Housing developer Glenveagh says land hoarding penalties must be stricter

Housing developer Glenveagh has called on the Government to consider stricter penalties on land hoarders and to implement long-planned measures to stem land speculation.The recommendations were published in a new report on the Irish housing sector by the company, which included polling by Red C Research that said only 16 per cent believe Ireland is “making real progress on housing”.Glenveagh’s inaugural Homebuilding Horizons report has set out 40 policies that would help scale homebuilding, many of which are focused on unlocking sites for housing development.The report said the Government should “strengthen” the existing Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT), which charges owners of undeveloped residentially zoned land an annual 3 per cent levy of the site’s market value.READ MOREGlenveagh, which did not specify a rate at which the levy should rise year on year, said the Tax Strategy Group should assess “the principle of an escalating tax” for land hoarding to incentivise homebuilding.The company has also called for the implementation of Land Value Sharing (LVS) to “dampen land prices by using the tax system to capture a significant share of the uplift in land values after rezoning”.The long-planned LVS scheme, included in successive Government housing plans and which has faced criticism from builders, has proposed addressing land speculation by capturing 25 per cent of the uplift in value created when land is zoned for residential use.Glenveagh chief executive Stephen Garvey said the objective of the Homebuilding Horizons report was to “set out, candidly, where the system is working, where it is not and what needs to change”.[ Housing & Planning Scramble for student accommodation begins as shortages deepen nationwideOpens in new window ]The company’s report said polling by Red C Research it commissioned, which surveyed 1,001 people in April, reflected “a widely shared sense that delivery is not keeping up” as only 11 per cent of 18-34 year-olds felt progress was being made.Polling also showed 48 per cent of people who do not own their home outright spend in excess of 30 per cent of household income on housing costs. One in five non-homeowners in Dublin spend more than half their income on housing.Garvey said Ireland has “a major housing challenge for the coming decade, but we are closer to resolving it than many might believe”. The report, which forecast home completions would rise from 36,284 last year to more than 40,000 homes in 2026, said Ireland is building homes at the fastest rate in the EU.Research commissioned from Goodbody for the report showed Ireland will complete 7.2 new homes per 1,000 people this year, more than double the EU average of three.A further recommendation in Glenveagh’s report proposed increasing the fees developers have to pay to local authorities as part of the planning process. David Caffrey, head of planning and policy at Glenveagh, said planning fees have remained largely unchanged for more than 25 years even though “the nature of planning has transformed”. He said planning applications are now more detailed, but “the funding model has not evolved to reflect this and it is well acknowledged that planning resources are under strain”.He said increased fees would be an investment, not a burden on the industry.“If higher fees help to deliver better-staffed planning teams, faster and more consistent decisions, and a more digital and efficient process, then that is a trade-off worth making. A system that functions well ultimately reduces cost, risk and delay for all involved.”