Ms Claragh Mulhern:

Yes, we did consider that. In terms of zoning for housing, we looked at both straightforward residential zonings and mixed-use zonings including residential, and a strong consideration of that was that we did not want it to result in displacement or priority being afforded to development in place of housing, whereby commercial development would take place instead of housing just because it was more economically advantageous. That was factored in in respect of the mixed-use zonings and will apply across the board. Even if land were being brought forward for commercial development within a mixed-use zoning, which would be quite appropriate and would be for the planning authority to determine whether it was appropriate on a given site, there would still be an obligation to pay LVS for those lands.

What is slightly different about commercial development zonings is that they are specifically commercial. Broadly speaking, it is offices and industrial spaces. It is unlikely a specific developer would decide they wanted to build a factory instead of a housing estate, given they are very different purposes. In that context, we considered it as part of the design of the measure.