Written answers

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Derelict Sites Data

Photo of Peadar TóibínPeadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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160. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of derelict and long-term vacant buildings there are here; the square footage that is long-term vacant and derelict; if there is any register of long-term vacant and derelict buildings; and his plans to require the owners of long-term vacant and derelict buildings to register their buildings with local authorities. [11936/16]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Derelict Sites Act 1990 requires local authorities to take all reasonable steps, including the exercise of appropriate statutory powers, to ensure that any land within their functional area does not become, or continue to be, a derelict site. To this end, local authorities have been given substantial powers under the Act in relation to any such sites, including powers to require specified measures to be taken in relation to a derelict site, to impose a levy on sites which are included in the local authority’s derelict sites register, or to compulsorily acquire any derelict site. It is a matter for local authorities to determine the most appropriate use of the legislation within their respective functional areas. Under section 8(5) of the Act, a copy of the derelict sites register for any local authority can be inspected at the offices of that authority during office hours. This positions members of the public to engage with their local authority in relation to the authority’s proposals for dealing with individual derelict sites.

My Department updates, on an annual and county-by-county basis, a Schedule of Urban Areas designated by local authorities as areas in which the derelict site levy can be applied in line with the provisions of the Act. In addition to this designation, local authorities work to remove other sites from the register each year. They liaise with complainants and owners of alleged derelict sites (over and above the official derelict sites) to form resolutions locally, thus avoiding the burden of placing each property in question on the Derelict Sites register for each local authority functional area.

There is no national register of derelict sites, and the information sought by the Deputy is not available in my Department. However, the Programme for a Partnership Government provides for a number of planning reforms - including the establishment of a Derelict Sites Register - and work will commence shortly to collate the data from the local authorities.

In addition, the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015, which was enacted in September 2015, introduced a vacant site levy, aimed at incentivising the development of empty and underutilised sites in central urban areas for residential or regeneration development.

Under the provisions of the Act , in January 2017 planning authorities will establish and maintain a register of vacant sites in their functional areas. Commencing in 2019 a levy will then be charged on the registered owners of sites that were vacant in the preceding year at a rate of 3% of the market value of each site, with reduced or zero rates applying in specific circumstances.

The Act also contains an amendment to section 23 of the Derelict Sites Act 1990 to provide for the derelict site levy not being payable in respect of any land where the vacant site levy is payable under the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015.

The vacant site levy will facilitate the achievement of the primary objective of the measure which is to bring the sites in question forward for residential or regeneration development.

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