Deputy Tully questioned whether adequate provision would be made to enable access to be given to the seaside. I just want to reassure him and the House that this is one of the purposes of Part 5 of the Bill. It is my very sincere wish that our local authorities will avail of this particular provision of the Bill.
Deputy Clinton suggested that there should be a time limit on appeals, and in this regard I want to say to the House that I am not to be taken as being complacent in this matter of the time required to deal with appeals. As I indicated in my opening statement on the Second Reading, it is my intention to increase the staff dealing with appeals in my Department. Furthermore, it is my conviction that oral hearings, as provided for in the Bill, will tend to hasten decisions and in addition to that, I feel that a further speeding up will be brought about by the prescribing of forms of application for permission which will tend to make available all the documentation necessary at the outset, rather than as at the moment, coming in dribs and drabs. When one party to the dispute appeals, the matter must in turn, by correspondence, be referred back to the other party for comment and this brings about interminable delay which is not avoidable. As I say, the prescribing at the outset of forms for application will go a long way to obviate delays in future.
Deputy Jones questioned the desirability of giving power to planning authorities having regard to what he called their bad performance in the exercise of planning powers to date. For my part, on consideration, I think that planning authorities who have adopted the Planning Acts have done a reasonably good job considering the extraordinary difficulties associated with the legislation under which they were attempting to work.
A number of Deputies referred to the monotony and absence of community services in relation to suburban housing schemes. I should say that I share this view and I could not agree more with it. I would go further and say that it is one of the aims of the Bill to ensure that housing schemes are provided with these services at the appropriate stage. Part III of the Third Schedule to the Bill makes provision for these services and planning authorities will be obliged to have regard to these provisions where they are included in development planning.
Deputy Cummins and Deputy Carroll made a plea for better and higher regard for amenity in relation to urban development. This again is one of the objects of the Bill and in this connection I endorse the view expressed by Deputy Barry that town planning involves not alone physical planning but also mind planning. Personally, as Deputies are aware, I have endeavoured to make a start on this matter and tried to educate myself and as many others as I could in regard to what planning means and what it can achieve. I intend to take this matter as far as I can and to ensure that this country does not fall behind but advances and keeps pace with the best developments in Europe and elsewhere.
Deputy Jones referred to the repeal of portions of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, under which local authorities are empowered to make building bye-laws. Under these bye-laws, local authorities have to approve or disapprove of plans submitted within one month. Failing that approval, the applicant is deemed to have obtained the approval by default. The Deputy states that this is one democratic right which will go under this Bill. The position in fact is that the building bye-law provisions of the 1878 Act which, I should point out, has not been universally availed of by local authorities, will not be repealed until building regulations have been made under the Bill. Those regulations will, by virtue of Section 64, provide for approval being deemed to have been given, unless a decision is issued within two months. This will bring the period for deciding matters under building regulations into line with the period for deciding planning applications under the Bill. The principle that applicants must get a decision within a given period is in fact retained.
The same Deputy referring to the building regulations said that unless in the making of the regulations there is close consultation with all interested parties, the danger would arise of a further period of fruitless local administration and strife between the various local authorities and the professions and trades interested in town planning and building development. It is my intention, when draft regulations have been made under the Bill, to send the draft to all interested associations and bodies for their comments.
Again, Deputy Jones asked how many arbitrators will be necessary to determine the various claims for compensation likely to arise under the Bill. As I indicated in opening, it is not possible to say what claims for compensation will arise but I would point out that there is power in the Property Values (Arbitration and Appeals) Act, 1960, to appoint more than one arbitrator so that we are not likely to find ourselves shorthanded or find that the legislation falls short in that regard.
Reference was also made to the powers proposed to be given to planning authorities to carry out work in default of the person on whom enforcement notices have been served. There is no new principle in that. There are many provisions in the existing codes such as the present Planning Acts, the Housing Acts and the Public Health Acts, enabling local authorities to enter on lands and carry out works and recover the costs in default of compliance with statutory notices.
Deputy Briscoe referred to the financial aspects of the Bill. He said that the Bill when it becomes law will make the Dublin Corporation liable for very large sums of money, particularly with regard to the acquisition of property, street widening, new development and so forth. He asked to what extent the planning authority would be assisted financially. As I indicated in my opening statement, the grants at present payable to local authorities and other bodies by the Minister for Local Government for the development of public amenities, including the clearance of derelict sites, will help to further the amenity objectives of the Bill. The portion of the development plans relating to public works will, of course, rank for State assistance as at present. Road improvements and carparks, housing schemes and sanitary services, libraries and institutions, are examples of works and services which may be provided for in development plans but the cost of which is not ascribable to planning as such.
