Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Second Stage

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce the Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 on Second Stage. I thank Members for facilitating the debate on this very important Bill. We just completed Report and Final Stages in the Seanad earlier this week. Over the course of its passage through that House, Senators were very much engaged with the subject matter of the Bill. The debate was lively, constructive and detailed on all aspects of the Bill. I welcome that. A number of amendments were made during Committee and Report Stages in the Seanad which I was happy to accept. These will enhance the Bill. I will go through some of the amendments that were made in a little bit more detail later.

As the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach will be aware, in the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future, a commitment was made not to extend the strategic housing development, SHD, planning arrangements that were introduced under the previous Government's Rebuilding Ireland action plan beyond their legislative expiry date, 25 February 2022. Furthermore, in the recent Housing for All action plan, which I published in September, action 12.3 commits to the introduction of a new planning process for large-scale residential developments, LRDs, to replace the previous SHD arrangements. I am very happy that this Bill delivers on both of these commitments.

Most significantly, I am very happy that this Bill delivers on a commitment that this Government and I have made to restore decision-making to our local authorities. That is something I have always believed in. I have always believed that is a much more appropriate place for decisions to be taken. Underpinning that is the reinstatement of the primacy of local area and local development plans. That is very evident in this Bill. We are bringing planning back to the local level. The provisions of the Bill will also restore the two-stage planning process for large-scale developments with decision-making for such proposals returning to the local planning authority in the first instance, with the possibility of a subsequent appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

In addition to the benefits of returning the primary decision-making function for LRDs to the local level, the reintroduction of a method to appeal to the board should assist in reducing the number of judicial reviews against LRD planning decisions compared with the number taken under the SHD arrangements, where a judicial review in the High Court was the only appeal mechanism available. It is urgent that we pass this Bill because it is crucially important that we transition to decisions being made at a local level and restore the two-level planning process as soon as possible. That is why we need to conclude this Bill within the next ten days or so, allowing this system to take over from 17 December. I should have said that this Bill was passed unanimously in the Seanad without dissent. There was good debate from all sides of the House, both Opposition and Government.

I will now address the main contents of the Bill. Following discussions in the Seanad, the Bill now contains 18 sections, which I will turn to in a little bit more detail. The primary provisions are contained in a limited number of sections, namely, sections 3, 8 and 17, with supporting provisions for these arrangements contained in the other sections. Rather than go through every single section individually, I will instead outline the key elements of the provisions of the Bill. I am happy to take any questions so that we can move forward to the next Stage. The proposed new arrangements retain some of the positive elements of the SHD arrangements including the mandatory pre-application consultation on proposed developments between the developer and the planning authority to tease out issues prior to the submission of a planning application and the mandatory decision timelines, which provide greater certainty with regard to the timeframe for planning. These timelines are mandatory and will be brought into this Bill. The new arrangements will comprise three stages: pre-application consultation, planning application stage and an appeal stage, where required. Such appeals will be made to An Bord Pleanála.

I will turn first to the pre-application consultation stage, which is primarily detailed in section 3 of the Bill. This will involve two steps. The first is an initial, more informal, pre-application consultation on the proposals between the developer and the planning authority, as is already mandated for projects of this scale under section 247 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. This will be followed by a formal request for an LRD meeting by the developer. This will require the submission of fairly detailed initial documentation in respect of the proposed development. Planning authorities will be required to hold such LRD meetings within four weeks of the receipt of the meeting request and then to issue an opinion on the proposal within four weeks of that LRD meeting. The pre-application process will therefore take a maximum of eight weeks. The LRD opinion issued by the planning authority will set out whether the documentation submitted by the developer constitutes a reasonable basis for moving to the next stage in the process by way of submitting a planning application. It will also identify any issues that need to be addressed when subsequently submitting that application.

Drawing on the SHD arrangements, this new LRD pre-application consultation is intended to improve the quality of planning applications submitted subsequent to the pre-application process in respect of large-scale housing developments and reduce the need to request further information in respect of such applications.

The second stage of the LRD process is the planning application stage. The new LRD arrangements will rely on the existing section 34 planning application process and will require planning authorities to determine the LRD planning application within eight weeks of receipt of that application. There will be limited scope for requesting further information, as I have indicated. The need for such requests should be limited anyway because of the more detailed pre-application process, the details of which will be set out in supplementary regulations. Requests for further information have, in the past, resulted in considerable delays in determining planning applications. The new LRD arrangements are intended to front-load the consideration of a range of issues at the pre-application stage, as I have said, thereby reducing the need to request further information at the planning application stage, streamlining the decision-making process.

With regard to the third stage of the process, the appeals stage, which is provided for in section 7 of the Bill, the board will be required to determine LRD appeals within a mandatory 16 weeks of receipt of the appeal. Again, the scope to request further information will be similarly limited.

The mandatory timelines for the three stages of the LRD planning process, which have the potential to be almost as time efficient as the SHD arrangements they are replacing, will streamline the overall decision-making process, thereby providing greater clarity and certainty with regard to timelines. To help ensure adherence to these mandatory timelines, a penalty payable to the developer will apply to both the planning authority and the board. The penalty for the planning authority will be three and half times the application fee or €10,000, whichever is the lesser. The penalty payable by the board for late decisions on LRD planning applications or appeals will be €10,000.

I should also mention one important difference from the outgoing SHD arrangements. The new LRD arrangements will allow for up to 30% of the gross floor space of the proposed development to be available for commercial or other uses rather than the 15% cap in place under the SHD arrangements. This change acknowledges that such developments, particularly in our cities and on our inner-city brownfield sites, tend to require a greater mix of residential, commercial and other uses in order to take into account the differing needs of inner-city areas. This allowance is for up to 30% and will make the LRDs in such inner-city urban areas more economically viable.

In line with the principle of compact growth, more residential development is required in urban areas. This change in the scope of the arrangements is intended to facilitate greater development of brownfield sites in those inner urban areas than might otherwise be the case. We all wish to see more development and compact growth in our cities, and particularly on brownfield sites. This Bill will assist in doing that.

The Bill also proposes some transitional arrangements in respect of the expiry of SHDs and their replacement by the new LRDs. I will address two scenarios under the transitional arrangements. First, developers with projects already in the SHD system who have already received an opinion on their proposals from An Bord Pleanála on the commencement of the Act will have 16 weeks from the commencement date to submit their applications to the board. Second, developers who have already commenced the SHD process by requesting pre-application consultation with the board and are awaiting an opinion on their proposals on the commencement of the Act will have 16 weeks to submit an SHD application to the board from the date of receipt of the pre-application consultation opinion from the board. In both scenarios, the board will then have a further 16 weeks to make a determination. These are fairly standard transitional arrangements that generally apply when changing from one planning system to another. It is important to note, however, that for large housing development proposals which have not commenced the SHD process on the date of the commencement of the Act - with the co-operation of this House, I intend that commencement date to be 17 December - any such future development proposals for large housing developments will be required to go through the new LRD process. Consequently, it is intended that this 17 December date will effectively mark the transition date from SHD to LRD arrangements.

