Results 4,361-4,380 of 25,713 for speaker:Darragh O'Brien

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: I genuinely will reflect on the discussion. I will not give a guarantee that I will make any changes but I understand the points being made. We have to balance any provision with trusting our local elected members and respecting their reserved functions and interactions with their electorates. I will genuinely reflect on the contributions made on these two amendments.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: Yes.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: Yes.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: I will respond directly to the Deputy because I can see merit in the intent of the proposed amendment. I just want to consider the ramification of such an addition, particularly as a decision to grant can only include conditions that it is within the applicant's control to achieve and comply with. I can see the merit in what the Deputy is saying. On foot of the last two amendments, which I...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: That would be the concern.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: This obviously relates to applications for permission. We have seen instances in which people have come back and said they cannot do a certain thing now. People would have been very clear on the phasing of certain elements only for that not to come to pass. I absolutely take the Deputy's point and will certainly look at that.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: It would be a condition of a planning permission. It would be the planning authority.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: There is guidance in the sustainable development growth guidelines, which we have referred to many times here. I have the residential guidelines here. The guidance will become national planning statements once this legislation passes.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: The guidance relates broadly to how developments will be delivered. If the Deputy is asking whether any part of the Bill other than section 165 deals with phasing, the answer is "No". The phasing of plans is covered within this section. He is not missing anything but we do have guidance. For argument's sake, if we were looking to update these, they would have to comply with the issued...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: I agree with the Deputy. That is why we have included it in the Bill. That is why it is there as a separate section regarding phasing. It delineates the matter. Phasing was not covered in the 2000 Act.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: This is a new provision to recognise the fact that phasing and delivery in compliance with that phasing are important. It was not in the 2000 Act.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: Absolutely.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: As the Deputy rightly said, this relates to non-material alterations. We could endeavour to set out what non-material looks like. It could be a change to the colour of a building, for argument's sake, or whatever, but it is not material to the application itself. We can work on the definition or examples of what that would look like and then do that by way of guidance. I am not of a mind...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: On a non-material change?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: It is correct because it is non-material. It is changing the colour of a building, for example. That might be a bad example, but it would be something like that.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: The extension here is to the period of time for the decision itself, as opposed to the situation in the example. I know what the Deputy means. We are talking about something different, namely, extending the permission itself.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: Section 133(2) states, "the following matters shall not, for the purposes of that paragraph, be determined to constitute an alteration of the terms or extension of the duration of a permission that is otherwise material", and we have outlined them there, from (a) to (d).

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: Taking the Deputy's example of an extension to a planning permission for a ghost estate or half-finished estate, the planning authority has no ability to say that this is incomplete and use that as a reason not to grant the extension. Section 135(5) provides, "Before making a determination under subsection (4), the deciding authority may invite submissions on the alteration or extension to...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Apr 2024)

Darragh O'Brien: It is a new provision.