Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 26 September 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Review of National Planning Framework and Climate Targets: Discussion

Ms Gina Kelly:

We commissioned a report from the OECD, published last year, on redesigning our transport system. One of the areas it looked at was incentives for urban and brownfield infill development. A few of the recommendations it made in that regard go back to the issue of data quality and availability, namely, the need to quantify the costs. Not all sites are the same. In fact, they are very different in different areas. It is a question of what it would take to rebalance the incentives as between development on a greenfield area and a brownfield area. There is a need to address those incentives from the stick perspective, as Mr. Lawlor mentioned, in terms of the land value sharing aspect, as one example, but also in terms of the incentives and supports, or carrots, that might be offered to develop in those areas. There is a bit more detail on some of the report's recommendations in our annual review this year.