Edward Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

It is important that these guidelines are rolled out to the county councils as soon as possible to allow them to amend their county development and local area plans. Because of the delay, I have seen a planning application for 335 houses in Blessington, County Wicklow, which was supported by the council and all the elected members, refused by An Bord Pleanála because the local area plan was not up to date with the new housing targets.

No guidance has been issued at this stage on headroom. From my experience of development plans, the previous direction from the Office of the Planning Regulator was 0% headroom, which was misguided. It is imperative that there is a considerable percentage of headroom because in practice, many sites will not be developed for various reasons. All landowners are not ready-to-go developers and real-world site development often has many obstacles, including cost, and may lead to planning refusals. I would suggest headroom of the order of 70%.

I welcome the reference to substantially better linkage between the zoning of land and the availability of infrastructure. Policy objective 103 states, "When considering zoning land for development purposes that cannot be serviced within the life of the relevant plan, such lands should not be zoned for development." The problem with that is we do not know what Irish Water's specific plans are for the lifetime of the development plans.

Tiered zoning refers to lower tiers with fewer services. Many current plans are tiered even when they both have access to services. There should be no tiered zoning in these cases. If, for example, tier 1 zoning is not developed, it stops tier 2 development, even though tier 2 could have access to infrastructure.

I will make a suggestion regarding expired local area plans. Currently, if someone appeals a grant of planning permission, An Bord Pleanála will refuse on the grounds that the local area plan is out of date. Would the Minister consider giving expired local area plans legal status or extending their lifetime to avoid such refusals until such time as they are updated? The challenge now is that the forward planning units of the county councils will have to choose between updating the local area plans and updating the county development plans. My suggestion could avoid that resource issue. In any case, the forward planning units need guidelines from the Minister. I know that in Wicklow, some local area plans have expired, such as the one in Blessington. I am aware of the same issue in other counties, including Kildare and Wexford. How long will this review of the local area plans and county development plans take? Normally, this process takes nine months but we do not have that time. Is there any way we can expedite this? The target figures for each town should not be caps, which is how the system currently operates. Can An Bord Pleanála be given deadlines for planning decisions? I know of a case where a decision was due from An Bord Pleanála last July and still, over nine months later, no decision has been made.

From a national point of view, councils must be closely involved in the delivery of housing. Delivery must be micromanaged. These county targets must be drilled down further, with monthly figures produced by all local authorities showing actual figures versus target figures, and explanations given. That is the only way to deliver large numbers of houses. The Minister must then meet the CEOs of the councils and the heads of planning on a quarterly basis. This method is exactly the way a business would aim to achieve its targets.

The residential zoned land tax is referred to a number of times in the document. As in many aspects of planning, there is a real gap between the planners' view of the world and the economic realities on the ground. Many areas of the country that are zoned are uneconomic to develop. That means the cost of developing and building a house would exceed the selling price of the house. It is, therefore, uneconomic and development will not happen. Under current market conditions, such a house would not be developed. That is not to say it could not become economically possible to develop in the future so the land should not be dezoned. The tax should not apply to such locations. Flexibility is required as market conditions change. In practice, the only housing that is viable in these areas is by the councils or housing bodies. This results in locations not having a balance between social and private housing, and results in private house buyers being shut out of the market. I know of several examples where housing bodies have bought up estates in small towns and local buyers cannot purchase them.

Affordable houses are mentioned several times but without figures or targets. Can we consider working with housing bodies to deliver full, affordable housing schemes? They currently do hundreds of social schemes but can they do affordable housing schemes? This is really badly needed. Could the council work directly with developers to deliver affordable housing estates?

The rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, is referred to in the plan. This has proved a good scheme but it needs to happen quickly.

On rural planning, the definition of areas under urban influence was far too stringent in the previous NDP. I hope that definition is narrowed in this plan because in County Wicklow, apart from one townland, the whole county is deemed to be under urban influence. This can result in the refusal of genuine rural planning grants, which I have witnessed.

The plan refers to maintaining the strategic capacity and safety of the national roads network, including planning for future capacity enhancements. This must include the new N81 and the upgrade of the N11-M11.

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