Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their opening remarks. The Government will not support this Private Members' Bill which seeks to make changes to the exemptions that exist in relation to Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The primary objective of Part V is to ensure an adequate supply of housing for all sectors of the existing and future population. In this regard, Part V allows local authorities to purchase a percentage of land at existing use value, which is less than the enhanced market value, and use this land for the provision of social and affordable housing. The Part V requirement is currently 20% for social and affordable housing, with a minimum of 10% to be used for social housing. Section 97(3) provides an exemption to these Part V requirements for residential developments of four or fewer dwellings and sites of 0.1 ha or less on application to the relevant planning authority.

The Private Members' Bill, if enacted, would remove the land area exemption. A small number of sites in urban areas consisting of five or more dwellings have been Part V exempt because the relevant site was smaller than 0.1 ha. It seems it is the Deputy's intention to correct this perceived anomaly via the proposed Bill. Part V requires that a specified percentage of any land zoned for residential use be made available for social and affordable housing. However, section 97 of the 2000 Act provides that an exemption to this can be made for developments consisting of four or fewer houses or a development of houses on an area of land of less than 0.1 ha. The Private Members' Bill, if passed, would remove this land area exemption entirely.

It is acknowledged that a small number of sites in urban areas that consist of more than five houses have been Part V exempt. As the Deputies know, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Daragh O'Brien, recently made a series of changes to Part V of the Planning and Development Act, through a series of amendments under the Affordable Housing Act 2021. This was in line with the commitments made in the programme for government and the recommendations made by the review of Part V carried out by the Housing Agency. Principal among these amendments was the increase of the percentage contribution from 10% to a mandatory 20% for social and affordable housing. A central consideration in drafting these amendments was to legislate for increased social and affordable homes for those people and families who need them while at the same time maintaining the conditions that would not impact negatively on the delivery of these homes.

The exemptions to Part V contained in section 97 of the Act exist for the same reason and were not considered for change as part of the Housing Agency review. Their purpose is to ensure the continued delivery of much needed homes. If small developments and sites were subject to the same 20% Part V contribution as larger developments, it would make a great many of them unviable and so negatively affect supply. The reasons very small developments can become unviable relate in large part to the cost of inclusion of social and affordable homes in addition to the already high construction costs that arise. These additional construction costs arise from machinery restrictions in small infill sites, the stabilisation of existing adjoining buildings and conservation issues, and they can be substantial.

Furthermore, the Government is committed to achieving compact urban growth to make our towns and cities more sustainable and more attractive places for investment and for people to live and work. We need to encourage this type of development. Along with transport demand, higher densities and shorter travel distances will also reduce energy demand and use overall. This is increasingly pertinent now against the backdrop of the increasing cost of living and increasing energy costs in particular. Multistorey and terraced buildings in close proximity require less energy and make renewables-based systems of energy distribution, such as district heating, more feasible.

The national planning framework targets a significant proportion of future urban development on infill and brownfield development sites within the built footprint of existing urban areas. The framework acknowledges that creating more compact development in Ireland has traditionally been more difficult to achieve, but in light of our climate change commitments and the need to reduce carbon emissions, it seeks to encourage much more use of smaller, infill sites for development and for housing in particular.

The national planning framework is specific in these intentions and national strategic outcome No. 1 states that Ireland will need to deliver a greater proportion of residential development within existing built-up areas of our cities, towns and villages. There will also need to be a new focus on infill development, integrated transport and promoting regeneration and revitalisation of urban areas, pursuing a compact growth policy at national, regional and local level. A range of objectives in the national planning framework seek to deliver at least 40% of all new homes nationally within the built-up footprint of existing settlements, with at least half of all new homes that are targeted in the five cities and suburbs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford within their existing built-up footprints. At least a further 30% of all new homes are to be targeted within the existing built up footprints of settlements other than the five cities and their suburbs. Furthermore, national policy objective No. 11 states that there will be a presumption in favour of development that can encourage more people and generate more jobs and activity within existing cities and towns.

The priority must be to develop these smaller sites which can meet the national planning framework’s objectives and the only way to do this is to provide the policy framework and the conditions to incentivise development and not to stifle it. Removing this exemption could have unintended consequences and potentially prevent smaller, residential sites being developed, particularly in our cities, towns and villages. In urbanised settings these sites are already serviced making them ideally placed for development. It is well known that the lack of suitable serviced sites is one of the main obstacles to housing delivery. This is at a time when we need to be consolidating our towns and cities to create a sustainable pattern of living and working. We must build up and not out, and use what we have within urban areas. Not achieving sufficient density in the town centre means that such towns will become more spread out and car dependent, with negative implications for tackling climate change and for promoting and sustaining public transport.

Housing for All is the most extensive and ambitious action plan for the delivery of social and affordable housing in the history of the State. It brings a coherent and consistent whole-of-government approach to housing policy, to ensure the delivery of housing supply is sufficient to meet demand at a price level that is affordable, accessible and sustainable. A key focus of Housing for All is to ensure that those who wish to purchase a home have sufficient location choice. This is particularly the case for the core of our cities, towns and villages. Housing for All provides for the launching of a programme of compulsory purchase orders to bring vacant units to the market for sale, as well as activating unused State-owned properties for this purpose. This would include underused sites in town and city centres that could be used to yield new housing.

With this in mind, we launched the town centre first policy last month. It provides a co-ordinated, whole-of-government policy framework to proactively address the decline in the health of our towns across Ireland and support measures to regenerate and revitalise them and address vacancy and dereliction. Key to this will be the reuse and redevelopment of smaller infill sites in urban areas. Addressing vacancy and maximising the use of existing housing stock is a primary objective of this Government and a number of measures are provided for in the town centre first policy to address vacancy and dereliction.

Housing for All highlights new funding initiatives such as the Croí Cónaithe fund which is expected to provide funding for serviced sites in towns and support for the refurbishment of vacant properties. This would be in addition to the potential new European regional development fund, ERDF, funding for urban areas, which is still in the process of being finalised. The Croí Cónaithe fund will be delivered by local authorities for the provision of serviced sites for housing to attract people to build their own homes and to support the refurbishment of vacant properties.

The Part V exemption included in the amended 2000 Act is a key tool in supporting all of these measures. It facilitates the development of very small brownfield sites and in turn creates new homes, builds economic activity and reduces social decay. While the deletion would marginally increase the capture of Part V units in dense urban locations where brownfield and infill development on sites of 0.1 ha or less takes place, it is important to note that the locations where these developments occur is limited to a very small number of urban areas where viability remains a significant issue in delivering supply.

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