Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2021-11-16
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Fintan Warfield (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

I move amendment No. 38:
In page 16, line 18, to delete “16 weeks” and substitute “8 weeks”.
I know it is late. I did not expect us to get to this point. This amendment deals with a big part of what we discussed on Second Stage in terms of the transitional arrangements. The strategic housing development, SHD, scheme was obviously due to expire in December of this year but now it looks as if we will, in reality, be living with the SHD legislation until June 2022 and beyond. Legal action may take that well into October or late 2022. This is a proposal to reduce the length of time that the SHD transition period remains in situ after the SHD legislation has been replaced. Our amendment halves the amount of time developers have to progress through the different planning stages once they have submitted a planning application under the old SHD process. For applications already in the pre-planning process, if they get approval to proceed to full planning before 17 December, when the replacement legislation is due to be enacted, developers will have until April to apply.
For applications not yet in pre-planning but for which developers submit pre-planning applications before 17 December, they will now have until June 2022 to get their applications in. That allows for a nine-week An Bord Pleanála pre-planning process and, if successful, a 16-week full planning timeline, bringing us into June 2022. That means it is feasible that SHD applications would continue to be decided upon until October 2022. Our alternative under amendment No. 39 is that if the board approves a pre-planning application, the applicant should be redirected into the large-scale residential development process. I would welcome the Minister responding on this issue. I hope we will not be living with this legislation, with legal reviews, well into October or late 2022.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-11-16