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The Housing Department is drafting legislation for a “use it or lose it” provision that would prevent developers from accumulating planning permits, officials told an Oireachtas committee.
Construction has started with less than 30 percent of the fast-track planning permits granted under the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process, Terry Sheridan, senior officer for the department’s planning policy and legislation section, said at the housing committee.
Under the SHD process, applications for large-scale housing and student accommodation developments are sent directly to An Bord Pleanála and not to local authorities. The system was introduced in 2017 to speed up the home delivery process.
However, Sheridan said that as of the end of September “47 of the 163 SHD permits issued to date, approximately 29 percent had been activated at that time.”
The program for the government promised to eliminate the SHD process by the end of next year, although it has now been extended until February 2022 due to planning delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although the system was being terminated, Sheridan said the department was drafting legislation for the “use it or lose it” provision, recommended by an SHD review group last year, that would see planning permits expire if they were not used. in a timely manner.
The provision would apply not only to SHD permits, but “more generally to housing developments in the future,” he said.
The primary purpose of the SHD agreements was to significantly speed up the planning decision-making process for large housing developments. Mr. Sheridan said the department wanted to “ensure the positive elements” of the SHD process, “in terms of timelines and greater certainty for developers can be properly retained.”
The department wanted to “present the best elements” of the process, including pre-application consultations with developers.
Rachel Kenny, director of planning operations at An Bord Pleanála, said that about 50 percent of SHD developments granted permission in 2018 and 2019 had been “activated.” Some schemes were before the courts due to judicial review procedures, and recently allowed developments may not have started to work yet “so 70 percent is not entirely thoughtful or fair,” he said.
Evaluating appeals and objections to housing developments made up the bulk of the board’s work, whether they were SHD schemes or smaller developments, he said.
“For whatever reason, as a society, we have a concern and a concern and an opposition to housing, no matter who decides.”
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