A further provision in section 6 of the Bill will be subject to some discussion here and was subject to some discussion in the Seanad. This section amends section 50A of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to provide that any party to a judicial review challenge may apply to have a High Court judgment referred directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeal. As I said in the Seanad, there is good rationale for this streamlining provision, which, once introduced, will have the effect of significantly reducing the time for disposal of litigation and enabling relevant projects to proceed earlier than otherwise would have been the case.

I will now summarise some of the amendments I accepted in the Seanad. There was an extensive debate on several aspects of the new streamlined planning procedures. Amendments were proposed and discussed by all sides and those discussions resulted in my acceptance of several key amendments to the pre-application stage of the LRD process, which concerns section 3 of the Bill, during the Seanad Committee and Report Stages. These changes are now incorporated in the Bill before us, which has been improved as a result of those amendments.

I will briefly outline in more detail the amendments I accepted. First, some concerns were expressed regarding the making available of documentation at the planning application stage, relating to the previous LRD meeting or opinion stages. Having considered the discussions in the Seanad, the Bill now includes a provision whereby the planning authority shall keep a written record of any third-party consultations held prior to the LRD meeting and attach a copy of such a record to any subsequent planning application. Furthermore, the Bill now provides that the LRD opinion issued to the developer at the end of the pre-application consultation stage shall be made public when the LRD application is made.

Second, some concern was also expressed about the omission of the obligation that a developer should provide a statement at the pre-application consultation stage as to how the proposed LRD has had regard to the local area plan and-or the development plan. Originally, I had intended to provide this requirement by way of regulations. We had a good debate on this matter in the Seanad, however, and what we are doing in this regard reinforces the recognition of the primacy of the development and local area plans. I was able to accept an amendment with this revised wording on Report Stage in the Seanad. These enhancements to the provisions reflect what we are trying to achieve here, namely, the restoration of a streamlined, two-stage planning process for large-scale housing developments, while also facilitating open, transparent and meaningful participation by the public in the overall process.

I also brought forward an amendment on Report Stage in the Seanad to provide that the housing strategy prepared by the local authority shall take into account the need to ensure that home ownership as a tenure type is provided for and estimated in its housing strategy. This provision is significant because it provides for the first time in planning law that home ownership shall be recognised and factored in as a specific tenure type in the drawing up of local authority housing strategies. That is another commitment we made in our Housing for All plan and another important step towards putting home ownership, in particular affordable home ownership, back within the reach of thousands of people. We have underpinned that and used this Bill as an opportunity to do it. Therefore, for the first time in planning law, home ownership is recognised as a form of housing tenure.

The Deputies will agree that this Bill contains a number of fundamental and important legislative features. Again, one is the restoration of the two-stage planning process for large-scale residential developments, with the primary decision-making responsibility returned to the local planning authorities, in the first instance, thereby enhancing local democracy, and rightly so. We are also enhancing public participation in the local decision-making process, with members of the public now having two opportunities to provide input into the process, namely, at the planning stage and the appeal stage. We are also retaining positive elements of the SHD arrangements, namely, the mandatory pre-application consultation and the statutory and mandatory decision-making timelines to provide certainty.

All these aspects are aimed at facilitating speedier decision-making in the planning system for much-needed housing supply. While we want to improve our planning system and the access and input that people can have regarding planning applications, we must also look at the context and the why and when of introducing this legislation in the middle of a housing crisis. We must also streamline our planning processes to deliver homes for our people. The increasing number of judicial reviews in the SHD process arose because people felt they did not have a say during the early part of that process. I believe in local democracy and local public input into the planning process, as does the Government, and that is why these changes are significant and I want to ensure they are in place from 17 December.

I look forward to hearing the contributions of all Deputies to this debate. As I said, I took on board suggestions and amendments offered in the Seanad and I am very open to listening in this House. We will also have the Committee Stage of the Bill next week. I thank Deputies for their attention while I briefly outlined the main provisions of the Bill, which I believe are significant. This legislation heralds the end of the SHD planning process. We are ending it earlier than was provided for. I look forward to this debate and the Committee and Report Stage debates next week.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

Sinn Féin is clear in its support for good-quality, affordable and well-planned homes. We support this Bill, despite some of its flaws, which I will outline later, as it repeals the SHD legislation. That legislation was undemocratic and undermined democratically agreed local and city and county development plans. It also reduced public participation and led to an increase in legal challenges, as has been outlined.

The SHD model being repealed by this legislation, which Sinn Féin opposed when it was introduced by the former Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, was a throwback to the developer-led planning of the Celtic tiger days. We are still paying for that developer-led planning today in the form of poor planning decisions, poor-quality developments, a lack of quality public open spaces and a severe lack of public services, particularly public transport infrastructure. It is also worth noting that the previous legislation failed to achieve its objective of helping to increase the provision of housing. According to the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance, DDPA, consisting of civic society groups, of the 70,866 units for which permission was secured through the SHD process, only 10,711 have been commenced.

Some developers are getting very rich by flipping land on which planning has been granted.

The other issue worth noting is that section 28(1)(c), the ministerial directive, opened the floodgates to material contraventions of development plans. This provision, as the Minister will acknowledge, annoyed many people in our communities, including many councillors who spent months diligently working through the county development plan with planning officials, consulting the local community and democratically deciding what they believed was a sustainable plan for their counties, only to see that work, effort and time utterly wasted as a ministerial directive rode roughshod over those democratic decisions. I welcome that the Government has finally seen sense in scrapping this legislation. We said it would not work and we were right. Sinn Féin proposed an alternative, namely, the provision of statutory timelines for decisions from planning authorities.

While we support this legislation, we have five key concerns. We will introduce amendments on Committee Stage to address them. The first is that there is no provision in the legislation for public participation at pre-planning stage. It is best practice to involve the local community early when planning decisions are being made. I listened on the way in to the House today to a discussion on wind farms. That everything is decided before wind farm plans go to the community causes a lot of concern.

Some 90% of the judicial reviews involve material contraventions of city and county development plans. All local authorities are currently being reviewed and must align with the national development plan. They are reviewed by the Planning Regulator. There is no reason cases in the future should involve material contraventions. Sinn Féin does not believe there should be any restriction on local authorities seeking additional information on planning decisions. If they need more information to make a sound planning decision, there should not be any impediment to this.

