The team’s primary function is to progress the development and regeneration of large scale, strategic, sites to increase the supply of housing in the State and in particular affordable and social housing. The team focuses on enabling the sustainable development of new and regenerated communities on these sites, which will be well-served by infrastructure and services.

These strategic sites supplement smaller sites that are more immediately ready for development. Strategic sites will generally take up to five years to start delivering housing. This is because of existing uses on the sites that need to be relocated and the work that needs to be done to transfer ownership of the sites to the LDA, to secure planning permission, and to prepare the sites for development.

In this lead up to development starting, the strategic planning team focuses on working with stakeholders, such as existing landowners, to understand the timescales for transfer of the sites. The team also prepares plans to guide how development will happen on the sites. These plans consider things such as what mix of uses works best on each site; how many homes are appropriate for each site and; how the sites are designed to fit in with the development that already exists around them. The plans are used to support planning applications.

Housing for All, the government’s housing policy to 2030, identifies the first tranche of strategic sites the team is tasked with progressing. These include CIÉ sites at Inchicore and Broadstone in Dublin and Colbert Station in Limerick; ESB sites in Cork Docklands and at Seán Mulvoy Road in Galway and various other sites currently owned by a number of state organisations.