Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 28 February 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed)

1:30 am

Photo of John CumminsJohn Cummins (Fine Gael)
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I would like to tease this out a little further, especially with regard to the residents association element. It is not straightforward. Let us say there is a proposal to build 50 apartments in an area adjacent to a residential location where there are 100 existing units. There are 100 households in that development and 50 of them are in a residents association. You never get 100% of households involved in a residents association. You might get 100 out of 100 to attend a meeting aimed at addressing a particular problem at a particular point in time. What about the 50 households not in the association? They too reside within the locality and may have a different view. A submission is being made in favour of, or opposing, the development in the locality. Why does one group of households in that estate get more standing than the others?