Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Leddin. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and his officials for the time they took to brief us on the Bill and for the briefing notes they supplied. If it gives colleagues comfort, the joint Oireachtas committee agreed unanimously to waive pre-legislative scrutiny on the Bill. We also wrote to the Irish Planning Institute and the Royal Town Planning Institute Ireland seeking their views on the Bill. We will supply Members with those responses when we receive them.

I support the provisions in the Bill. Where local authorities have difficulty in completing their development plans, it makes sense to allow them some further time to do so. I ask that a clear briefing be provided to locally elected members on the grounds under which such extensions will be permitted. On the question of extending planning permissions that have already been extended, I understand there are only a few permissions that could avail of that provision. There should be an upper limit and each case should be carefully judged. The continual extension of planning permissions does not generally serve the planning process well. Nevertheless, the Bill broadly displays that the planning system can be flexible when required in addressing pressing issues.

There has been much discussion in recent times about a review of the planning system and the need for a planning and environment court. Such a forum may be required to ensure legal matters are addressed in a timely manner. However, planning decisions should be made by professional planners, not, as we are increasingly seeing, by judges. It is my view that the strategic housing development, SHD, planning process has really undermined the planning process. We need to restore faith in the planning system among communities. The system is very democratic. We elect councillors who craft local area plans and members of the community are able to make submissions on those plans. Planning applications are assessed based on the plan and it is open to anybody to make an observation on an application, whether positive or negative. If people do not like the decision that is made, or a condition in it, they have the opportunity to appeal it to An Bord Pleanála. The process is open, democratic and clearly provided for in legislation.

However, as I said, we have damaged the trust in the system by attempts to bypass the local level of consultation by way of strategic housing developments. The development plan is a contract between the people, their councillors and the local authority that sets out how a community will develop. When large-scale, high-density developments are proposed that far exceed what was agreed in the development plan, it is only to be expected that residents will be concerned. When they feel the contract has been broken and their only recourse is judicial review, then it can only be expected that we will see an increase in such reviews. It must be said that some SHDs are at densities that are needed and are located in the right places. Some are not, however, and they amount purely to developer speculation. I understand the concerns of locals when faced with such proposals because, often, the large-scale delivery of houses is not matched with other services. We prioritise the necessary services such as water, waste, power and roads but we often see no increase in public transport or school places and only token green spaces provided.

The planning process must be about building homes, communities and nice places to live, not just achieving targets on housing numbers. If we are serious about building 33,000 houses a year, we need to restore faith in the planning system and ensure adequate resources for our local authority planners. It is about the creation of living cities and strong communities. We must provide for ownership of urban apartments, not just investor-owned blocks. We must provide support and encouragement to renovate and refurbish town centres and place greater emphasis on infill and brownfield development.

We must focus on Town Centre First, living over the shops and have all that accompanied by investment in the public realm, social amenities easily accessible by safe active travel and high frequency, reliable and comfortable public transport. The Green Party will bring forward further measures and legislation to achieve those objectives to complement and improve on the thousands of houses we will deliver through the LDA Bill and the affordable housing Bill. I look forward to working with the Minister and his officials to deliver on those objectives.

See this speech in context