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Steve Douglas, the corporation's investment director for the capital, said the requirement for 30,000 homes to be built each year under the London Plan was "good news" for the quango. Half of the homes would have to be affordable by law.

Speaking at the launch of the 430-page document on Tuesday, Douglas said: "The original target was 23,000 homes each year with half affordable. This has been raised to 30,000 following public consultation and I think it is deliverable. Despite what developers say about there being too few resources, there is more money from the ODPM and we are squeezing more from developers through planning gain agreements – they are being much more realistic."

The corporation's budget for providing homes through registered social landlords for 2003/4 is £741m, up from £420m the previous year. This will build more than 10,000 homes, but this is likely to take a number of years because annual completions are running at only about 5000-6000, according to Douglas.

The Greater London Authority also said it could deliver on the annual 30,000 target. Presently, 23,000 homes are built each year in the capital. Livingstone plans for many of the homes to be in high-density developments.

Neale Coleman, policy director for housing, said: "We've always recognised that we should have a higher target than just 23,000, but we wanted to be sure we could build more than this. We're now happy this can be achieved, based on the agreement we have with boroughs about building at higher densities. We are completing a housing capacity study into all the available sites for housing by 2006."

But Coleman declined to be drawn on precisely when the target would be hit, saying only that "it won't be met this year or next, but the aim is to meet it as soon as we can".

Sue Ellenby, head of the London Housing Federation, the umbrella body for the capital's housing associations, welcomed the plan. But she cautioned that the higher-density housing had to be well-designed, with "sensible lettings policies to ensure areas have diverse and balanced populations".