Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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666. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of applications made to An Bord Pleanála to date under the fast-track planning system; the number of these applications that have been declared invalid; the number of applications that have been refused and successful respectively; and the average processing times for pre-planning decision and a final decision respectively, in tabular form. [6856/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 provides for new streamlined arrangements to enable planning applications for strategic housing developments, of 100 housing units or more or student accommodation developments of 200 bed spaces or more, to be made directly to An Bord Pleanála (the Board) for determination.

As part of the new arrangements and prior to making a planning application, a prospective applicant must make a request to the Board to enter into mandatory pre-application consultation regarding a proposed strategic housing development.  At the end of the consultation, which also involves the local planning authority concerned, the Board issues its opinion as to whether the documents submitted with the consultation request constitute a reasonable basis for a planning application to be submitted or alternatively require further consideration and amendment in order to constitute a reasonable basis for an application.

Further to the submission of a planning application to the Board for a proposed strategic housing development, the Board is required to make a determination on such application within a period of 16 weeks of the lodging of the application.

Since the new arrangements came into operation, i.e. from 3 July 2017 up until 8 February 2018, the Board received 37 valid pre-application consultation requests in respect of which 29 opinions have issued.  The Board has subsequently received 17 planning applications and has issued decisions in respect of 3 cases to date.

The information sought in relation to the strategic housing development process, as of the 8 February 2018, is set out in the following table:

* Granted in part.

** Christmas period excluded