Seanad debates

Tuesday, 16 November 2021

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

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Alice-Mary HigginsAlice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not taking land off anybody. They are free to sell or not to sell. I am not taking land from anybody. What I am saying is that if you apply for planning permission for a large-scale residential development, you should be doing so with the intention of building. As the Senator pointed out, this is not one, two or five houses; it is more than 100 units. This is not my preferred option, by the way. My preferred option is to have a time clause such that after planning permission is granted, building must start within two years. That is one version of a use-it-or-lose-it clause and it is my preferred version. However, if it is not the case that we put a time limit on the planning permission to stipulate that it must be used within two years, then we need some form of limit to guard against another consequence, which, I hope, is unintended, that certainly came through in the context of strategic housing developments and other development, whereby planning permission is sought and granted and then the property or asset changes hands. We do not want sites with planning permission for large-scale housing developments of more than 100 units being sold repeatedly. They are useful to people as assets but they never get built. We want houses. We want places for people to live in to come out of this process. That is the purpose of the amendment. There is an unintended consequence of the current legislation whereby far more value than the 3% per year site valuation tax is added to the asset every year. The indirect and advertent or inadvertent consequence is that people are incentivised to keep trading these properties. This is not my preferred use-it-or-lose-it clause, but it is another such clause if we do not go with a time constraint.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.