Seanad debates

Wednesday, 10 November 2021

Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of John CumminsJohn Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for commencing the Bill in the Seanad. I know it is something he committed to doing and he is to be commended on following through on his word in that regard. The primary purpose of the SHD arrangements, which this legislation will supersede, was to speed up the planning decision-making process for well-designed, large-scale housing developments on land already zoned for residential development, especially in larger urban areas where housing demand is most acute, and thereby provide greater planning certainty in terms of timelines within which proposals could be determined. If we think back, delays within the planning process were being used as a key reason a development was blocked, prevented or delayed. Sometimes, we have to do certain things to prove that blockages exist beyond the planning process, and that has been borne out in the lower than expected commencement of SHD permissions, albeit we have started to see a change in that recently. The SHD arrangements were never intended to be a permanent development. That is clear from the limited timeframe identified in Rebuilding Ireland and provided for in the 2016 Act.

The Bill before the House aims to underpin legislatively the making of large-scale residential development applications for more than 100 housing units and 200-bed student accommodation units to local authorities, while also incorporating some of the most beneficial aspects of the SHD arrangements into the two-stage planning process. As the Minister stated, the ultimate goal is to provide a system whereby the best parts of the SHD process can continue, but that we restore the two-stage process and the ability of local councils to make decisions within their local authority areas. What we must do in that process is ensure we do not see an elongation of the timelines, which sometimes has an impact on the viability of developments being pursued by developers.

The way the Bill is structured will have a positive impact and reduce the number of appeals. I hope the fact we are introducing more consultation as part of the process will result in a reduction not only in appeals to the board but also a reduction in judicial reviews, which have bedevilled the SHD process in recent years.

I welcome the retention of the pre-application stage, where the applicant will be required to engage in consultation, as currently mandated under section 247 of the Planning and Development Act, and that an LRD meeting and LRD opinion as to whether the proposals constitute a reasonable basis for submitting a planning application has to be given within eight weeks.It is vital that this element of the process is done right. It will have resourcing implications for councils. That has to be borne out. The quality of the ultimate applications that come forward and whether they can be successful in the planning application stage, will be based on how good the pre-application stage is. It is, therefore, vital that we get that right. It is vital that all of the timelines attaching to this are adhered to, whether it is the eight-week timeframe for the LRD meeting and LRD opinion, or the eight-week application stage, or the 16-week period for the An Bord Pleanála appeal element.

That brings me to the topic of delays. I welcome that the Minister is introducing a €10,000 payment, where An Bord Pleanála is aware that a decision is not being made within the mandated timelines. I do not think that goes far enough. Large-scale residential applications are now going back to the councils, and this will free up a considerable amount of resources within An Bord Pleanála. Therefore, there should be no reason it cannot meet its statutory timelines. I gave an example on the Order of Business yesterday of a decision on an application by Waterford Airport. The application was lodged in July 2020, to lengthen and widen the runway. There was meant to have been a decision by 26 February of this year. There is still no decision now. The same situation occurred in the case of a 91-unit housing development. A developer is champing at the bit and ready to go. A decision was supposed to have been made in May of this year. The developer is still waiting on a decision. An Bord Pleanála has to be held accountable for those mandated timelines.

It would be remiss of me not to talk about the resource implication. The Minister touched upon this at the end of his contribution. The resource implication was raised by the County and City Management Association, CCMA, at pre-legislative scrutiny. To ensure that there is a smooth operation and a transition from the existing system to the new system, we have to acknowledge that it will require additional planners within local authorities. Anecdotally, at the moment, requests for further information are being made on applications within the local authority sector, even though the further information requests are for documents that may actually be in the application. That is happening because they are under so much pressure as it currently stands. This is happening before the reintroduction of large-scale applications back into the local authority sector. We, therefore, need to both sanction and finance additional resources for local authority areas, particularly the urban local authority areas, where there will be larger-scale developments. Without that, I fear that we are going to see delays. That is not what the Minister wants, it is not what I want, and it is not what the Government wants. I would therefore ask that this is taken on board as part of the roll-out of this legislation.

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