Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Section 8 sets out the actions the prospective applicant for a strategic housing development must take immediately before applying for planning permission for the project and the actions An Bord Pleanála and the planning authority concerned must take when such an application is made. Amendment No. 13 substitutes a new 8(4)(b) in the section relating to the report the planning authority must make to the board in respect of an application for planning permission for a strategic housing development. The principal change in the paragraph is set out at (i), which relates to cases where the planning authority recommends that permission be granted for the proposed development and empowers it to recommend conditions it feels should be attached to the granting of a permission. The Bill, as published, provides that it is only in the case where the authority recommends refusal of permission that it may recommend conditions to be attached to the granting of permission should the board decide accordingly. The new paragraph also refers to the recommendations of a planning authority in this regard whereas the text in the Bill, as published, refers incorrectly to the decision of a planning authority in this context.

In other words, what we are doing here is empowering local authorities to give a recommendation in the positive or the negative after the nine-week consultation process and to attach conditions if they decide to suggest a recommendation as opposed to the scenario with the previous wording whereby they could recommend conditions if they were recommending a refusal but set out conditions should the board recommend a grant of permission. We are trying to reflect the concern that local authorities should have an impact on the process whereby at pre-planning consultation, where there is a statutory nine-week period, recommendations as part of the file would go to An Bord Pleanála for full consideration and decision. The capacity is now there for local authorities to give recommendations around acceptance or refusal as well as recommendations around some of the conditions that should be attached. It is a positive move.