Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have said before that I am a very strong supporter of SDZs. I went through Clonburris and have a good knowledge of Poolbeg. Exactly as Senator Cummins and Mr. Jones stated, where they work to provide clear frameworks for people to operate in, everybody benefits. That is not to say they are without problems.

I want to go back to a question I asked earlier that was missed. I am not clear why UDZs in this format have been brought forward. From listening to the Department, it seems to be thinking of them on an SDZ scale. From memory, the committee had a previous discussion with the IPI about the idea of UDZs. My impression at that stage was of a much more flexible instrument. If our guests were doing UDZs, would they be SDZs-plus, which is what this seems to be, or would they be some other tool? I am not clear why they have come to us in this form. I am not opposed to what is in front of us and I share the recommendations of the presentations so far.

Perhaps we were at crossed wires when I asked a question earlier. I do not think the Department is proposing this for small-scale development in urban sites that could be very high density. I think it is thinking about large strategic sites. Having said that, one of the advantages is that an area can be designated as a UDZ but within that, bits of it can be progressed. I like the idea of UDZ designation at the request of a local authority. That could be done for a site with a relatively small footprint but which could have significant density or strategic involvement. I am interested in that.

I want to further tease out Mr. Jones's observations about section 171AQ. It seems to me that if we went further than his proposition of applying the local authority CPO to all land and allowed the discount on the purchase price to be greater than the 30% uplift between the existing use and the market value, it could have the double benefit of further incentivising the owners of the land, the developers, to activate land, or, if they are clearly not going to do that, to allow the State to acquire that land at an even more significant discount. I know they are not the same, but the Kenny report suggested existing use value plus 25%. The general scheme refers to market value minus 30% of the uplift. I am trying to think which is the better deal for the taxpayer. There is real merit in what Mr. Jones has said about private sector land activation because there is the bigger threat of a greater loss of value for a developer who does not develop. What would be the right formula to provide better value for the taxpayer? Is there a better, more flexible version of UDZs? When I us the word "flexible", I in no way mean a lack of certainty. I am with Mr. Jones on the need for certainty.

Some years ago, Dublin City Council identified a number of pieces of brownfield land in the urban core for which there was a proposal to rezone. I often thought it would have been better to have a designation, such as a UDZ, that would then allow for 3-D master planning of those sites, with public participation, to allow for better usage of them. In that 3-D master planning, we might be able to better represent the public interest in terms of the content on the site rather than anything else. That makes sense.