Should the Land Development Agency build some private housing on public land?

The government is looking into whether to ask the Land Development Agency to build more private housing on public land banks, according to a 28 April Irish Times article.

However, the Department of Housing hasn’t responded to a query sent Tuesday, asking in what circumstances it envisages that the LDA would develop private market-price homes on state lands. 

And, a spokesperson for the LDA says, “There are no plans for private housing on sites at this time.”

So far, the LDA and Dublin City Council are collaborating on plans to build social, affordable and cost-rental homes on five sites, says the council housing supply report. 

Those include at 543 homes at St Teresa’s Gardens in the south inner-city, 233 homes in Bluebell, 708 at Cherry Orchard Parkwest, 254 at Cherry Orchard Point, and 146 at Cromcastle in Coolock, 

Social Democrats Councillor Catherine Stocker says that so far the LDA staff have said that they will take direction from the council regarding what to build on council land.

Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin, the opposition party’s housing spokesperson, said the LDA should keep focused on social and affordable homes.

“The LDA should not be in the business of building private homes full stop,” Ó Broin says. “It is underdelivering on its targets for affordable housing.”

The LDA doesn’t have all the finance it needs to build the target of 11,000 cost-rental homes by 2028, he says – which for him raises questions as to whether this is an attempt to leverage the value of state lands to plug any funding gap.

Michelle Norris, a professor at University College Dublin who sat on the Housing Commission, says that the LDA's focus should be on delivering social and affordable homes. 

But it could also develop private homes as part of a mix, particularly in areas with high levels of social housing, or on large sites, she said. 

“Decisions around housing development should be based on what's appropriate for the site and the neighbourhood,” says Norris, who used to be on the board of the LDA.  “Each site should be done on a case-by-case basis.”

What the Housing Commission said

In its May 2024 report, the Housing Commission recommended revamping the LDA and funding it upfront. 

The government should also grant it more powers to compel state agencies to hand over land and a role in identifying sites for large developments, the report says. 

“The LDA’s core function of delivering social and affordable housing must be reinforced through sufficient funding and empowerment to pursue its mandate,” says the report.

The Land Development Agency Act 2021 already grants the LDA the authority to acquire land from public bodies, to compulsorily purchase land, and to sell it off. 

But the commission has recommended strengthening those powers, so the LDA can force public bodies to hand over sites.

“The big issue is that they don’t really have the powers to compel other public bodies to hand over the land,” says Norris.

If a public body is selling then the LDA gets first dibs, she says, but it can’t force it.

Horse Racing Ireland owns a lot of land at Leopardstown beside a Luas stop, which would be ideal for housing, Norris says. “The government need to be able to enforce the transfer of the land to the LDA.”

The Housing Commission also recommended that the LDA scale up development by identifying high-yield “housing delivery zones” at key strategic locations.

These sites would have a master plan in place, and funding made available annually, and the report recommends that the whole government get behind the delivery of infrastructure.

The Planning and Development Act 2024 includes the creation of “urban development zones”. 

It also said the government should set up a Central Construction Supply Unit to streamline expertise and resources to build out those large-scale housing projects.

Norris says that after the LDA assembles large land banks, it could run developer competitions, as is done in Vienna. 

“Social housing providers partner with developers to put together a joint application to develop a large site with a mix of different housing types,” she says.

Should the LDA build private housing?

The Housing Commission’s report doesn’t mention a role for the LDA in building private homes. 

But Norris says that, in her view, while the LDA's focus should absolutely be on delivering social and affordable homes, it shouldn't be restricted from developing some private housing.

“There is a need for private housing in some locations,” she says. 

She points to Dundrum, where a cohort of older people want to trade down into an apartment and free up a larger home but there are few apartments available, she says. 

Where the LDA owns large sites, it should develop commercial spaces as well as housing, she says.  

The LDA has a massive site in Limerick which could accommodate a broad mix of housing and commercial development, says Norris. 

Ó Broin, the Sinn Féin TD, says the LDA can build mixed-income schemes without building private market-rate housing – by building affordable purchase and cost-rental homes. 

“All of that is housing for people on incomes up to €100,000. So they are mixed income schemes,” Ó Broin says.

“The problem is that the state is not meeting its social and affordable housing targets,” he says. 

The LDA does not yet have finance secured for the cost rental-housing it plans to build in the next three years, he says. 

“I’m suspicious that the idea of using LDA land for private housing is part of an attempt to fill that financial hole,” he says. But that would mean fewer affordable homes delivered, he says.

Norris says, though, that private housing could form part of the mix in some areas where the LDA owns land and where there is already a lot of social housing, like Ballymun and Cherry Orchard.

Architect and housing commentator Mel Reynolds says that as things stand the LDA is still buying most homes from private developers rather than developing them itself on state land.  

“The heart of the affordability issue is that the state isn’t active in building social housing,” he says. 

He cannot envisage a time when the state is delivering so much social and affordable housing that it's in a position to branch out into delivering full market-price private homes, he says. 

On top of that, Uisce Éireann can only connect around 30,000 new homes to the water supply each year, throughout Ireland, says Reynolds. 

So since the total number of homes is limited by that capacity, the state should focus on providing affordable housing to meet the needs of average earners, rather than getting involved in building more expensive homes. 

Stocker, the Social Democrats councillor on Dublin City Council, said that the “the extent of the social housing and public housing crisis is so bad that I can’t understand why they would utilise those resources building private homes”.

“There is a private development sector and it already owns lots of land that it is sitting on and that it is speculating on,” she says.