In other words, all of those things I have mentioned, and probably a number I have not mentioned, are in the category at the moment that they are subject to large-scale assistance and large-scale help from central funds and where such operations in the future are part and parcel of the planning operations and re-development, they will still rank for recoupment. Whatever help was given in the past will still obtain. Therefore it is not possible in a hypothetical case to take a re-development project and consider what the total cost of knocking down or rebuilding it for the various public purposes which might be included in the list I have given would be, and add up all the cost under the grant and say that is one of the fantastic sums that will fall on the Dublin Corporation. That would be the gross total and from it must be deducted the various substantial amounts of assistance which would be given. Indeed not all of it could be said to be related only to planning and development because there would arise on the new re-development economies in the manner of servicing the community which would have to be given a notional value.
In regard to the development of central areas, local authorities may already have on hands cleared sites which can be made available for re-development by private enterprise. Such re-development would be of direct value to the ratepayers because it increases the rateable valuation and generates local economic activity. It is not possible to forecast now the pace or extent of re-development which planning authorities will feel they should undertake or what net liabilities will fall to be borne by planning authorities in respect of such re-development or in respect of compensation related to planning restrictions on development by private interests. It is only fair to add that it is not possible to forecast at this stage with any degree of accuracy what will arise by way of compensation because of the various heads of operation under which any given local authority may propose to work under the terms of the Bill. However, I can assure the House that all these matters will be kept under constant review.
Deputy Colley made the point that neither the local authority nor the State should be permitted to depart from the development plan in any development which they themselves may carry out. Under the 1934 Act, State authorities could not be bound by the provisions of a planning scheme and in the interim period they were not obliged to submit their proposals for approval by the planning authority. Section 82 of the Bill is a very considerable advance on that position.
In connection with Deputy Colley's reference to semi-State bodies I would like to explain that the Bill does not exempt them from the standard procedure in relation to control of development. They will be obliged to apply for permission and may make an appeal in the same manner as anybody else.
Deputy Briscoe suggested that it was possible for bodies like the ESB to do what they liked under existing legislation and thought local authorities should be empowered to decide where overhead wires should be allowed or where certain buildings might be constructed. The Bill contains the necessary provisions towards that end.
Both Deputy Booth and Deputy Colley raised the question of traffic and road planning, particularly in the metropolitan area. The suggestion was made that the division of responsibility between three agencies prevented any effective co-ordination. The Oireachtas has only recently enacted a comprehensive measure dealing with these matters but they are vitally important in this sphere of town planning also. It is one of the objects of the Bill to secure the greatest possible measure of co-ordination in regard to road planning and adequate provision for the solution of traffic problems in so far as it is feasible by the reservation of land and the regulation of development and user.
Deputy Timmons also mentioned the question of co-ordination in connection with space for the extension of factories and the erection of new office buildings and other commercial or industrial developments. As I have already indicated the Bill gives ample power to planning authorities to provide sites for such purposes, if it should be necessary and if Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council find themselves unable to cooperate in such matters, that would be an appropriate case for the use of the powers available to me under Section 22.
A number of Deputies have tended to compare the development plan as envisaged in this Bill with the planning scheme provided for under the Act of 1934. It is important to bear in mind that the development plan is only a part of the planning system for which the Bill provides. A planning scheme under the 1934 Act, assuming that one could be made, would in itself control and regulate development—it would constitute the complete planning system and not merely a framework within which the day to day decisions would be made.
In this connection, Deputy Noel Lemass was under the impression that properties would be affected by a development plan and that immediate liabilities of a very substantial nature might be placed on the Dublin Corporation. This is not the case. No development liability attaches to the development plan for which this Bill provides. That is one of the fundamental differences between it and a scheme made under the Town and Regional Planning Act of 1934. If such a scheme were made it could entail a substantial aggregate of compensation liabilities as soon as it came into force. Claims for compensation in respect of restrictions imposed by the scheme itself were required to be made within twelve months of the coming into operation of the scheme, or such longer period as the scheme itself provided.
As I pointed out in my opening statement, the provisions of the 1934 Act in these respects were unsatisfactory both from the standpoint of the local authority and that of the individual property owner. Compensation under the Bill will be related to the individual planning restrictions as they arise, that is, when the planning authority refuses permission or imposes restrictive conditions when granting a permission for development.
