Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

Section 10 provides that the mandatory population threshold for preparing local area plans will be raised from 2,000 to 5,000 persons. The preparation of a local area plan is resource intensive and involves consultation with both elected members and the public. The discretionary threshold for the preparation of a local area plan will be when the population is between 2,000 and 5,000 and where the relevant area is to be subject to a large-scale development within the lifetime of the plan. To ensure that local area plans are comprehensively linked with the city and county development plans, which are reviewed every six years, the lifespan of a local area plan will be increased to ten years. However, when a local area plan no longer is consistent with the city and county development plan because the latter has been reviewed and varied, there is a requirement to vary the local area plan within one year.

Provision also has been made for the phasing of development within a local area plan as provided for within the development plan, particularly given that zoning objectives are provided in a local area plan on foot of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2002. Amendment No. 28 proposes to provide clarification in the reference to a local area plan by substituting "that local area plan" to avoid the risk that it could be interpreted as any local area plan. Amendment No. 29 proposes to insert the word "and", which will provide a link to the next proposed Committee Stage amendment to be debated. It also inserts a new subsection (5), which proposes "there shall be no presumption in law that any land zoned in a particular local area plan shall remain so zoned in any subsequent local area plan". This arises from section 8 of the 2002 Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, which provided for zoning in a local area plan by the incorporation of zoning provisions in section 19(2)(a) of the principal Act, which heretofore was only possible in a development plan. Consequently, this led to a greater level of zoning in local area plans by local authorities. It now is considered appropriate that the development plan provisions for down-zoning or unzoning land, namely, section 10 of the Act, must equally be applied to local area plans, that is, the provisions must be replicated within the local area plan provisions of the Act.