The Government intends introducing its affordable housing scheme using a combination of new local development plans and stringent new requirements on local authorities.
The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Mr Robert Molloy, told The Irish Times yesterday that the new planning and development Bill would force local authorities to draw up detailed strategies for the housing of existing and future populations in their areas. These strategies would have to take account of the Department of the Environment's housing needs assessment.
Local authorities would then be required to implement these strategies in new six-year local development plans by zoning lands for residential development.
As a result, local authorities would identify their housing needs and then only grant planning permission for developments which contained a satisfactory mixture of social and affordable housing. Not more than 20 per cent of any development would be required for social housing.
However, he declined to say how the Government intended defining "affordable" housing. "This will be defined in the Bill and there will also be regulations under the Bill," Mr Molloy said.
The Government was committed to providing social and affordable housing in all developments, he said, and the Bill would be published in a fortnight.
The proposals have already drawn the ire of the Irish House Builders' Association which has warned it may take legal action to test the constitutionality of the Bill. But Mr Molloy said he was confident the proposed new legislation would pass any legal test. "The measures are in the interest of establishing sustainable developments with a mixture of housing sizes and types," he said.
The proposals would mean that the greatest concentration of social housing would be in local authority areas with the longest waiting lists for public housing.
It is understood there are now 38,000 applicants awaiting local authority housing.