We oppose the leapfrog provision in section 6. The Minister has not satisfactorily made the case as to why this provision is in the Bill. It has nothing to do with residential development. We suspect it was inserted for other reasons relating to large infrastructural projects. It would be great if the Minister could be honest as to why this is section in the Bill.

The transitional arrangements in section 17 are problematic. This section effectively extends the SHD provisions into next year and possibly beyond if there are any legal challenges. If applications already in the pre-planning process get approval to proceed to full planning before 17 December, when this replacement legislation is due to be enacted, developers will have until April to apply. For applications not yet in pre-planning, provided developers submit pre-planning applications before 17 December, they will have until June 2022 to submit their applications.

It must also be noted that despite the promises made in the programme for Government to end SHD legislation, with a deadline of the end of this year, there is a concern that many communities will still see inappropriate developments being brought through SHD planning processes well into 2022. If there are legal actions, we may even see some in 2023. This is not acceptable. I believe it is in some ways a trick to delay the removal of the co-living legislation, thereby giving developers ample opportunity to benefit from the delay. We are seeing the same here today.

Sinn Féin intends to submit amendments that would remove the undemocratic powers the Minister has to issue mandatory planning guidelines to local authorities. These powers were introduced by a previous Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, and were used twice by another former Minister, Eoghan Murphy, to bring us co-living, build-to-rent and mandatory heights. For example, just outside Blanchardstown village a developer proposed a co-living development for a suburban street. It was opposed by residents who wanted homes for families on the site. It was also opposed by Fingal County Council planners. It was one of the strongest rejections of a planning application I have ever seen from Fingal County Council planners. Even An Bord Pleanála's inspector opposed it, yet the project was given permission. It would cost the residents tens of thousands of euro to fight this decision in the courts. Many communities do not have those resources. The big developer and big money win out.

As a councillor, I supported a Green Party motion in our county development plan proposed by the now Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, that no development in our village should be allowed over three storeys. Since the disastrous ministerial order contravening development plan heights, we have had several SHDs in Clonsilla where build-to-rent apartments of up to nine storeys were proposed along the protected Royal Canal. Thankfully, they were rejected by An Bord Pleanála. Communities in Clonsilla will be very disappointed to see that the developers will be given another bite of the cherry in 2022.

SHDs, co-living and material contraventions of the development plans were undemocratic. They undermined local city and county development plans, reduced participation and confidence and led to an increase in legal challenges as people rightly believed that this was the only route they could take that would ensure their voices were heard. I urge the Minister to take on board the amendments that have been proposed by Sinn Féin.

Deputy Chris Andrews

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. As a Deputy for Dublin Bay South, I have seen first-hand the terrible impact the SHD legislation has brought to local communities. Thousands of build-to-rent apartments and co-living units have been developed across the city with little or no regard for affordability or integration into the local community. They are just another cash cow for international vulture and cuckoo funds. Affordability, community and sustainability could not be further from their minds.

I welcome that the Government has finally decided it is scrapping SHD legislation. We must be clear about the realities of the SHD process. It is deeply undemocratic. It has provided a method to bypass democratically agreed city and county development plans. It has reduced public participation and led to an increase in legal challenges. It is a throwback to the developer-led planning days of the Celtic tiger. At the time of the introduction of SHDs, Sinn Féin warned the Government against the process and proposed an alternative but it refused to listen. Sinn Féin was criticised for opposing what we were told was the way to deliver housing quickly. How wrong that assertion turned out to be.

It is a shame it has taken this long for the negative effects of SHDs to be recognised by the Government parties and their supporters. Recently, one SHD has been given the green light to fast-track plans for 112 apartments, of which 56 will be one-bedroom and 56 two-bedroom apartments, in Irishtown, Dublin 4. They are going to be shoehorned into a very small site. The scheme results in the introduction of a six-storey development in an area defined by two and three-storey houses. The indicative prices are €540,000 for a two-bedroom apartment and €400,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. I do not know many people who can afford those prices. They will probably be bought by some highly paid executives in the big high-tech companies the Government has welcomed into the country. Not many ordinary working families in Ringsend or Pearse Street will be able to afford them, that is for sure. Where do these families go when they are pushed out? They end up moving to the outskirts of the city or beyond. This breaks up the community and dislocates families. Residents of Ringsend, Pearse Street and Irishtown are very proud of their community, and why would they not be? They have built an amazingly strong community. Unfortunately, Government policies do not support the community. They support the big tech companies and vulture funds.

In the inner city the residents face serious challenges. The Government invites in the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon, tech companies whose establishment pushes up the price of homes, putting them out of the reach of working people. It is great to have all the new jobs, absolutely, although very few of the middle and upper management jobs will go to the local community. I acknowledge that Google is working on community engagement but the other companies are not even making an effort to support and engage with the local community.

On top of these high-tech companies pushing up the price of homes for the community, Government policies are supporting the vulture funds, which also squeeze residents and push up the cost of homes to rent and buy. Residents in Pearse Street, Ringsend and right across the inner city are being squeezed by Government policies. Sinn Féin would make the likes of Amazon and the other high-tech companies and vulture funds pay their share and give residents in Pearse Street and Ringsend a break.

The expense of the sites and apartments means the Part V public housing allocation will not be on site and often will not be in the community. The Part V homes must be delivered in the community.

The legislation needs to be changed to ensure Part V homes are delivered, at the very least, in the community. The most high-profile example of Part V homes not being delivered locally concerns Capital Dock. The Part V homes that were to be there were delivered in Mount Argus. Although this is great for the Mount Argus community, it is not the way it should be. Residents in Ringsend and Irishtown have to put up with the disruption from building works. They are happy to do that, but the least they should have is something positive out of this and homes for their children. That is not unreasonable to expect.

We need to see housing developments that are well planned for effective integration into the community. We need to see good-quality, genuinely affordable homes that are designed with families and long-term tenants in mind. We need residents to shop locally and use local sports clubs. We need housing developments to be places where communities can grow and develop. It is our town too, and we have to develop a city that reflects the needs of the community.

While this Bill is a step in the right direction, there are several concerns and shortcomings – one being that there is no provision in it for public participation at pre-planning stage. The input of the local community must be a cornerstone of any policy on planning. Developers can talk to the planners, which is understandable and right; but equally, residents must have access to planners. It needs to be easier for residents to access planners. Residents need to be given the tools to engage with planners because trying to understand the planning process can be extremely difficult. Residents need support in this regard, and the playing field needs to be levelled. The local community must be given an avenue for its voice to be heard. Time and again, we have all seen where a lack of meaningful consultation with the local community led to tension and hostility to change. That is understandable.

