To help councils build social housing faster, get Department of Housing out of their way, Housing Commission report says

In May 2021, Dublin City Council was working on a funding application to build 75 social homes on the Kildonan Lands in Finglas.

The project had stage one approval from the Department of Housing and the council was working on the second stage of the process, according to a council report at the time.

Fast forward three years to May 2024 and the council appears to be stuck at the same stage. It is still working on stage 2 approval, says a council report.

“I’ve raised this at several council meetings,” says Sinn Féin Councillor Anthony Connaghan. He has never got an answer as to why the project is stuck, he says.

There was a public consultation in 2015 and 2016, he says. There used to be a homeless hostel on the site but that was closed in 2021 to make way for new housing.

Connaghan says that in his experience the Department of Housing sometimes asks the council to make changes to plans, which can delay things. “Projects with the council as the lead developer seem to take forever,” he says.

Most of the projects listed as being at an advanced stage of planning or design in May 2021 have progressed to the tendering stage or are being built.

But there are others – including ones at Sarsfield Road in Inchicore, Grand Canal Basin in the south inner-city, and Infirmary Road in Stoneybatter – that are still stuck in the planning or approvals process.

Even as construction costs have escalated in recent years, councils are taking longer than before to reach the point of drawing down the funds to crack on with building much-needed social homes.

The Housing Commission report found that the national average was 128 weeks – more than double the target of 59 weeks – and called for urgent reform of the process in urban areas.

“The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage must urgently reform current procedures to remove barriers to delivering social housing, particularly those relevant to cities,” says the Housing Commission report. “This must include funding approval and procurement procedures.”

The commission also recommended transferring responsibility for approving funding for social homes to the Housing Agency.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing says that the Housing Agency is examining the Housing Commission’s recommendations, and its analysis is looking at costings, timelines and priorities. Its review is expected in the autumn.

During the 128-week average timeline, councils have to do other work, including preparing sites and infrastructure, design work and planning applications, says the spokesperson.

What is the problem?

It takes Dublin City Council on average 140 weeks to get funding approved, planning permission in place and tender for a builder.

That is according to the Minister for Housing, Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien, in a response to a parliamentary question from Social Democrats TD and housing spokesperson Cian O’Callaghan in March this year.

The Housing Commission found the average time was 128 weeks nationwide. That’s slower than in 2021 when it took around 109 weeks, according to the minutes of a meeting of a working group.

Records released in the past under the Freedom of Information Act showed costs escalating as the council and the Department of Housing went back and forth on issues including costs, with delays on both sides.

For 30 social homes at North King Street, near Smithfield, the price of the homes almost doubled in the four years it took the council to get approval.

Some other councils are getting projects through the process quicker than Dublin City Council, according to O’Brien’s figures. Fingal County Council got funding approved in an average of 88 weeks.

Michelle Norris, professor of social policy at UCD, who chaired a section of the Housing Commission, says that it is often difficult to develop new housing in built-up areas where the demand is greater.

“In urban areas, the delivery context is even more challenging,” says Norris. “Most of the housing need is in cities and most of the homelessness is in cities.”

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said that, “while every effort is made to expedite proposed projects through the four stages, the pre-construction stage timelines can vary from project to project”.

In the four-stage approvals process, the council has to complete tasks at each stage, including statutory and regulatory submissions.

Introducing housing delivery project managers has helped, and a planned new project management system will also help to boost delivery, they said. “Dublin City Council would welcome any reforms that help us in our delivery of new homes.”

The spokesperson for the Department of Housing says that its approvals process isn’t the main thing delaying development.

During that time, councils carry out pre-construction works “including site acquisition; site investigations, surveys and preparation; development of services and infrastructure; design, planning and other statutory processes; procurement; etc,” says the spokesperson.

In a situation where the 59-week target was met, it is expected that 15 weeks would be the department assessing and approving funding, while 44 weeks would be assigned to councils for pre-construction works, he says.

Review and streamline

The Housing Commission called for a review of the funding process and recommended that the four-stage approvals process be streamlined, and councils given more responsibility for managing projects.

“This is a clear duplication of a process that is within the capacity of local government to administer and monitor under its fiduciary responsibilities to its own council, as part of the prudent management of its finances,” says its report.

It also suggested that the Housing Agency take charge of approving funding, at first for all housing charity applications, as it already looks after some of them, and later for councils too.

Norris, the UCD professor, says that at the moment there are different systems for funding social homes, some of which move more quickly than others.

The Capital Advance Leasing Facility which allows housing charities to borrow from the Housing Finance Agency to build general-needs social homes, is administered through the Housing Agency and is fairly efficient, says Norris.

For housing charities to provide specialist housing, such as homes for people with disabilities, they have to use the more cumbersome Capital Assistance Scheme, she says.

This difference is resulting in fewer specialist homes being built, says Norris. “The system is creating a lot of problematic outcomes.”

The four-stage approvals process that councils have to use is cumbersome, she says. and some stages seem unnecessary.

She doesn’t understand why designs drawn up by council architects need to be scrutinised by another set of architects within the department, she says. “The level of oversight is strange.”

Because the process is slow and cumbersome, councils tend not to develop homes directly but to buy them instead, says Norris. But to boost overall delivery of housing the state needs to get councils building too, she says.

O’Callaghan, the Social Democrats TD, said he supports the recommendations to streamline the approvals process and shift responsibility for funding approvals to the Housing Agency.

“The Housing Agency seems to have a stronger sense of urgency when it comes to delivery,” he says.

In many other countries, local authorities get their budgets at the start of the year and then go and build housing with the money, he says. “We have a very centralised, slow, bureaucratic system.”

There is sufficient oversight and accountability of council spending through the local government auditor and additional oversight by councillors, he says.

“The best way to get it moving is to give councils their targets, their allocations of funding and the standards they must meet,” says O’Callaghan, “and then let them get on with it.”