Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give the courtesy of an answer. These amendments relate to the changes proposed in the Bill regarding the Part VIII process for the approval of local authority own development proposals, including social housing. The Bill proposes a number of key changes to the existing local authority own development approval processes in section 179 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.

The first change is that at the end of the public consultation period for a proposed local authority own development, the local authority chief executive will have eight weeks to issue a report to the elected council members on the public consultation on the proposed development. No such timeline is incorporated in the current Part VIII approval procedures. The second change is that after the public consultation on a proposed development, the elected council members will have six weeks to consider the proposal and, by resolution, to vary, modify or decide not to proceed with the proposed development. The third change proposes that a council resolution in relation to a Part VIII proposal will require the support of a majority of the elected members of the local authority concerned. The fourth change is that a resolution not to proceed with the development must state the reasons for this decision.

The primary purpose of these changes is to streamline the timelines for decision making on local authority development proposals, providing certainty around the time frames for the Part VIII process. Under the revised procedures in the Bill, the maximum timeframe for the determination of local authority own development proposals will now be 20 weeks from the date of issue of the proposals for public consultation. Under the current procedures, there is no maximum timeframe for the completion of the Part VIII process which delays the delivery of local authority own development projects, including social housing proposals. The amendments proposed in relation to the Part VIII procedures seek to dilute the intentions of the proposals in the Bill.

Many local authorities do a very good job on Part VIII planning applications but there are also some applications that take an eternity to get across the line. We are trying to put timelines on councillors and chief executives to make sure the process moves through the stages. We have a massive social housing build programme, that is going to be funded over the next five years and we must get the Part VIII applications through the system. Some of the local authorities are great at that but others take a long time to make decisions and sometimes do not make decisions at all because issues get put off and put off. We are trying to put timeline sand some certainty in to the decision-making process regarding the period of time involved. We are not taking away the powers of the councillors to make the determination in the end. This is what we had initially looked at, but having spoken to many people and to the councillors about it we came back from that position and looked at a slightly speedier process while making sure it remained a democratic decision at the end of the day.