [finding out] why that land is not being activated”.
Separately, Mr Browne responded to a MyHome.ie report published on Tuesday which noted that the outbreak of a trade war between the United States and the European Union would hit demand for housing in Ireland.
Mr Browne said he hoped there would not be a slowdown in supply because of the tariffs.
“We will closely monitor it if we need to make steps or adjust, but the pent-up demand is there from people in Ireland, I think that would continue to drive the need for housing right across the country,” he said.
