Chapter 7: Housing and Sustainable Communities
Chapter 7: Housing and Sustainable Communities
Strategic Objectives
- To promote development that is compact, diverse and sustainable and which is resilient and adaptive to climate change
- To make places more sustainable, inclusive, diverse, accessible, and safe with the highest standards of design.
- To promote attractive, liveable, well designed permeable and accessible, high quality urban places that are home to diverse and integrated communities that enjoy a high quality of life and well-being.
- To support the role of the rural areas and communities in maintaining and growing a resilient population base through a strong network of towns, villages and settlement nodes.
7.0 Introduction
Access to adequate, safe and affordable housing is the first indicator of the 11th Sustainable Development Goal. Housing is necessary because it allows people to lead healthy, secure, productive and dignified lives. A sufficient supply of adaptable, affordable, low-carbon, climate-resilient housing is critical to ending poverty and supporting economic development across Waterford.
The population of Waterford has been growing steadily for a number of years, and over the next 20 years Waterford is projected to have a population of 153,000. To support this growth, and to create sustainable communities, the best use of infrastructure and increased levels of housing delivery, as well as being consistent with national and regional policy, requires that at least 50% of housing must be provided in Waterford City and Suburbs, and at least 30% of housing in other settlements across the County, within their existing settlement footprints. The Council will also promote and facilitate the use of publicly owned lands in the delivery of a mix of tenures, including private housing, social housing, affordable purchase and affordable rental housing. It is important to note that housing delivery must also accord with the provisions of the Core Strategy as set out in Chapter 2 and 3which sets out the appropriate locations for future development across Waterford, as also informed by the NPF and SRSES.
The Council’s role is to guide the location, nature and quality of new housing developments in the city and county area, and to comply with its statutory obligations to ensure housing developments conform to relevant Government guidelines.
Housing delivery should not simply be a matter of providing new residential units; rather it should result in the provision of new and/or enhanced communities and neighbourhoods. The focus of developments must be to create areas of a high quality design which includes the creation of sustainable, compact, accessible, attractive, healthy and multifunctional places in which to live with an appropriate mix, type and range of units. This chapter provides the spatial planning policy framework and objectives to deliver sustainable housing throughout Waterford.
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