Ninety percent of the judicial reviews of SHD planning applications involve material that violates the city and county development plans. How is it that we allow SHDs to override our local development plans? Local development plans are put together by councillors and council management with the best interest of communities in mind. The plans are then democratically agreed upon. We cannot continue down the path of eroding more and more local government power. In that regard, this LRD legislation is a good step in the right direction. Local development plans must be in line with the national development plan. They are reviewed by the planning regulator to ensure they are all in line. Therefore, there is no reason that future cases should involve material that violates local development plans.

We are also concerned that when it comes to local authorities making planning decisions, there should be no restriction on local authorities seeking additional information. If they need more information to make a sound planning decision, there should be no obstruction. We need to be providing local authorities with the support and resources to make the best planning decisions possible, not putting obstacles to finding additional information in their way.

We have strong concerns over the lack of clarity regarding the leapfrog provision set out in section 6 of the Bill. We need clarity from the Minister on the reasoning for its inclusion. It strikes me that the provision has nothing to do with residential developments; rather, it is being inserted for the benefit of large infrastructure projects. Therefore, we must ask why the provision is in the Bill.

I also have strong concerns over the transitional arrangements set out in section 17. This section effectively extends the SHD provisions into next year, and possibly beyond if there are any legal challenges. If applications already in the pre-planning process are approved to proceed to the full planning stage before 17 December, when the replacement legislation is due to be enacted, developers will have up to April to apply. Some applications will remain in the circumstances I describe until October, with the possibility of legal action late in 2022, and possibly 2023. This is nothing new. When we consider the delay in the introduction of planning restrictions on co-living developments, we see developers have now been provided with ample opportunity, long after the expiry of the SHD legislation, to benefit from it. Section 17 effectively extends the SHD provisions into next year, and possibly beyond if there are legal challenges. While we support this legislation, we will be raising concerns on Committee Stage.

Deputy Ged Nash

Like my colleague the Labour Party housing spokesperson, Senator Moynihan, I want to give this Bill a cautious but qualified welcome. Any initiative designed to expedite the development of much-needed homes across the country, especially in urban areas where demand is high, is welcome. We would all agree on that. The theory was that the SHD legislation passed by the previous Oireachtas was going to do the devil and all. It sought to create an environment where homes could be developed at scale and in a more efficacious timeframe than was traditionally the case. In the then Minister’s wisdom, that meant an innovation that got those dastardly councils out of the way and allowed developers to go straight to An Bord Pleanála. Ultimately, the legislation passed by these Houses meant the only recourse available to citizens to challenge or appeal against a flawed application, an unlawful decision or a decision that may have gone against the city or county development plan, or that compromised process, was to undertake a costly judicial review. This was never right. The system, as we pointed out at the time, was always going to be beset by problems. It rooted out an established cornerstone, or at least the appearance of democratic oversight, in the sense that local authorities were in essence bypassed or pushed aside from the early stages of the process, or at least the process we previously knew and that was well established. Fairly perfunctory consultation took place at area level with elected members of the council, and their views were canvassed and submitted to An Bord Pleanála, which made determinations on applications. The arrangement had all the hallmarks of a system and legislation that were rushed and not thought through properly. It seemed to us to be a charter for developers to railroad through some wholly inappropriate developments. That turned out to be correct in many cases.

There have been some successful judicial reviews pertaining to SHD developments that were initially approved in my constituency, specifically in the south Drogheda part of east Meath. I recall criticisms of those who pursued their democratic right to seek a judicial review of a project or decision; in truth, they were absolutely entitled to take such cases under our Constitution, as I hope we would all agree. The courts, nine times out of ten, backed them up.

Bad law and a failure to be faithful to, or comply with, established environmental laws always have to be called out regardless of the circumstances. We must not just decide to set aside laws passed in this House or give anyone, even if he or she is building much-needed homes, a free pass because we need those homes. The law should always be upheld; end of story.

The SHD system was overrun with problems from the get-go. The SHD review in 2019 stated clearly that the rate of building was less than what might have been anticipated given that the process was designed to make it easier for those who have the capacity and resources to build at a large scale to do so. Its legacy has also meant the development of a lot of inappropriate projects, including a disproportionate number of build-to-rent developments. Most egregious of all was the way in which so many sites that were good to go were sat upon by developers to take advantage of the developer-friendly system. They sit back and watch the value of their zoned land, with full SHD permission, climb in value all the time.

What should have accompanied the SHD laws were strong use-it-or-lose-it provisions. The legislation should never have been used to exploit land and to simply watch its value grow as it was allowed to lie idle. That was a slap in the face for the hundreds of thousands who want and need a home to buy or rent privately on good terms, or those who are looking for a home to secure through their local authority. We have to learn the lessons from the flaws we witnessed in the SHD system and ensure they are applied to the new LRD system.

We also need to include other measures that the Government is only now belatedly considering in respect of interventions in the housing system. To be fair, many of the lessons of the operation of the SHD system have been learnt and applied in the context of this legislation and the regulations that will come our way when the legislation is enacted. We must make sure that if and when projects are built under LRD, developers are forced to move away from the practice of keeping homes empty to drive up rental costs and keep them artificially high. As the Minister will know, Senator Moynihan, Labour's housing spokesperson, has identified schemes where it is possible to look into the windows and see the plastic covering still wrapped around furniture. Those schemes are not far from here. That is an utter disgrace and illustrates part of the problem we have with housing supply, land and property hoarding in this country. It is beyond urgent that the State counterbalances the kinds of pro-development laws we are considering here with the need to disincentivise land hoarding and other activities, which we know are happening day in and day out, to inflate the property market.

We need to see the zoned land tax introduced. It is provided for in the Finance Bill and it is way past time that it was introduced. We would have liked to have seen it become operational well before its stated commencement date. We have argued consistently for a vacant homes tax, as the Minister will know, but it still has not been legislated for. We are told the new local property tax registration process is collecting relevant data but, in truth, it should not have been beyond the ken of a sophisticated, modern EU State administration to collect those kinds of data in another way. The truth, however, is that the political will just was not there.

We should also focus on the scourge of dereliction when we talk about property and the requirement to develop homes. Nowhere is more affected by this hideous phenomenon than the historic core of my home town of Drogheda, which the Minister knows very well. The levels of dereliction and vacancy of fine old Georgian properties, poorly maintained unique Dutch Billy buildings and the fine old warehouses around the centre of the town, which hark back to our industrial past, are simply shocking. The national planning framework policy is to prioritise the development of urban brownfield sites for compact growth, and I support that. That is the sensible, smart and sustainable thing to do. There is, however, an onus on us to understand why these existing buildings are vacant and derelict and who owns them and to implement a strategy to bring them back into use, not just to regenerate our towns and cities but also to provide decent homes where people want to live. This point relates directly to the Bill. We spend an awful lot of time in this House, as do officials in the Minister's Department and the Minister himself, properly so, ruminating as to how we can get more homes built. It is the biggest social and economic challenge of our time. However, what is the strategy to revisit the structures and buildings we already have, specifically the buildings that are unoccupied and could be brought back to use? Prioritising that would be the sound and sensible thing to do.

