The expected move to ease rent caps is part of a Government response to the worsening housing crisis which will see further policy changes announced in the coming weeks, before a revised plan for housing is finalised in July.
Government insiders hope that the departures will show them finally getting to grips with the housing crisis. But it would be an exaggeration to say there is confidence that all this will work quickly to increase housing supply.
Meanwhile, opposition to the rent cap changes is growing and will be heard both in the Dáil tomorrow and on the streets next week when Raise the Roof, an umbrella group co-ordinated by the trade unions and including NGOs and Opposition parties, holds a major protest outside Leinster House.
The housing measures include some already announced and some yet to come. There will be changes in planning regulations to allow small residences in back gardens, extensions and attic conversions without planning permission; potentially also changes in regulations on apartment construction; the role of the Land Development Agency will be expanded to include mixed-use developments with private sector partners; the appointment of a “housing tsar” (just don’t call it that) is also coming; commencing the changes in last year’s mammoth planning Act will make it harder to block planning permissions; and money will be provided for new planners in local authorities and An Bord Pleanála to speed up the planning process.
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Divisions remain in Government over the possibility of tax incentives for builders and developers of certain types of housing, and they are unlikely to be settled until the budget.
But at the top level of Government, there is a growing sense that urgent action is needed on housing, with one insider insisting that the series of decisions now under way will place housing at the very centre of the Government’s priorities from now until the summer recess in mid-July.
However, there is also an awareness that some measures to increase supply will leave the Coalition open to political attack and public unpopularity.
[ Proposed changes to rent rules will incentivise evictions, housing charity warnsOpens in new window ]
And the problem for the Government is that the unpopularity and the political attacks will be immediate – but any potential payback from the measures in the shape of increased supply is at best years away, and may not even be felt until after the next general election.
Even without the planning delays and legal actions that they have to factor into their considerations, builders and developers say it can still take three to four years to deliver a block of apartments.
There is no doubt the measures will be welcomed by developers and landlords. But that is not necessarily the same thing as prompting them to move quickly to increase supply. Many will want to see if tax incentives are introduced in the budget; others will want to see if the Government has the political will to resist the pressure already building on the rent pressure zone changes.
“Look, the reality is there is no silver bullet,” says one senior Government source.
But, the source says, we need apartments, and the people who build apartments are not building them right now because of the rent caps.
[ Rules for renters: What are the planned reforms and will they work?Opens in new window ]
All very well, but the simple and logical outcome of changing the rent cap rules is that rents will go up – that’s why the landlords and the developers are in favour of it. The Government says that its package will protect renters – but among groups working at the coalface of homelessness, there is little confidence in that. An uptick in evictions and rising rents – both predicted by Opposition parties – would pile enormous pressure on the Government.
Within Government, there is an undoubted willingness to take difficult decisions, and an awareness that the time to take them is in the first year of its term of office. But that is not matched by any great confidence that the measures will work.
