Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill creates a one-stop shop, which we would like to see, for approving refurbishment projects in local authorities, which will remove many of the existing administrative hurdles to redeveloping vacant commercial and residential dwellings. It seeks to establish a planning and building control approval process in each local authority, which will enable the faster development of upper floors of older and-or commercial structures that require a change of use in town and city centres for housing, which are frequently vacant.

With this Bill safety standards and the necessity of full compliance with building regulations remains unchanged. Our belief is that setting up a one-stop shop will increase the number of refurbishments in vacant structures which are fully compliant with building regulations. At present, refurbishment projects in older buildings or upper floors above commercial units in towns and city centres are frequently not fully compliant with building regulations or building control regulations. That is one reason for the higher number of retrospective retention applications currently in our planning system. Our Bill aims to change this.

As has been well documented, Census 2016 reveals that almost 260,000 thousand homes - 15% of the housing stock - are vacant across the country. That is shamefully wasteful. This figure also significantly under-counts vacant property throughout the country, as it does not count vacant spaces in commercial or derelict properties that are currently not suitable for residential habitation. There are thousands of square feet of liveable space in above-the-shop units which, as anyone who walks around a city or town in Ireland can testify and clearly see, unfortunately exist in very large numbers.

Various financial incentive schemes over the years have not been successful in reducing vacancy and underutilisation of such spaces in city and town centres. Dublin City Council, for example, recently undertook a visual inspection which estimated there are 4,000 vacant spaces above commercial units in the city with potential for use as residential dwellings. A vacant building study completed last year by planners in University College Cork, UCC, estimated that in a typical city centre street in Cork, conversion of vacant sites and vacant upper floors could increase residential populations in urban areas by more than 260%.

This Bill represents a genuine attempt to overcome many of the existing administrative faults in our planning and building control processes that have been identified as holding back urban regeneration. We are open to taking suggestions or amendments that will improve the Bill and we respect the fact that the Government has indicated it will not oppose the Bill and that it will facilitate it to Committee Stage. We are seeking all-party agreement for it to move to Committee Stage and allow improvements to be made to it through amendments and so forth.

We have worked on this Bill in conjunction with a number of practitioners and experts in their fields and consulted widely with other stakeholders, including officials working in housing and planning in local authorities, including the Dublin City Council, multiple housing bodies working on the ground, such as the Peter McVerry Trust, the Simon Community, builders and architects. All have given their support to the thrust of the Bill.

The one-stop shop is a relatively simple and easy-to-implement proposal, which was originally made in theDublin City Council South Georgian Core report. The idea is to get all regulatory sections such as building control, conservation, disability access, fire certification and planning together to agree on a solution in the case of a refurbishment or conversion of an older structure or commercial premises to residential use. Essentially, it means that an applicant could have one meeting with all the required officials such as a planner and those in the regulatory sections I mentioned rather than having to undertake several separate applications simultaneously, which is currently the case and which can have a prolonged effect in such an application process.

In terms of the new application process, while a building owner will not have to submit their application via the new one-stop shop procedure but if they do, they will get an expedited process. There will be an optional pre-application consultation, which advises on whether an application meets the requirements to be processed via the one-stop shop solution. This will be in person and a decision will be processed either on the same day or no later than two weeks after such a meeting. The application will take place in person in front of a group of experts who will sign off on the full application thereafter. This will involve the arranging of an on-site inspection checklist and schedule. The one-stop shop will issue a works permit that replaces a fire safety certificate and a disability certificate and verifies compliance with other parts of the building regulations, allowing construction to begin immediately. Approved inspectors will inspect the checklist on-site to ensure that there is compliance.

The one-stop shop planning application procedure pertains to three categories of development, which most frequently require a section 5 exemption, or a dispensation from building regulations and-or a conservation order. In the Bill these developments are listed in three categories. Category (m), as described in the Bill, is a "’development consisting of the change of use or partial change of use of any existing building where the height of the top storey is no more than 10 metres above ground level from any use other than residential to residential use and the works ancillary to such change of use, subject to conditions and limitations to be determined by the Minister, including a section 5 declaration from the planning authority via a one-stop shop application procedure." Category (n) is a "development consisting of the carrying out of works for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration and provision of escape windows and doors of any structure for the purposes of residential use of any older structure, subject to conditions and limitations to be determined by the Minister and including a section 5 declaration from the planning authority via a one-stop shop application procedure." Category (o) is a "development consisting of the sub-division of any existing dwelling to provide two or more new dwellings, subject to conditions and limitations to be determined by the Minister and including a section 5 declaration from the planning authority via a one-stop shop application procedure."