A start would be, for example, to measure the scale of the problem by embarking on considerably more town centre health checks undertaken by the Heritage Council. I know that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage resources the Heritage Council, but I find it very difficult to get information from the Department on the resources being made available. The Heritage Council is under serious pressure. It wants to undertake these collaborative town centre health checks to get a clear picture of problems of dereliction, vacancy and so on in our town centres but, in my view, it requires additional resources. I therefore ask the Minister to clarify today if he can - if he does not have the opportunity today, he might correspond with me - and let me know precisely what that relationship is and how he plans to resource the collaborative town centre health check process. I accept that there is a commitment in the programme for Government to do that, but commitments are one thing and funding and resourcing are another.

The kinds of interventions we are talking about in this new legislation which, as I said, we in the Labour Party cautiously welcome, need to be accompanied by a much more holistic approach to the provision of housing more generally. Planning law has to guarantee balance and the delivery of appropriate development. My colleague, Senator Moynihan, has noted that a significant number of SHDs under the current legislation are student accommodation and build-to-rent. The return of councils to the heart of the process may lead to better outcomes, better balance and more appropriate housing in meeting the reality of local needs, not simply what developers might want. That would also mean improved standards for multi-unit, high-density apartment block developments. That means more floor space, balconies and decent open space and, even in build-to-rent developments, provision for owner-occupiers.

I welcome the fact that local authorities will essentially now be back in business in respect of these large-scale developments. It was a real mistake to set aside the traditional local authority function in considering large-scale planning applications. We are all the worse for it. The SHD experiment, by and large, has not worked. It has not even met the initial expectations set out for it. One thing I very much welcome in this legislation is the provision for a better pre-application process to enable proposers of developments to get things right. That is crucial. The function of local authority members will, I think, be crucial as well. I also welcome the provision in the legislation to allow for appeals to An Bord Pleanála. That is only right and fair. At the end of any process, propositions and determinations can be examined by the courts to be tested or if they fall foul of the law. It is important, however, that there is a proper function for An Bord Pleanála, as we have always understood, to make determinations on appeals and, crucially, that there is a clear timeline. That is really important to provide the confidence proposers of developments need to understand that their developments and proposals will be taken seriously and that there is a very clear timeline towards which everybody works to ensure that proposals get over the line and, crucially, are properly examined by the appropriate authorities, by which I mean the local authority and, subsequently, An Bord Pleanála.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

This is an important day for the many people who come to our clinics because often they are on two sides of the development coin. On one side are the many people who are looking for and who need housing, often in very difficult circumstances, and on the other side are communities concerned about the impact of planning and development on their area. The solution for one side is met by ensuring we bring on a solution for the other. That is what this Bill does.

It is significant that we are ending the SHD process, which did not deliver housing and did not deliver for communities. The previous Government left planning and provision to the market. It is very clear that a new Government with a new Minister has resulted in new policies and that all the measures we have brought in, not only to ensure public housing on public land but also to increase the obligations of developers on their own private land, have outlined the commitment of Fianna Fáil in particular and our colleagues in the Green Party and the impact we have had on Government policy. I say to the people out there who voted in the last general election that when they vote, their vote is converted into change.

That change happens in this Chamber with new legislation and by a new Government, and that has happened here today. The strategic housing development, SHD, process is at an end and will not be extended. I say to those people that the concerns they had were listened to by me, by my colleagues and by the Minister.

The commitment to use public and private lands for the delivery of housing is very important because there is no one solution. There is no one way that we are going to deliver homes and communities. Of course we are going to need affordable housing and an affordable purchase scheme, which was brought in by this Government for the first time in a decade. We will need the cost-rental scheme, which has been brought in by this Government after just 18 months, when other parties in opposition who were in government failed to introduce a cost-rental scheme.

We will need more social housing and we must make sure that this social housing is in mixed communities. I represent the areas of Ballymun and Finglas, which have big estates that were built in the 1960s that did not have the tenure mix, the income mix or the services and facilities that they should have had. It took decades for those communities to recover from that. Housing was provided but it was not a mixed community. This planning process will ensure that those new communities are delivered. This is because the planning process restores the local authorities as the first port of call for the assessment of these applications. This is crucially important. As the Minister has said, when councillors and communities are denied their opportunity to assess planning applications they have no option but to go on to judicial reviews. I saw this in my community in Glenhill and in Santry. Communities felt that not only was the planning developer-led, what was being delivered was also developer-led. The developments were delivered by institutions for buy-to-let. That was a real error because it meant that communities had no stake in what was being delivered. The needs of the persons coming into a Deputy looking for housing were not being met by the projects being built in their communities.

It is not only about public sites, affordable rental, affordable purchase and social housing: this Government has taken on the developers with regard to private sites too. We have doubled the obligation on developers for social and affordable housing. We have brought in a new vulture fund stamp duty tax. I hear some Opposition parties speaking about that, but they were actually in government when the vulture fund budget was introduced.

On private land, the owner-occupier guarantee is also significant for two reasons. It restores to local authorities more powers. For decades, central government has taken powers away from local authorities but this Minister is giving powers back to local authorities. This will ensure that the local authority planners take into account private homeownership as part of housing objectives and priorities. We are aware that homeownership and people who have a long-term stake in a community are very important in the community because it means that they can invest in the community infrastructure and networks. Anybody involved in community development knows that asset-based communities are there because the assets are the people in those communities. With homeownership and long-term tenancies, people are able to do that and not be afraid that they will have to move on after five or ten years. This is what the Minister has done with the Bill.

We have ended SHDs and we have brought in as a priority in housing needs assessments that homeownership would be something, which is an owner-occupier guarantee as the Minister has said.

Many politicians sometimes use the fact that people object to a particular development as a stick to beat them. I am not comfortable with that and I will tell the House why. Sometimes there are genuine reasons why a person should vote against or object to a development. It may not be the right fit, it may not have the right mix, or it may not be the right delivery for that area. I find it very difficult, however, when politicians do not do it for those reasons and do it for political reasons.

