Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

Amendment No. 9 inserts a new section in the Bill to amend section 97 of the 2000 Act. Section 97 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000, provides that an exemption certificate may be sought in relation to small housing developments – developments either consisting of four houses or less, or for housing on land of 0.2 hectares, that is, half an acre, or less. This exemption was included so as to exclude very small developments, including single houses from the Part V requirement.

The issue of the 0.2 hectare exemption has been raised by a number of urban local authorities in particular. Their view is that it allows developments much larger than four units to be built without any social and affordable housing element. My Department's residential density guidelines, which are having such a welcome impact on the supply of housing, encourage higher densities in certain urban areas resulting in schemes with considerably more than four houses or apartments on sites of up to 0.2 hectares.

In relation to town and city centres where small in-fill sites of this size are found, the guidelines recommend that there should, in principle, be no upper limit on the number of dwellings that may be provided. A site of 0.2 hectares in a town or city centre could, therefore, accommodate at least ten to 15 units. It is reasonable to retain a lower limit in the interests of fairness. For practical reasons it is hard to envisage reserving land on very small sites. However, given the impact of the density guidelines, it is reasonable to reduce the limit to 0.1 hectares.

Amendment No. 8 makes a complementary change to section 96(b). This section provides that the levy shall not apply to small housing developments of four houses or less or to land of 0.2 hectares or less. The amendment also reduces the limit to 0.1 hectare. In fairness, I acknowledge that Deputy Gilmore raised this issue.