Workers’ Party Dublin City Councillor Éilis Ryan has called for the introduction of a new zoning category for Dublin’s vacant lands, to ensure housing built on those lands is affordable.

Introducing the proposal, Cllr. Ryan said:
“The vacant land register lists almost 31 hectares of empty, privately-owned land in the Dublin City area – enough land to develop 2,000 – 2,500 housing units. The owners of this land must pay a vacant site levy – but for many, the profit to be made from hoarding the land to drive up housing prices far outweighs the cost of the levy.

“What good is a short-term levy, if the housing eventually built on these lands is totally unaffordable to the average worker? What we are proposing is that we zone this land to ensure that, when it does come into use, it is developed in the public good.”

Cllr. Ryan said that the ‘residential’ zoning category for land was no longer fit for purpose:
“The reason why councillors decide how to zone land is because there is a need to ensure that land use is driven by the common good, not merely profit. If developers had their way, we would have a city of office blocks and hotels, with no housing at all.

“However, zoning land as ‘residential’ is no longer sufficient to achieve the intended purpose of the category. We simply have vulture funds and investors building housing aimed solely at landlords, and the richest handful of home-buyers – and not the general population.”

Cllr. Ryan concluded:
“We are proposing that a new category of use, for “cost rental and cooperative housing,” be added to Dublin’s development plan, and that land which has been left vacant be zoned for this purpose.

“By doing this, we can effectively put a cap on the what can be charged for housing on the land in question, and rule out the practice of land hoarding.”