New bill aims to introduce 10-year county development plans
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The timeframe for county development plans is to be extended from every six years to every 10 years as part of Ireland's overhaul of planning legislation.
The Attorney General will next week bring a consolidated Planning Bill to Cabinet, aimed at drastically overhauling Ireland's planning regime. Part of that work will be to change the length of time over which counties set out their development plans.
At present, plans allow authorities to set out their aims for use for particular areas or the county for six years, with a review halfway through.
However, it is now understood that planners and councils have said that with the mid-term review, the plans are constantly at risk of being changed and not working.
The new plan will include a mid-point review after five years and not three, ensuring councillors will have a say during their five-year elected term.
Sources said that the new bill will also address lengthy planning processes by introducing some form of time limits for how long an application should take when going through the planning process.
It is understood that the bill will also focus on changing the scope and nature of embattled planning regulator An Bord Pleanála.
Meanwhile, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien has moved to head off any tensions in the Coalition about the impacts of the bill on the access of members of the public to legal challenges to planning applications. Part of the proposals will see a test introduced for large projects wherein a member of the public would have to prove that they are materially impacted by the development.
Some in the Green Party have bristled at the idea, with Steven Matthews, the chairman of the Oireachtas housing committee, telling the that while he could not comment on the bill because he has not seen it, Ireland is a signatory to the Aarhus Convention which protects people’s access to justice on environmental issues.
Speaking on Monday, Mr O'Brien told RTÉ's that the bill will be the first such bill since the year 2000 and will speed up the delivery of new homes.
However, Mr O'Brien rejected the idea that either this bill or an amendment to the Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2022 due before the Seanad this week will mean that access to either judicial review or environmental studies will be curtailed.
"Let me be very clear — there was an article written in one of the newspapers last week that said [that this would be done]," he said.
"But we have to fully respect the need to protect our biodiversity and reverse the trends that we've seen over the recent decades and I'm very, very serious on that."