Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that:

— as demand for housing continues to grow, thousands of housing units will need to be built in the State, largely in sizeable and concentrated developments;

— urban and rural communities around large population centres will see substantial increases in population as new developments are built;

— increases in population will see significant changes in landscapes, communities and quality-of-life;

— spending on community projects and services, by councils and other funding sources, was severely reduced as a result of the recession, due to Government cuts to grants and funding, and has not returned to commensurate levels; and

— current legislation for development levies provides "public infrastructure" funding but does not ensure "community gain";

recognises that:

— new developments will see concentrated increases in population in both urban and rural areas around large population centres;

— increases in population will place significant pressure on, and require significant changes to, the existing services, amenities and facilities of the communities in those areas;

— without significant increases from post-recession levels of council spending, communities will struggle to adapt to such pressures and changes;

— communities deserve to see such pressures and changes off-set by guaranteed material improvements in their area;

— local areas and communities should have a direct material control in the development of new services, amenities, and facilities through their local elected representatives; and

— councils currently use discretionary fund mechanisms to allocate funds to local areas; and

calls on the Government to:

— ringfence a proportion of development levies, at least 20 per cent, within the local area in which they are drawn from, in order to guarantee that communities experiencing high levels of new developments receive commensurate increases in funding;

— ensure that these areas receive material improvements, in addition to any needed expansions in services, amenities and facilities, to off-set major changes for their communities;

— allocate the ringfenced proportion of development levies through a discretionary fund mechanism in each local area office, to be administered and spent at the discretion of the elected members for that area; and

— consider amending section 48 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, to facilitate these changes.

I have put this motion forward because this issue is coming up frequently in communities, particularly where a lot of development is being built and is on the agenda. The State is in the middle of a deep housing crisis. People cannot get homes and cannot afford to rent. There is dire need in this country for new affordable housing. If we are to have any chance of dealing with this crisis, thousands of houses a year would need to be built in the State over the coming decades. It has been reported that the Housing Commission has estimated that between 42,000 and 62,000 new housing units will need be built per year until 2050. There is a clear need for those houses to be built. There is a deep need for homes in this country but there are very real worries in communities across Ireland on what effect this level of development will have on them. We foresee huge rises in population in urban and rural areas, which will fundamentally change the communities there. If new developments are not carefully planned and the affected communities are not properly invested in, people will see huge pressures on the services and facilities they rely on in their communities and will experience huge changes in their quality of life.

Communities, especially working-class communities, are stretched to their limit at the moment. Since the recession we have seen huge cuts to community funding and services, and to the council budgets many communities rely on. A study from 2018 showed that council capital spending fell by 75% in nominal terms between 2007 and 2014, which meant a cut of approximately €5 billion. Another study from 2015 estimated that cuts in funding in the community and voluntary sectors amounted to between 8% and 10% per year from 2008 to 2013. The reality is that funding for councils and the community sector has not come back to where it needs to be. Many communities are already struggling to meet their current needs. Many working-class communities across the country are already dealing with chronic underfunding and lack of investment. Communities will not be able to cope with these huge increases in population if they do not have the funds, supports and investment they need. If we do not ensure proper improvements in funding and services, there will be huge negative changes in how people live their lives, how they support themselves and their families, and how they feel in their own communities. This motion is an attempt to put money and control back in the hands of the communities and their elected representatives because the people who live in these areas know better than anyone else what their communities need now and in the future.

Regarding the Government proposals, while I acknowledge the Government has made steps to address some issues, there seems to be no proposal to guarantee proper targeted funding for the communities facing this influx of developments. We need targeted and localised spending to ensure the areas that will see the most development, and are least able to adapt to it, are guaranteed the funds they need. The people in those communities and their elected representatives need and deserve a say in this. The Housing for All programme released by the Government states that councils will pay a key role in ensuring the communities feel the benefits from these new developments, but it makes no provision for direct or discretionary control of the funding. There is no provision for how these communities will have a say, what money their areas will get, or what it will be spent on. There is no provision to ensure the communities hit the hardest will be guaranteed commensurate funds. There is no provision to ensure communities already struggling and dealing with lost and reduced services and funding are guaranteed to receive the supports needed to deal with the problems they have now, let alone in the future. This is especially important with regard to the reporting on the Dublin City Council capital programme that has just been released in the Dublin Inquirer. The distribution of funds raised by levies is woefully uneven across the city. While this may be balanced out by other areas of spending, levies are of heavy importance to many areas of spending such as cultural, recreational and amenity spending. An outsized proportion of levies was spent in the most affluent local area and the north side received less funding than any other local area despite the fact that Dublin City Council's own study found that large swathes of the north side suffered from a lack of community and recreational infrastructure.

Communities know what they need, what they are missing and what it will take to improve their areas now and in the future. The Government is simply not adequately reacting to what communities will be faced with down the line. There needs to be real involvement in the process from communities and they need direct power to effect the change they need. The point was made in the Dublin Inquirer report that there has been a wider debate in Dublin City Council during the development plan, and at the housing and finance committees, in relation to development levies and how they are distributed. The councils which asked for the report have been pressing for some of the money paid by a developer in levies for a particular site to be spent near the site where the construction is happening. Projects funded by development levies generally move faster than those funded, by say, central government grants, although those outside of the council's control are riskier.