I was particularly disappointed this week with regard to a site in Dublin city that has been empty for 40 years. That site was purchased by Dublin City Council in 1977, which was the year I was born. A deal for 850 homes was rejected by the two Opposition parties sitting here today. Some 850 families could have lived in those homes. The deal was significantly better than the deal proposed by Sinn Féin in 2015 or the deal proposed by Sinn Féin in 2019. When people vote against a deal that is better than the one they proposed on two occasions, Members on this side of the House are going to start asking questions. Does the Opposition really want the housing crisis to be solved or do they just not want us to solve it? Does the Opposition not recognise that things we are doing will make life better? It may not happen in the five years we are in government, and maybe not even in time for the next election but in time, these measures will improve things, and they will be improved for decades to come.

Deputy Martin Kenny

In this Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill there is a welcome move to rebalance the situation. We all recognise that. It brings the local authorities back into play, which was one of the big criticisms everyone had of the strategic housing development process, which was the previous arrangement in place. Local communities everywhere want to be able to at least have a say in what is happening in their community. This is not to say that they should be blocking or stopping plans or have a right to prevent genuine projects that work well and fit well into an area.

We need large-scale and we need residential developments, particularly in our large urban areas where there are huge housing problems. I have a big issue, however, with the direction of travel in all of this. Housing is out of reach of people not so much due to availability, which is clearly a big problem and we do not have enough houses being built, it is the affordability of housing and the fact that the vast majority of people cannot afford to buy a house. We seem to be going in the direction of many other European countries with large-scale corporate entities owning vast amounts of rental properties, which they rent out on short-term leases, possibly for two or three years or as long as the contract lasts in one of these high-tech companies, and then it flips over, and another person moves into the property. While this model may be in operation in parts of Germany, France and other countries, it is not the model we have in Ireland. Up until ten years ago more than 70% of people owned their own home. That was a very positive thing because it meant that the wealth a person accumulated over his or her lifetime accumulated in that home. It was not paid off to a landlord somewhere. If a whole community is renting, the corporate land entities are getting wealthier and wealthier off the backs of ordinary working people. That is a bad model and I do not believe we should be going with that model. I fear that the legislation brought in here by the Minister and the direction of travel of the Minister's Government with regard to that, supports that particular model. The Minister needs to prove to us all that he is prepared to turn around and change and that he will provide homes that ordinary people can afford to buy in order that ordinary people can have a sense of future in their own communities. It is one of the problems we have. I meet people regularly in Dublin city who say that their children have gone to college, have worked hard, have got the degrees and decent jobs, but that they cannot afford to live in the city where they were born and reared. Many of these people are emigrating from Ireland to other parts of the world simply because they cannot afford to live here because of the high costs. The Minister is aware of this. I am not telling him anything he does not know already, and in fairness the Minister has acknowledged this. Acknowledgment, however, is not enough. We need policies, and not just policies that will create a difference in years to come, as Deputy McAuliffe has said. We need policies that will make a difference now. We need to ensure that this is delivered. While parts of this legislation are certainly welcome, there are issues within it that need to be dealt with. Amendments will be put to it, which hopefully the Minister would be prepared to accept, to deal with some of the shortcomings I believe are in the Bill.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I welcome the confirmation from the Minister that there will be time allocated by the Government to facilitate this on Committee Stage next week, and that it will move on to Report Stage and Final Stages the week after that in Dáil Éireann. I welcome that and it is important. I am aware that considerable time has been given to this Bill in the Seanad, but it is important that there is time allocated in Dáil Éireann also, not least given the history of planning legislation. It does deserve sufficient scrutiny. I will be tabling a number of amendments and I look forward to the engagement on that, which is a very important part of the process. While amendments are not always accepted, at least we can get an understanding as to why they are not accepted and why the Government believes its approach is the correct one. There is something to be gained from that in the context of the process.

I take issue with one thing that the Minister said in his earlier remark about ending the strategic housing development, SHD, process early. Many people feel that is not the case. There was a statement from the Minister earlier in the year that the SHDs would come to a conclusion this October with the final planning applications happening in December. Many people I know in local communities involved in planning issues were under that impression. That has not happened and I do not think that everybody would accept that it is ending early. In fact, under the transitional arrangements in this, it will go well into next year and could well be going into next summer. There will be a potential cost in a rush of applications and possibly more poor decisions that could have detrimental effects for years to come.

I will address a couple of issues in respect of this legislation. First, I can fully see the logic in the penalties payable by the local authorities or An Bord Pleanála if they do not meet the timeframes. One of the key things that arose at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government, and Heritage when we were doing the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill and was raised by everybody we consulted, be it planners, the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance, or the County and City Management Association, was they all expressed the same concern about this legislation on whether there would be enough resources such as planning resources to deal with it. This was the concern across the board. There is a strong view that there are deficiencies in forward planning resources in local authorities in that they do not have enough, but there is also much concern about dealing with planning applications. I want to flag that now.

One of the other issues that arose during the pre-legislative scrutiny was about continuing to have a role for local area committees or municipal districts in the process.

I note the Minister’s comments on pre-planning, where he said that it is intended to front-load the consideration of a range of issues at the pre-planning consultation stage. That makes complete sense and is a valuable way of doing things. The more that is front-loaded and teased out at that point and resolved, the more likely that planning applications will be successful and the quicker we will have much-needed housing delivered and on stream. Issues can be teased out at that point which reduce conflict.

When it comes to large-scale residential developments, many of the issues and the problems that need to be resolved often come from knowledge that is held within the community. I think, in particular, of a strategic housing development in my local community where there was much local knowledge about problems relating to the site that could have potentially resulted in landslides and problems of real substance in actually trying to build there. The local community had that knowledge but the developer did not, nor did their various consultants, engineers or planners. That only came through late in the process and because there is no ability for local communities to give that knowledge in the pre-planning process, it is missing from it. I appreciate that there are genuine reasons why the Department and the Minister may not want to go down that route because of the resources that it might involve as we do not want anything that would take more time or would burden local authority planners with extra work which would slow the process down. At the same time, not being able to get that information at the start, and the fact that the local community will not even be aware that pre-planning or that sort of consultation is going on, is a potential gap. Perhaps there is some way that does not create too much of a burden or any delays that would be able to get at least some of that information out about particular sites and areas where this could be resolved early on.

I remember when I saw the current Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, at one of his first council meetings and he had an excellent motion about looking for transparency at the pre-planning stage of the process which I was very impressed with. I would love, however, to see those principles around transparency. I appreciate it will be published later on but there would be benefits for communities to that being made available at the early stage.

I have concerns about section 6, which has been referred to as the leapfrog section relating to access for justice. It would be very useful and helpful to receive a detailed explanation as to the justifications around that.

