Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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261. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to introduce a scheme equivalent to the Living City Initiative to help sustain towns by encouraging persons to reside and invest in town centres; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5247/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Living City Initiative was introduced by my colleague, the Minister for Finance, in Budget 2014 as a targeted pilot tax incentive scheme aimed at: -encouraging people to live in older buildings in the centre of ourcities; and incentivising the regeneration of central business districts.

The Initiative provides tax incentives targeted at owner/occupiers rather than property developers or the rental sector for works undertaken to refurbish residential and retail buildings, either to bring them up to a habitable standard or to make improvements to buildings which are currently inhabited, all with a view to helping to improve the vibrancy of city centre areas.

In addition, my Department has taken a number of initiatives in recent years in this vein:

- local authorities were requested to exercise restraint, or where possible, to reduce commercial rates and local charges to assist local businesses in the current economic climate– the vast majority of local authorities have responded positively to this request;

- revised development contribution guidelines were introduced in 2013 requesting planning authorities to put in place reduced development contributions to support town centre development and incentivise activity in the areas prioritised for developmentin relevant core strategies;

- new guidelines on retail planning were published aimed at promoting and supporting the vitality and viability of city and town centres. These guidelines retained the previous caps on store size in less populated and smaller towns, and were aimed at striking the right balance to ensure that local monopolies are not created in smaller towns which would be detrimental to competition;

- the publication of 2 new Planning and Development Bills which include a provision for a vacant site levy as an integral part of the development planning process to incentivise the bringing into beneficial use of under-utilised urban land, vacant sites and buildings, thereby facilitating sustainable urban development and an efficient return on state investment in enabling infrastructure.

- the introduction of the 9% rate of VAT oncertain goods and services;

- the halving of the lower rate of employers’ PRSI;

- the introduction of the Microenterprise Loan Scheme and Credit Guarantee Scheme, both of which schemes have had take-up from the retail sector; and

- the extension of seed capital and the employment and investment incentive scheme to the retail sector.