I would like to refer to a case study: Dynamic Drimnagh, which is an umbrella body of sports, community groups and residents, etc., in the area. The Dynamic Drimnagh development plan states that it is a community group made up of different voluntary groups and individuals from the area. They formed the Dynamic Drimnagh forum in 2021 to develop a plan for the area which is for, and by, the community.

The plan was submitted to the Dublin city development plan public consultation. The plan states it is built on the established history of community activism and reflects the potential vibrancy and diversity of a growing and changing community. Drimnagh has a population of 12,500. Over the coming years, at least eight large brownfield sites will be developed there. This will result in 10,000 new housing units and more than double the population in the same physical space. Many of its existing recreation facilities, such as Brickfield Park and the Bosco youth centre, already need more funding. Sports clubs, parks and youth centres that are at the centre of the community and kept alive by the dedication of volunteers are in bad need of expansion to cater for the growing population.

Some areas lack supermarkets and large shopping spaces. Some areas need cycle lanes and better maintained footpaths. Healthcare and child services need to be expanded. There is a real need for new civic culture and recreational spaces. The plan covers this in detail. It is a well thought-out plan written by the people of Drimnagh because they know what their community needs. It is based on five pillars of strategic growth. These include offering a cohesive and inclusive community-led approach to facing the problems in future, the integration of new developments into the physical space of communities with regard to appropriate housing for the area and an in-depth look into planned developments and their infrastructural needs, transport and traffic improvement to ensure safe mobility for all and the regeneration of the area.

My position on building height in areas such as Cabra and Finglas in the city is that there should be a maximum of four storeys. Dynamic Drimnagh also considered the strategic development regional area, which outlines heights of between four and eight storeys. Its position is that housing should be four storeys at the front and it should go up in height at the back or middle.

The third pillar is a plan to protect and improve green spaces, waterways and areas of nature, to have a community-led plan for environmental challenges and climate change and to use the geography of Drimnagh to create a canal village with a canal promenade and cycleway. The fourth pillar establishes a committee to plan for educational services and facilities in the area to improve access to formal and informal learning in the community. The fifth pillar is a comprehensive plan for health, well-being, leisure and culture in Drimnagh. It highlights the need for greater youth and elderly supports and services and the need for real investment in recreation facilities in the area's parks and community centres. Central to this is a plan for a new civic and sports centre to provide a real base for the community and offer a cultural space to hold events and festivals to encourage integration of new members in the community.

Reading the Dynamic Drimnagh development plan gives a real sense of the level of commitment, local knowledge and care of the community who want improvements for the people who live in Drimnagh now and who will live there in the future. The Dynamic Drimnagh development plan estimates €63 million of levies would be raised on just eight of the sites in development, with a possible €30 million brought in from another six sites. This is almost €100 million in levies across 14 sites in Drimnagh alone. There is a need for funding investment for community and civic services and facilities in the area. The community has a clear plan for how these should be delivered. There is no reason the plan cannot receive a guaranteed number of levies raised in the area. According to a recent strategic policy committee on finance report, Dublin City Council intends to spend only €24 million in development levies on capital projects in Dublin South Central compared to €70 million of development levies being spent in south-east Dublin on its capital programme.

The purpose of the motion is clear. In the coming decades there will be changes for communities throughout Ireland and those communities deserve the power and the money to react to those changes. There needs to be thousands of new developments in the country to meet housing needs. They will affect the physical geography of areas. Communities will see large increases in population. They will put huge pressure and strain on services and facilities that are already struggling and underfunded. Many of these communities are those worst hit by the austerity enforced on them after the recession. They do not have proper or adequate funding supports or services to deal with the problems coming down the road. People will see their lives change and they deserve to see real positive improvements in their communities to offset this. They deserve a direct say in this through their representative groups and elected councillors. There is no one better to decide the needs of the communities than the communities themselves. Development levies provide a direct mechanism through which communities can draw down funds. They are tied to localities and do not rely on the market prices of land. They need to be ring-fenced to guarantee that some of them stay in the areas where they are raised.

Councils use a discretionary funding mechanism administered through local areas by elected representatives. Councillors are in a perfect position to know the needs of their communities. They are involved in local groups and services. They know the reality on the ground and they are intimately tied to the people in the areas they represent. The discretionary funding mechanism is an existing model of distributing funds to local communities to meet local needs. It works and it is tied to community needs and requirements. We have a model that raises levies based on the location of city developments. We know exactly the location of the developments from where the funds come. We know exactly what communities will be affected by them. This is not hard. We can amend section 48 of the Planning and Development Act. We can tie this into any future legislative change. We can legislate to give better direction to local authorities. People deserve this.

The motion is an effort to put some of the money raised from developments back into the hands of the people most affected by them. It will guarantee funding to areas that need it. It will go part of the way to meeting the austerity of the past and ensuring that communities facing real change in the future see real benefits from it. Most importantly, it will give people real material power over the future of their communities.

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