I also have concerns on the question of additional information which were well flagged during the pre-legislative scrutiny process. The County and City Management Association, in particular, made the point - to be fair it has great expertise and experience in this area and is not in any way an overly critical group and only makes comments in a very careful and considered way - very strongly that the additional information stage is often where issues are resolved. I agree with the association on this. I have seen this in many larger planning applications where the planning or local authority comes in with additional information, flags things with the developer-applicant that need to be sorted and corrected, and because they are corrected and sorted at the additional information stage, the developer-applicant goes on then to get a planning permission rather than a refusal. The association was very strong in saying that if that process is overly curtailed, it will lead to more refusals. I, therefore, urge caution there as I appreciate the wish to have this streamlined but if that is tightened too much, it would be counterproductive.

I will go through the sections and then I will make some other more general comments about the disaster that the strategic housing development process has been.

First, I should, of course, say that it is very welcome that decision-making is being returned to local authorities. It should never have been given to An Bord Pleanála, which, by its nature, is an appeals board. Having that process where the only way to access an appeal was through a judicial review was a disastrous process and should never have been done and it is welcome that is returning back to the local authorities. This will be a gain for everybody, for planners, applicants, communities and people who need homes. We will have more homes with better planning and more sustainable communities as a result.

I have concerns about the existing SHD applications, the transitional arrangements and how long that will go on for. I also have a concern that this Bill will do nothing to address the very regressive section 28 guidelines that were brought in by the former Minister, Deputy Kelly, which effectively allowed the undermining of development plans and ultimately led to increases in land speculation and costs. It is my strong view that it undermines the delivery of housing in areas of prime location by effectively creating the situation of planning applications and permissions that are unviable. Due to the heights and densities allowed - I am in favour of increased heights and densities where appropriate - which can go so high and dense, it can actually make development unviable. I will give an example of this later to illustrate this point.

On section 3 of the Bill regarding a new section 32 in the principal Act, I have talked through the need for early consultation with communities and the benefits of that in reducing conflict together with the need for transparency. I will just briefly flag also that I have concerns about the language in section 3 as it does not follow the UN guidelines on gender-inclusive language. It is very welcome that the Taoiseach and the Ministers from time to time give very strong and positive statements about the need for gender-inclusive policies in Ireland which I respect and welcome. We should be following through, however, in ensuring that our legislation does likewise. The language is completely unnecessary and I have submitted a couple of amendments to address this. I appreciate that is not the main thrust of this Bill but, nonetheless, I have to say this.

I have concerns, as I have with all legislation, about the scope for the Minister to make regulations without the approval of the Dáil.

I have already made my comments on section 4 on additional information. The wording in the Bill seems better to me than was originally signalled. I am concerned, however, about how much it could be curtailed.

I have a particular concern that section 5 could potentially go against the principle of use it or lose it, on which the Minister has been very strong both since taking office and in opposition. Specifically, I am concerned that it may curtail the ability of planning authorities to consider other matters where a permission has already been granted. It goes back to the point I made earlier about instances where excessive development permissions, to the point of unviability, have been granted through the strategic housing development process. It will probably take some time to see the full extent of that but, where excessive permissions that are simply unviable have been granted, there must be an ability, if further applications on the same sites are submitted to the local authority, for the latter to consider whether the permissions previously granted are viable or are holding back the delivery of homes and the completion of communities. I have considerable concerns that section 5 goes against that principle and will curtail local authorities by not allowing them the flexibility to deal with such situations.

I have already dealt with section 6. On section 7, I must take issue with comments by members of the Government and with the relevant provisions. I certainly agree that owner-occupiers need to be respected in terms of the housing delivery and planning mix, but to suggest that this only applies to traditional houses and duplexes and not apartments is a cause for concern. The Bill mentions houses and duplexes but not apartments. The good news is that I have put in an amendment on this point, which I hope the Minister will accept. I am coming to his rescue on this critically important issue. We cannot accept a provision in legislation that home ownership is specifically about houses and duplexes and not apartments as well. Given the increase in smaller households, people rightsizing and the move towards more compact development, we must allow for supporting home ownership in apartments. I hope the Minister accepts my amendment.

I have outlined my concerns regarding the transitional arrangements set out in section 17.

I want to make a few general comments on the SHD process, which has relevance to the Bill and the measures I have discussed. One of the things SHDs have done is allow for increased heights and densities, as well as land values, to such an extent that they make delivery unviable in certain places. That is a principal concern I have. As I said, I support greater densities and heights, especially near public transport, but it must be done on a reasonable basis and with a realistic prospect of delivery. I will give an example from my constituency. It is one with which the Minister is very familiar as he probably passes by the development in question on a daily basis. Excellent infrastructure has been put into Clongriffin, including a DART station. There is a shovel-ready site in the heart of the development, right by the station, for 1,823 homes to be delivered, some of which were granted permission under SHD applications. It is a very good location on the edge of the traditional Dublin city suburbs. It has been rezoned for housing for the best part of two decades and the first phase of the development was occupied more than 15 years ago. The people who moved in then expected the development to be completed long before now, as well as what should be the town centre, in the area around the DART station. Under the SHD process, the heights and densities permitted have increased ever further. I have no issue with reasonable heights and densities, as I said, but in this instance we are looking at permission being granted for buildings of up to 17 storeys. That is well in excess of anything along the quays, in the docklands and elsewhere in the city centre or, indeed, almost anywhere in Ireland. The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, which holds the loans, has indicated by way of replies I have received to parliamentary questions that it considers this and other developments to be, in effect, unviable.

My concern with the Bill is that it will not allow the local authority, if further planning applications come in, to correct what I consider in this case to be a planning mistake. What is happening is that NAMA and the developer are looking to flip the site, with the lands and associated permissions on sale for €50 million. The only possible way the development could be made viable is by way of an investment fund buying it for build-to-rent schemes rather than for home ownership, which the Government says is its focus. It could only possibly be viable for an investment fund if the high rents such a fund would be seeking were underpinned by the State through housing assistance payment, HAP, provision and long-term leases. The site will possibly deliver high rents and high returns for investment funds but it will not deliver the kind of community housing of which we are all in favour. It may be the case that, for years to come, because of these excessive and speculative planning permissions granted under the SHD process, the housing will not be built because the permissions are not realistic or viable. This area, which has been left undeveloped for two decades, will remain undeveloped. The people in the community, who deserve to have the development completed, will not see that happening. Children will grow up, go to college and still be walking through what is, in effect, a ghost town around the DART station. This is all happening in the middle of a housing crisis. The people in that community and the people who need housing deserve to have the area completed. It is highly questionable whether SHDs have helped at all in this case or have, in fact, played a destructive role.

I appreciate that I am unpicking the decision-making being done by An Bord Pleanála but it is relevant to this Bill. If we do not have a balance in terms of achieving viable planning permissions that can be developed and delivered, we will continue to have delays in completing communities and delivering housing. Without the guidelines under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, being overturned and without local authorities being given the power under this legislation, if further planning applications are submitted, to correct planning mistakes that were made under the SHD process - my reading of the Bill is that it does not allow for this - we will continue to have the same problem.

