From Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
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The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, has welcomed the passing of all stages in both Houses of the Oireachtas of the Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021. The legislation replaces Strategic Housing Developments (SHD) with a new planning process for Large Scale Residential Developments (LRDs) and restores planning decision-making to local authorities.
The Bill provides greater transparency and clarity and improved public participation in the process. It continues to expedite the delivery of housing supply while also providing certainty and stability to the construction sector by retaining some of the positive elements of the SHD arrangements such as mandatory pre-application consultation, quality of applications submitted and decision timelines.
The Bill, which delivers on commitments in both Housing for All and the Programme for Government, will now be presented to the President for signature.
The legislation also requires local authorities to ensure home ownership as a tenure type is provided for and estimated in their Housing Strategies. It gives legislative effect to the provisions of Section 28 Guidelines for Planning Authorities ‘Regulation of Commercial Institutional Investment in Housing’, issued in May 2021. The guidelines are aimed at ensuring new houses and duplex units in housing developments are not bulk-purchased by commercial institutional investors.
This change is also a commitment in Housing for All.
Welcoming the passing of all stages of the Bill in both Houses of the Oireachtas, Minister O’Brien said:
“These are very important changes which restore the primary decision-making function to local authorities, while retaining some of the positive elements of the Strategic Housing Development arrangements such as mandatory pre-application consultation, quality of applications submitted and decision timelines".
“At the same time, the Large-Scale Residential Developments arrangements will also allow for enhanced public participation through the restoration of the appeal mechanism to the Board.”
Minister O’Brien added:
“The mandatory timelines for the three stages of the Large-Scale Residential Developments planning process will streamline the overall decision-making process, thereby providing greater clarity to developers regarding timelines and the public regarding future housing opportunities.”
“My Department’s Housing for All plan recognises that the planning system must be reformed to ensure that there is certainty and stability for those providing housing in Ireland. The introduction of these new permanent streamlined arrangements for developments of this scale will provide the necessary stability and assist in getting new developments off the ground,” concluded Minister O’Brien.
ENDS
Note for Editors:
Further information on The Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021.
The Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 provides for a number of transitional arrangements in relation to the expiry of the SHD arrangements and their replacement by the new LRD arrangements. Following enactment of the LRD Bill, the LRD and SHD planning consent schemes will both operate concurrently for a limited period, with developers already in the SHD system being able to continue to decision-making stage. Once the final SHD planning applications have worked their way through the system, the LRD arrangements will be the sole planning consent system for housing applications of this scale.
The definition of LRD is largely similar to SHD, i.e. developments of 100 housing units or more, or student accommodation developments comprising 200 bed spaces or more, or a combination of same. An LRD is:
The new LRD arrangements will involve three stages:
Owner-occupier guarantee
The proportion of home ownership will be calculated by each local authority using the Housing Need and Demand Assessment, which projects future need of housing by tenure type. Projections are based on incomes, house prices and rents, structural demand for housing, existing need and projections for how these indicators will evolve over the coming years.