The Land Development Agency (LDA) has announced the establishment of a framework panel consisting of 15 of Ireland’s largest and most experienced homebuilders to accelerate the delivery of affordable homes.

The framework provides a range of delivery partnership options, including forward funding mechanisms, which will ease financing issues by allowing phased payments to housebuilders for affordable homes.

The 15 homebuilders (listed in full below) qualified for the panel through an open and transparent public procurement competition designed to deliver large-scale high density and sustainable affordable housing projects more effectively and efficiently than previously possible.

Subject to funding, the LDA is targeting the delivery of 5,000 homes as part of the initiative, which is the second phase of the Agency’s Project Tosaigh programme and which has already resulted in agreements to deliver over 2,800 affordable homes.

Under the initial phase, the LDA stepped in to provide a backstop to kickstart construction on stalled or otherwise unviable housebuilder-led projects. This involved the LDA agreeing to purchase homes upon completion, allowing housebuilders to commence or accelerate their development.

John Coleman, Chief Executive of the LDA said: “The announcement of our panel of housebuilder partners marks a step-change in the way the LDA delivers homes. It identifies strong project partners who will work with us to design and deliver affordable homes in the right places, at scale and at the right cost. The framework will give the LDA greater control over the housing projects it funds, as the Agency will be more involved in design and financing from an earlier stage. It also provides more certainty for the housebuilders we partner with, incentivising them to achieve development milestones through staged payments.

“I would like to thank all of the housebuilders who took part in the framework tender process and to congratulate those who qualified for the panel. The LDA is looking forward to announcing the first call offs from the panel.”

Under this second phase of Project Tosaigh, the LDA will provide funding through the construction phase for key housing projects based upon milestones reached during the development process. This will allow for a more collaborative partnership between the LDA and panel members, assisting in the accelerated delivery of cost rental homes.

The majority of the homes will be State-owned cost rental apartments and, subject to funding, the LDA will invest in the region of €2 billion delivering them. This will be in addition to the more than 10,000 affordable and social homes the LDA is in the process of delivering on state-owned or acquired land.

The establishment of the panel should expedite housing delivery in a way that delivers value for money for the state, as it also provides a mechanism for the LDA to run competitive mini tenders which are intended to drive fair but robust pricing tension.

The framework panel will remain in place for four years at which point the LDA will issue a tender to form a new panel.

Full list of developers selected for the Homebuilder Framework Panel: Alanna Homes, Ballymore, Cairn Homes, Chartered Land, Elkstone, Glenveagh Properties, Greenacre Construction, Greenseed, Marlet Property Group, McGarrell Reilly, O’Callaghan, O’Flynn Group, Park Developments, Quintain and Royalton.

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