It is worth considering research that was done into the SHD process and how it was lobbied for very strongly. A research paper by Dr. Mick Lennon of University College Dublin and Dr. Richard Waldron of Queen's University Belfast, entitled De-democratising the Irish Planning System, details interviews with a number of politicians, decision makers and lobbyists. A lobbyist from Property Industry Ireland said the following in reference to his meetings with the then Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney:

We went in and met him. And we met four times over about six or seven weeks... And he went through what his vision was for the Irish planning property system. And we gave him our recommendations and they took it lock, stock and barrel and stuck it into the new housing bill.

That is a direct quote from the person who lobbied for the SHD legislation that was brought in by the previous Government, which has been disastrous and which is, correctly, being removed now. I have no issue with the property industry or developers having a say in legislation but they should never have that level of influence.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

I thank the Minister for his briefing on the Bill, which was considered and constructive. I truly welcome the abolition of the strategic housing development scheme, which was a programme for Government commitment. A core tenet of our democracy is a robust, transparent and democratic planning system that allows for genuine public participation to bring about good planning solutions in a timely prescribed manner. From my 30 years of experience in the planning system, speeding the process up will put unneeded pressure on an overworked system and lead to problematic planning solutions. Currently, pre-planning applications are far exceeding the statutory timelines for consideration, with applicants waiting more than double the expected time. I have had personal experience of that in recent years.

The SHD scheme has failed on many levels. It took democracy out of our planning system, which ultimately led to unsustainable developments that materially contravened local development plans. The only recourse that could be taken by the public in that backroom system was to action judicial reviews, and anyone who disputes these actions is questioning a person's right to be heard in our democracy. That is why I feel so many have been actioned, albeit at great expense to the people and communities concerned.

The initial aim of SHDs was to fast-track housing delivery considering our housing crisis, a laudable aim which has sadly failed. It failed to deliver the housing we were in critical need of. Based on the figures given to me by the Department, only 29% of applications granted permission commenced or were completed. We conducted our own research across Dublin, Cork and rural local authorities, which showed the normal planning system had a far higher rate of commencement than the SHD scheme - up to 50% higher in Dublin - despite the fact the SHD scheme was to be considered successful if it hit an 80% commencement rate.

At the heart of the issue with SHDs is the fact that they created a development-led system with no genuine engagement with the local community and local government. Those best placed to make decisions on local developments were blocked from the planning process and had to resort to costly mechanisms to appeal decisions by An Bord Pleanála. It is, therefore, crucial that we do not in any way replicate the SHD system in a new large-scale residential development scheme, and I believe the Minister is in agreement with me on this.

I have grave concerns about this Bill. It continues to allow material contraventions to county development plans, where An Bord Pleanála can overturn local authority decisions under section 37(2) of the Planning and Development Act, something I believe An Bord Pleanála is using beyond its real purpose. As a former councillor who has worked tirelessly alongside colleagues to ensure all of the needs of the local community are encapsulated in development plans, I cannot stand behind a planning system that will undermine the work of local authorities and councillors, and the community behind them. I have tabled a number of amendments to improve this part of the Bill and I invite the Minister to perhaps consider strengthening regulations to guide An Bord Pleanála not to undermine existing county development plans.

Another concern I have with this Bill is the limitations around requests for further information, which fetters the discretion of local authorities to request the further information they require. The planning system is very well designed and, from my experience, it works. Shortening this process for large-scale developments is problematic, and I can outline why this is the case through the SHD scheme. Where an application is fast-tracked, when a local authority does not have time it will condition the development. These conditions can hold up the commencement and the negotiation happens post permission instead of within it. Essentially, the can is kicked down the road outside of the application process, which puts more pressure on planners. I understand there is huge pressure on planners. The CCMA said in a committee meeting that it did not think there was a problem, but it appears that there is. I hope the preplanning process the Minister has discussed will mitigate the new provision of limiting requests for further information. Complex large developments require more consideration.

I ask the Minister to give careful consideration to my concerns about the Bill. Having fought hard to get rid of the SHD scheme, it would be a great disappointment and unacceptable if the Bill, or parts of it, replicated the failed SHD scheme. I understand we are in a housing crisis. However, the decision of An Bord Pleanála to allow particular developments where they do not meet development planning goals from national to regional to local plans will leave the next generation without local facilities, school access and public transport to work. Measures need to be in place so that we create communities and not unsustainable sporadic housing blighting rural Ireland and suburban communities.

Deputy Patricia Ryan

The Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 replaces the strategic housing development process with the introduction of a new planning process for large-scale residential developments. There has been widespread criticism of strategic housing developments not least from the Minister's party councillors who have brought forward or supported motions at council meetings all over the country to criticise the policy and call for its abolition.

The death of strategic housing developments is a welcome U-turn from the Government, but unfortunately it is to be a slow death. Due to the overly generous transition period in the Bill, the flawed SHD planning legislation will be with us through most of 2022, with the process opening for planning applications until June 2022. Some applications will continue until October, with the possibility of legal action late into 2022. This comes as no surprise.

When forced to reverse its pro-developer, anti-worker and anti-family policies, the Government allows enough time for developers to squeeze the last few drops from the gravy train. In the same way as the Government delayed the introduction of planning restrictions on co-living, it has now provided developers with ample opportunity to benefit from the SHD legislation long after it has expired. This is bad policy and poor governance. Sinn Féin submitted amendments in the Seanad to halve the timelines. Unfortunately, they were rejected by Government parties.

The Bill introduces a three-stage large-scale residential development process, consisting of a pre-application phase, an application phase and an appeal phase. It also contains an amendment to section 50A of the Planning and Development Act 2000, allowing for any party to a planning appeal to apply to have it heard by the Supreme Court under judicial review, bypassing the Court of Appeal. This provision is intended to reduce the length of time it would take to dispose of litigation and is to be welcomed.

Sinn Féin submitted amendments on Committee Stage in the Seanad and intends to do so again. They would remove the undemocratic power the Minister has to issue mandatory planning guidelines to local authorities. The powers were introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Kelly, and were used twice by Fine Gael's Eoghan Murphy to bring us co-living, build to rent and mandatory heights. Sinn Féin also introduced proposed legislation to repeal these powers and subsequent guidelines on decisions. These matters are best decided by local government. Councillors' powers have been eroded for far too long and their mandate and local knowledge must be respected.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor)

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett has 20 minutes.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Great. Happy days for a Thursday.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 25 Nov 2021

Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Second Stage

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 25 Nov 2021