Roche backs swaps of State land

The Government's new Affordable Homes Partnership will engage in deals with private developers including swapping State-owned land for new houses, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said yesterday.

One of a series of new initiatives designed to speed up the supply of social and affordable housing, the Affordable Homes Partnership is to be accompanied by separate reviews of local authority land holdings and housing needs.

The partnership will initially focus on six State-owned sites, starting with land in Harcourt Terrace Lane, but may be expanded in areas outside Dublin if successful.

The other sites are at Backweston, north Kildare; Model Farm Road, Cork; McGee Barracks, Kildare; Gormanston, Co Meath and the old Garda station at Harcourt Terrace.

The Harcourt Terrace Lane scheme, which is being seen as a pilot project, will involve the State swapping its 0.4 acre site for 193 social and affordable houses in west Dublin.

In acknowledging the State was swapping a prime city-centre site for houses elsewhere, Mr Roche insisted the move did not represent "social segregation". He said the new houses were in a private estate.

"Far from social segregation, it actually represents social integration," Mr Roche said.

He said it had initially been envisaged that the Harcourt Terrace Lane site would deliver just 40 to 45 homes.

However about 140 of the new homes in west Dublin at Clondalkin and Citywest would become available soon."That has to be a better bargain," he added.

But Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said the Government had missed its affordable housing targets by about 80 percent and the new partnership agency "was prompted by this failure".

Green Party environment spokesman Ciarán Cuffe said the critical issues were the valuation of the site at Harcourt Terrace Lane and the type of deal done with the private developer.

"Despite the fanfare about delivering 10,000 new homes (under the Sustaining Progress agreement between Government and the social partners) it appears that no housing has been completed in the two years since the agreement was announced," said Mr Cuffe.