Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I fully support any measure that assists in freeing up development land, the building of houses and particularly reducing the cost of construction. Over the past decade a number of Bills have been introduced to try to assist in this. Some have worked to a degree and many have not. I do not know if this legislation will work. I would like to think it will.

There are three aspects to the Bill: the vacant sites, the 10% social housing requirement, and the development levies. People are decrying that houses are not being built. However, from discussion with those in the construction industry, it is simply too expensive to build at the moment and people will not pay the actual price. The cost of development land is reasonable in most areas but not the cost of construction. Many of those costs have been added by the Government, including VAT, various charges, regulations and so on.

In light of the terrible tragedy in San Francisco, I have changed my position slightly on the cost for the certification of buildings. Irrespective of the cost, we can never drop our standards in ensuring buildings are safe. That is really important. I extend my sympathies to the families of those involved in this dreadful tragedy.

From my reading of the legislation, it is difficult to establish how the provision on vacant sites will work. Initially it applied to towns of more than 3,000 and now it is every site that is more than 0.1 ha provided it is not a contaminated site. We have the concept that people are lobbying to have land zoned and that there are big tracts of lands on the outskirts of towns that are not being developed. Equally many people have zoned land and do not want their land zoned, especially people in town who have a few acres of land associated with the house. I know the legislation contains a description of a garden, yard or whatever accompanying the house.

It is important to be careful with whatever regulations or guidelines are issued to the local authority or nationally to help An Bord Pleanála establish any appeals. Someone may have a field associated with their house where maybe four or five houses could be built. I do not think there is a limit on the number of houses that could be built. If they want to keep it for their own children into the future, should they be penalised with a levy of a few thousand euro every year? All these things need to be taken into consideration.

In addition some people may not be able to develop their land owing to access difficulties or someone else may not free up their land. So they could have zoned land that is landlocked and might not have access. Will the Minister of State to clarify this when wrapping up or perhaps on Committee Stage? An individual may have zoned land and having paid the levy for a few years may be refused planning permission for some technical reason. It could be a traffic reason or otherwise. Many developments that were granted permission may be refused by the board. What happens then? Does the legislation provide that the person would be refunded the levy placed on the vacant site? Until such time as it gets final approval, we cannot establish whether it will be built on. While zoning is an indication that it might be built on, it is not a given that zoned land can be built on. That has to be catered for and I ask the Minister of State to address that at some stage.

I am very supportive of the 10% social housing requirement. It is depressing that many local authority housing estates constructed in a similar manner to private housing estates have deteriorated rapidly owing to inadequate upkeep. There needs to be greater interaction between the local authorities and tenants in maintaining standards in an area, be they in a block or interspersed.

When the Planning and Development Act was passed in 2001, the then Government indicated that development levies were being collected to bring some sort of accountability to levies and put them into the resources. It ended up as a revenue-raising mechanism. At the time I was opposed to it on that basis and that is what happened. While I do not know if this is stipulated in the legislation, there should be a requirement in regulation or an instruction to local authorities to amend their development levy proposals once this legislation is passed. It should not be left to them. It will take many years.

With the issue of homelessness becoming increasingly of concern to local authorities, every municipal district should have a centre to cater for homeless people. I realise that solving homelessness is not as simple as providing accommodation. Every municipal authority should have a suitable location for emergency accommodation, particularly for single elderly people. We are increasingly seeing those people coming forward. Accommodating families is much more difficult. Having a hostel for families is totally unacceptable and we need to find a different mechanism.

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