Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party)
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288. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the timeline for winding up the strategic housing development application; and the final date a decision on a strategic housing development application will be made by An Bord Pleanála. [57341/21]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 288 and 292 together.

TheProgramme for Government - Our Shared Futurecommits to not extending the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) arrangements beyond their legislative expiry date of end December 2021, which has now been extended to 25 February 2022 arising from the Covid-related extension of statutory deadlines within the planning system by 8 weeks in respect of the period March to May 2020.

My Department has finalised the drafting the Planning and Development (Large-scale Residential Development - LRD) Bill 2021 in consultation with the Office of the Attorney General. The Bill proposes the replacement of the SHD provisions with new LRD provisions, which will have the potential to be almost as time-efficient as the SHD arrangements but will also return the primary decision-making function to the local level, with associated gains in terms of public participation in the decision-making process.

Government approval for the publication of the LRD Bill was granted on 4 November 2021. The Bill is currently being progressed through the Houses of the Oireachtas with a view to enactment during the current Oireachtas session.

The Bill as published proposes a number of transitional arrangements in relation to the expiry of the SHD arrangements and their replacement by the new LRD arrangements. Under the proposals

- developers with projects already in the SHD system and in receipt of an opinion on their proposals from An Bord Pleanála (the Board) on the commencement of the Act will have 16 weeks to submit an SHD application to the Board from that date;

- developers who have just commenced SHD pre-application consultations with the Board, and areawaiting an opinion on their proposals on the commencement of the Act, will have 16 weeks to submit an SHD application from the date of receipt of the pre-application consultation opinion from the Board.

In both of these scenarios, the Board will then have a further 16 weeks to make a determination on the application. These are standard transitional arrangements, which generally apply when changing over from one system or process to another.

Pending the enactment of the Bill and the making of supplementary LRD regulations, the existing SHD arrangements remain in force. In effect, SHD pre-application consultation requests and SHD planning applications may continue to be made to the Board for the time being until the LRD Bill is enacted and the supplementary LRD regulations are in place.

In this regard, Circular Letter PL 10-2021 issued to planning authorities, including An Bord Pleanala, on 22 October 2021, indicated that it is intended that, subject to Oireachtas approval and Presidential signature of the Bill, the SHD system will transition from 17 December 2021 and be replaced by the new LRD planning regime.

Planning authorities will be notified by further Circular Letter when the necessary legislation is in place and the coming into effect of the new LRD arrangements.