Local authorities are being urged to zone so much land for housing that its scarcity value is removed and to use their compulsory purchase powers to acquire land in advance of zoning it for development.
Dr Rory O'Donnell, director of the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), said there was also a need for planners to develop a "clear vision of high-quality, integrated, sustainable neighbourhoods that are worth building".
Addressing the National Housing Conference in Cork, he said planning, land use and transport policies had failed to provide sufficient land in or near urban centres, which had inevitably resulted in dispersal and higher house prices.
The reduced provision of social housing in the late 1980s, mainly as a result of cutbacks in public expenditure, was also a significant factor in shaping the experience of the 1990s, when people had to go further to find affordable housing.
According to Dr O'Donnell, planners and society at large needed to embrace the principles of sustainable development, including higher housing densities linked with public transport to consolidate urban areas and satellite developments.
Instead of tax incentives to tweak supply or demand, he identified planning, urban design, infrastructural investment, land management and public service delivery as "key instruments in the policy toolbox" for the future.
This approach was endorsed by Prof Robert Cervero of the University of California at Berkeley, who said transport-orientated housing had emerged as a significant trend "even in the world's most auto-reliant society, the United States".
Experience there showed that new housing built near rail stops appealed to single professionals, childless couples and parents with grown-up families who valued amenities, owned fewer cars and drove less than the typical urban household.
Prof Cervero said transport-orientated housing was one of the most promising mechanisms for promoting multiple policy objectives, including affordable housing construction, the containment of sprawl and reduced car dependency.
"Ultimately," he said, "the marketplace will drive station-area planning and designs, with policy interventions focused mainly on making neighbourhoods surrounding transit nodes better places to live, recreate, shop and do business."
Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal Noel Ahern said it was vital to "avoid the mistakes of the past" by adopting a more rounded approach so that future generations would "live in communities and not just in housing estates".
He said the €2 billion being invested in social and affordable housing this year would cater for 13,000 households, up from 8,700 in 2000. Others in the private rented sector would be assisted through the new Rental Accommodation Scheme.
Eddie Lewis, principal officer in the Department of the Environment, said this scheme was intended to enable local authorities to source private rented accommodation and use it to provide for the long-term needs of households.
Last December's NESC report on housing was "almost silent" on the contribution that private finance could make to meeting social housing needs and had even less to say about the development of alternative financial models.
Mr Lewis added that it was "critical" to find innovative ways of engaging the private and voluntary sectors in delivering social housing targets as well as in managing and maintaining this sector's expanded stock of homes.
