Housing Minister plans changes to speed up city building
The changes are likely to focus on larger developments and apartments in a bid to encourage building.
It is understood that Mr Murphy will next week address some costly planning requirements which could be exempted in the case of city-centre locations.
At a social housing event yesterday, he said: “It is viable to build apartments and still make a profit but there are difficulties there as well. Next week I am going to announce some affordability measures that are going to speak directly to those concerns.
“We know that builders are building at the moment, they are building houses and apartments and we need them to build more.”
Mr Murphy is examining parking requirements attached to apartment developments with a view to easing these in areas well serviced by public transport.
He said further measures around housing would be announced as part of Budget 2018 but put a “conservative estimate” of 20,000 homes, private and public, which he expects will be built next year.
Mr Murphy will also revisit the rent-a-room scheme to free up accommodation for students. He encouraged people to avail of the scheme, which allows homeowners to claim up to €14,000 in tax-free rent on spare rooms.
Meanwhile, the head of AIB is due to say the banking sector has a “crucial” role in helping to solve the escalating housing and homeless crisis.
AIB chief executive Bernard Byrne, who is due before the Oireachtas finance committee today, will say the severe housing shortage, particularly in Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick is “an obvious cause for concern” for banks.
“There is no ‘silver bullet’ but lenders like AIB clearly have a crucial role to play and we are very active in not just providing real estate finance but increasingly in social and affordable housing,” he will tell the committee.
Mr Byrne will also tell members that the level of construction must increase but that a “clear constraint” to builders is the low availability of funding for the acquisition and refinancing of zoned land that does not carry planning permission.
Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath said the escalating housing crisis would not be solved until the broken model for funding the construction of new homes was fixed.
