John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

53. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the work his Department is doing to ensure that there is no net decrease in land supply from rezoning by local authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53284/25]

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Revised National Planning Framework (NPF) was finalised and approved by Government and the Oireachtas in April 2025. The Revised NPF identifies the need to plan for approximately 50,000 additional households per annum to 2040.

The Revised NPF provides the basis for the review and updating of Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) and local authority development plans to reflect such critical matters such as updated housing figures or projected jobs growth, including through the zoning of land for residential, employment and a range of other purposes.

To ensure that local authority development plans reflect the requirements of the NPF in respect of housing as soon as possible, I issued the NPF Implementation: Housing Growth Requirements Guidelines under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in July 2025. These Guidelines set out the housing demand scenario to 2040 for each local authority, by translating the NPF housing requirements into average annual figures and set out the requirement for planning authorities to commence the process of varying their development plan to meet the new housing growth requirements.

In addition to the baseline housing growth requirement, planning authorities have also been requested to address the scope for additional provision of up to 50% in excess of the baseline housing growth requirement, in light of the urgent need to increase housing delivery and to optimise the ability to deliver on the housing requirements of the Revised NPF. This approach recognises the fact that, for a variety of reasons, a relatively significant proportion of zoned lands are not activated over the period of a development plan.

Planning authorities are currently assessing their current development plan and undertaking a review of the adequacy of existing zoned lands to cater for the new Housing Growth Requirement figures and the potential for ‘additional provision’.

The zoning of land for particular purposes, including housing, is an exercise undertaken by planning authorities as part of their overall statutory plan function generally as part of a development plan under sections 9 to 13 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 (as amended), but can at present also be carried out as part of a local area plan (LAP) process. The making of a development plan or an LAP is a reserved function of the elected members of each authority.

The Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT) was introduced in the Finance Act in 2021 and applies to land zoned for residential development, or for mixed use purposes including residential development and which is ‘vacant or idle’, which also has the necessary services in place to support the development of housing. The aim of this tax is to increase the supply of land for building by activating land which has been zoned in a statutory land use plan adopted by a local authority and which is serviced.

Provision was made in the Finance Act in 2024 for landowners to request the relevant local authority to change the zoning of their land, where the land appears on the RZLT annual final map published on 31st January 2025. Under Section 653I(1)(c) of Part 22A of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 the request must have been made between 1 February and 1 April 2025 to the relevant local authority. Subject to certain conditions, upon making the request, the landowner could seek an exemption from the tax for 2025 from the Revenue Commissioners.

Ministerial Planning Guidelines were issued in December 2024 to assist local authorities in considering rezoning requests where the landowner wishes to continue an existing economic activity. The Guidelines set out that where the landowner is carrying on an ongoing economic activity, and has not applied for planning permission for residential development or other uses which are not aligned with the ongoing economic activity, then their request should be facilitated.

Approximately 200 rezoning requests relating to c.280ha of land were received by 29 Local Authorities. 49 rezoning requests are being facilitated by local authorities through variation to their development plans.

Planning authorities are now also required to have regard to the further Ministerial Guidelines issued in July 2025 setting out the Housing Growth Requirements, referred to above, that are required to be incorporated into development plans.