The Department will draft and publish revised technical guidance documents to accompany each part of the building regulations for use by the one-stop shop on these type of refurbishments. The objective here is in no way to dilute the building regulations or standards in regard to the refurbishment of older buildings or upper floors. Rather it is to give more standardised guidance to officials in deciding on applications and their inspection on-site. It does not in any way reduce regulatory requirements. In fact, its central objective is to increase compliance with building regulations. It will do so by creating a more standardised approach to section 5 exemptions in each local authority. Exemptions or dispensations from some technical standards in the building regulations are commonplace on most refurbishment projects in older buildings, as it currently stands. However, a common complaint from building inspectors is that the technical guidance documents relating to each building regulation give little in the way of substantive guidance for projects that most frequently require such dispensations such as those in upper floors of commercial buildings.

As such, there are varying standards and approaches adopted across, and even within, local authorities. In theory, building regulations enable fire officers and disability access officers to take a common-sense view in regard to dispensations from building regulations. However, in reality, this is hugely variable and there is not much practical guidance on what dispensations are allowed. Fire officers have little help in technical guidance documents as they mostly detail the application of building regulations in new developments rather than refurbishments in more complicated structures in urban centres. It is thought necessary to simplify and standardise technical guidance in regard to building regulation compliance in older buildings and above-the-shop units.

Moreover, while most refurbishment projects require a section 5 exemption and-or dispensations under the building regulations, these are rarely applied for, but mostly assumed, by builders or architects. This is one reason for the large number of unauthorised developments that currently exist. The one-stop-shop application procedure simply aims to standardise processes for applications for such exemptions or dispensations. While making it easier for building owners to convert such spaces, it requires local authorities to take a more hands-on approach to inspecting the plans for such developments and ensuring these design plans are carried out, as stated, via site inspections. It is envisaged that this will also create synergies as building inspectors will work together and work mostly on the same type of refurbishment projects. This will create a pool of experts in local authorities with specific expertise and experience in refurbishment projects of this nature.

The Bill provides that local authorities shall establish a one-stop-shop application procedure in their planning area for any development in the prescribed categories. However, it enables local authorities whose executives do not believe there is a need or demand for an expedited planning procedure for refurbishments to opt out with the approval of the Minister. It is envisaged that local authorities with cities or large urban areas requiring regeneration are most likely to benefit from this new procedure. However, it is acknowledged that all local authorities may not require an expedited planning procedure for this category of refurbishment or conversions.

It may be perceived that the main contribution of this Bill is to establish a panel of approved inspectors in each planning authority for refurbishment-conversion projects, which will be given powers of an "authorised person". "Authorised person" has the meaning given to it by section 11 of the Building Control Act 1990. An authorised person is generally an inspector who has powers of enforcement, rights to enter the site and inspect records, and duties to report to the local authority. Approved inspectors will be independent of the building owner and their agents, unlike assigned certifiers under the current building control regime. While these inspectors will not be employed directly by the State, they will be paid standardised fees and be accountable to local authorities via a three year framework agreement. Vitally, this removes the financial link between certifiers and builders-developers that currently exists.

Being on an approved list will also help certifiers get professional indemnity insurance and latent defects insurance, which is currently virtually unheard of in the Irish market. While this new approved inspector system will be initially for refurbishments, once in place it can be tasked with ramping up inspections and enhancing retrospective compliance with building regulations in existing rental units. In this way, the Bill also attempts to deal with the issue of non-compliance with fire safety and other building regulations in multi-unit developments in town and city centres.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of illegal sub-divisions of rental units in Dublin city which are non-compliant and often do not have valid fire certification. Yet, under the current inspection system there is very little that can be done with such properties due to the lack of personnel and resources being supplied to local authorities. I am led to believe that at the moment, there is one person inspecting the Dublin city area for fire safety in rental accommodation and the inspection rate is estimated to be less than 10%. Moreover, responsibility for inspecting rental properties for fire safety also falls between three public bodies, namely, the Residential Tenancies Board, local authorities and the HSE. It is thought none of them has enough staff or enforcement powers to enter a building it thinks may be non-compliant. This Bill aims to clamp down on illegal sub-divisions, over-occupancy and non-compliance with building control regulations.

While the Bill is not a finished product, it represents a genuine attempt to overcome many of the existing administrative faults in our planning and building control processes that have been identified as holding back urban regeneration. We hope those of all parties and none will offer us their support for the Bill. As I stated, I am glad the Minister will not oppose the Bill and will allow it to proceed to the next Stage. I hope there will be full participation by those of all parties and none to ensure that where it can be improved it will be improved so that it can have the desired effect of bringing about the potential to bring these vacant units into use in the short term rather than the medium and long term in order to address the horrible crisis and emergency in terms of the provision of accommodation for those who need it most.

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