Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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Question 189: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the policy initiatives he is taking to ensure sustainable development, including sustainable urban densities and consolidated urban areas as recommended by NESC; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5263/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is undertaking a wide range of initiatives to ensure that the unprecedented rate of population growth and housing development being experienced in Ireland is planned for in a manner that will over the longer term support more balanced regional development and the creation of sustainable urban areas and communities.

Many of these initiatives have the full support of the NESC, including the national spatial strategy which the council endorsed as the national spatial framework to structure and direct future growth. The council also endorsed the integrated structure of spatial planning at the national, regional and local levels put in place in partnership between my Department and regional and local authorities. A more strategically focused and plan-led planning system, including the NSS, regional planning guidelines and city and county development plans, is now in place to ensure closer integration between where people live and where people work and the provision of infrastructure, thereby reducing congestion and longer distance commuting and enhancing quality of life. The challenge now is to support the implementation of these policies, particularly at local level.

On this issue of more compact and sustainable urban development and building on the objectives of the NSS, my Department launched a new housing policy framework, Building Sustainable Communities, in December 2005. This framework, which also responded to NESC Report No. 112, Housing in Ireland, Performance and Policy, sets out the Government's vision for housing policy over years. It provides for an integrated package of policy initiatives in areas such as supporting higher densities and compact urban settlement through design innovation in the creation of new homes, new urban spaces and new neighbourhoods. To support the introduction of these policy initiatives, my Department has commissioned a research study into apartment size and space standards which will feed into new planning guidelines later this year. Additional guidance on best practice mechanisms in the effective linkage of the development of new residential areas with the provision of wider social infrastructure such as schools and amenities is also envisaged.

The residential density guidelines have also been in place since 1999. Taking account of the NESC housing report and recognising the major contribution that higher densities and compact urban development is making towards the aims for more sustainable development, my Department also intends to update and further develop these planning guidelines later this year. The updating of the guidelines will take account of the extensive experience built up since the introduction of the residential density guidelines in the design, assessment and development of higher density proposals.