John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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660. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of sites registered for the vacant site levy; the number of those currently under appeal with An Bord Pleanála by each local authority; the number of these sites on which he expects to see developments commence during 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3282/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015 introduced a new measure, the vacant site levy, which is aimed at incentivising the development of vacant, 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 notices to owners of vacant sites by 1 June 2018 in respect of vacant sites on the register on 1 January 2018. The levy will 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 year 2018 and will subsequently be applied on an annual basis thereafter, as long as a site remains on the vacant site register in the preceding year.

Planning authorities are presently engaging in the necessary preparatory work, prior to the application of the levy with effect from January 2019 in respect of sites identified on their vacant site registers in 2018.As required under the Act, this includes the identification of specific vacant sites for entry on the register, the registered owners of the sites in question and undertaking site valuations of the registered sites. 

My Department does not maintain a central register of vacant sites as each local authority administers the vacant site register in respect of their functional area. However, on foot of a recent review of the on-line vacant site registers across all local authority areas, I understand that there are collectively over 230 sites on the registers.In total, the inclusion of 49 of these sites on the local registers has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála, with 20 of these appeals having been decided, leaving 29 appeals currently on hand with the Board, as follows:

My Department continues to monitor and engage with local authorities in relation to the implementation of the vacant site levy and held a seminar with authorities on 8 November 2017 in this regard.

The purpose of the levy is to act as an incentive to the bringing forward of vacant underused sites for development, for residential or regeneration purposes.I would hope that as many sites as possible will be developed for these purposes, thereby avoiding liability to the levy.

As recently announced, it is proposed to increase the rate of levy from 3% to 7% of the market valuation of relevant sites with effect from January 2020 in respect of sites included on the local vacant site registers in 2019. Legislative provision for this increase will be tabled by way of Seanad amendment to the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016, which is presently at Dáil Report Stage.