Ms Claragh Mulhern:

Only if it is serviced. That is until the land comes forward for development and then they can seek an abatement of payment at that point in time.

To go back to the Deputy’s specific example of agricultural land, that is land that has been identified by the planning authority, including the elected members in their capacity to adopt their development plan or local area plan, as being suitable for housing. Notwithstanding what the existing use of it might be, it has been determined to be appropriately located and required to meet housing supply targets. In that case, it is subject to the residential zoned land tax unless, obviously, the members subsequently decide to amend the zoning to remove it from scope, for example, to change the zoning to agriculture. Equally, for this measure, the scope is different because it is much broader; it is not just zoned and serviced land. It is all zoned land for residential purposes, that is, residential and mixed-use.

As we mentioned earlier, we are quite keen that we incentivise early payment where possible, so, at any point after the valuations have been undertaken, we would be encouraging landowners to pay up and discharge their obligation, knowing that it will need to be paid ultimately at the point of implementing a permission for redevelopment. However, only at that point does it have to be paid. To go back to the example of somebody who is farming their land, if they do not have an intention of bringing forward the land for development, they do not have to pay land value sharing upfront but it will need to be paid ultimately by whoever is seeking to develop the land.