Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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125. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government when he will publish guidelines to planning authorities on the practical implementation of the vacant site levy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31263/16]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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126. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the obstacles that exist to implementing the vacant site levy in 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31264/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 125 and 126 together.

The Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015, enacted in July 2015, introduced a new measure, the vacant site levy, which is aimed at incentivising the development of vacant or under-utilised sites in urban areas.

Under the Act, planning authorities are required to establish a register of vacant sites in their areas, beginning on 1 January 2017, and to issue annual notices to owners of vacant sites by 1 June 2018 in respect of vacant sites on the register on 1 January 2018. The levy shall be applied by planning authorities, commencing on 1 January 2019, in respect of sites which were vacant and on the vacant site register during the preceding year (i.e. 2018) and shall subsequently be applied on an annual basis thereafter, as long as a site remains on the vacant site register in the preceding year.

The timeframes set out in the legislation in relation to the commencement of the application of the levy are based on legal advice in relation to the constitutional rights of property owners and are intended to allow site owners sufficient time and opportunity to initiate development on their sites, or alternatively to sell their sites, in order to avoid becoming liable to the levy.

My Department issued general guidance on the implementation of the vacant site levy to planning authorities by way of Circular Letter PL7/2016 on 1 July 2016, entitled Implementation of the Vacant Site Levy as provided for in the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015,which is available on my Department’s website at the following link: .