Labour Party: Legislation capping the price of building land at 25 per cent above its unzoned or current zoning value is to be brought before the Dáil later this year by the Labour Party.
Under the party's proposals, local authorities will be able to compulsorily purchase residential building land at the capped prices, and sell it on at the same price to other builders and housing agencies.
Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said the proposals could be applied retrospectively in some cases, such as Tuesday's decision by Louth County Council to rezone 47 acres belonging to a prominent Fianna Fáil figure from agricultural to industrial use.
This week's rezoning will increase the value of the land in Dunleer of businessman and chairman of Fianna Fáil's South Louth Comhairle Ceantair, Mr Donal Kinsella, from just under €500,000 to €9 million once the rezoning is fully approved.
"Yesterday's decision does not have legal effect at this stage," he said. "I think what happened in Louth is a good example of what we're trying to deal with.
"In this case, the value of land will go from €10,000 an acre to €200,000 an acre, and that's just for a change to industrial and commercial zoning."
Speaking at the Labour parliamentary party's two-day meeting in Wexford, Mr Gilmore said the proposals would "end ongoing speculation in building land, which has been one of the major factors contributing to the continuing increase in house prices".
"The cost of a site now constitutes between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the price of a house. That means the purchaser of an average new house is paying over €100,000 to whoever owned the site, which was probably worth little more than €1,000 in its original agricultural use."
Mr Gilmore rejected suggestions that a constitutional referendum was needed to introduce a cap on development land. The Taoiseach, who has indicated his concern about high housing land prices, has referred the matter to the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.
"In Labour's submission to the Oireachtas committee, we argued that there isn't a constitutional problem in introducing a land price cap. There has been no decision in the Supreme Court to say that the State cannot intervene in the land market."
Under the Labour proposals, an arbitration system would also be put in place to adjudicate on issues such as costs of loans, land improvement works and other issues which may also have to be factored into the price.
Mr Gilmore said Labour was also in favour of placing a windfall tax of 60 per cent on those who hoard development land.
Owners who hold onto land for four years or more without developing it or selling it or selling it on for development, would see capital gains tax rise from 20 per cent to 60 per cent under the Labour proposals.
"There is no incentive to develop rezoned land at present. It's in the interests of owners to hoard it and release it slowly for development in order to maintain higher land and house prices," he said.