Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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72. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the policies in place to promote the concept of young persons who are given a site by their parents or other family members being encouraged and supported to live in that rural area; the way in which this policy would be impacted by the introduction of an 18% cap on rural housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23057/21]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The National Planning Framework (NPF) is the national planning policy document providing overall strategic policy for the future development of Ireland. The NPF fully supports the concept of the sustainable development of rural areas and the need to ensure their continued function as places to live, work and invest in. The NPF seeks to encourage their growth and to arrest the decline of areas that have experienced low population growth in recent years.

Importantly, National Planning Objective (NPO) 19 of the NPF aims to ensure that a policy distinction is made between areas experiencing significant overspill development pressure from urban areas, particularly within the commuter catchment of cities, towns and centres of employment, on the one hand, and other remoter and weaker rural areas where population levels may be low and or declining, on the other. NPO 19 is also aligned with the established approach whereby considerations of social (intrinsic part of the community) or economic (persons working full or part time) need may be applied by planning authorities in rural areas under urban influence.

The 2005 Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines were issued under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, and are available on the Government’s website at the following link: . My Department communicated to planning authorities (Circular letter PL 2/2017) on 31 May 2017, advising that the existing 2005 Guidelines remain in place until advised otherwise by the Department and this remains valid.

It is noteworthy that there is strong delivery of new homes in rural areas nationally in recent years – with more than 25,000 rural house planning permissions granted in last 5 years. In the same period, more than 90% of that number of rural homes were built, comprising around one in three houses completed in Ireland between 2016 and 2020.

Updated Rural Housing Planning Guidelines are currently being prepared that will continue to allow for the development of homes in rural areas while also highlighting the need to manage certain areas around cities and towns in order to avoid over-development of those areas. I expect to receive an initial draft guidelines document in the coming weeks. Given the complexity of the issues involved, the need for environmental assessment and both internal and external consultation, I expect final updated guidelines to be available later in 2021.

In the interim, the NPF objectives together with the 2005 Guidelines, enable planning authorities to continue to draft and adopt county development plan policies for one-off housing in rural areas. Under these 2005 Guidelines, planning authorities are required to frame the planning policies in their development plans in a balanced and measured way that ensures the housing needs of rural communities are met, while avoiding excessive urban-generated housing.

As a statutory requirement, a development plan must be formulated to be consistent with national planning policy, legislative requirements and relevant Ministerial Guidelines. In this regard, the plan must include a core strategy, under Section 10(1A) of the Planning and Development Act, which provides details of the projected population and housing both within and in rural areas outside of settlements within the area of the planning authority. In this regard, an estimate of housing in rural areas outside of town, village or other settlements is required as part of the development plan process. This is not a ‘cap’ on rural housing.

The making of a development plan, and the policies therein, is a reserved function of the elected members of a county or city council. Local elected representatives therefore must consider how best to provide for housing needs for all types of accommodation in their area and prepare appropriate policies to meet that need in their development plan.