The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) has noted the Government’s announcement today of a package of measures intended to address rent certainty and housing supply.

IPI President Mary Hughes said “In our view infrastructure constraints and difficulties accessing development finance continue to be the key issues in housing supply.  We have long promoted a National Strategic Infrastructure Fund and believe the proactive funding of infrastructure to unlock land, particularly for housing, is essential.  Infrastructure is a significant issue and we hope the measures announced will go some way to address this”.

Hughes continued “The remaining measures only tinker around the edges and do not address the fundamental issue of affordable finance and how to build a sustainable housing sector in the long term. The proposed development contribution rebate will need to be carefully managed and controlled to ensure that cost savings are passed onto the purchaser. The proposed Exchequer funded Infrastructure Fund which is intended to compensate the local authority for losses occurred on foot of the rebate is essential if local infrastructure investment programmes are to be maintained.  However this initiative is only likely to benefit those schemes that are shovel ready and already have the benefit of planning permission, if houses are to be completed and sold in 2016 and 2017.”

“We await details of the new apartment standard guidelines. However we would caution against the implementation of national apartment standards across the board when the demand for apartment types may vary across the country.  The delivery of housing stock must react to local circumstances and must have regard to existing housing provision in the area.  Housing needs to be provided and justified using local empirical evidence, not on the basis of uniform minimum or maximum standards  The priority should continue to be on using good design to meet quantitative standards, rather than reducing them with no guarantees that cost savings will be passed on.”

Hughes concluded “We have participated in the Department of the Environment’s review of the Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) process and we look forward to the roll out of the changes arising from that review. When successful, SDZs can provide housing, services and employment in a coordinated way but they must also be deliverable and adaptable without compromising quality.”