Housing delivery needs less red tape and more red carpet in the planning process

WITH housing demand greatly outstripping supply, it is difficult to reconcile the fact that one of the principal purposes of the Planning and Development Acts is to facilitate residential development. The reality is that provision of housing is characterised more by red tape than red carpet.

The recent announcement of a major new town on a site of 280 hectares at Clonburris in south Dublin as a Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), while very welcome, is tempered by the fact that the then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern first designated 180 hectares of the lands in July 2006.

A review of Ireland’s 10 SDZs designated to date demonstrates an average 38-month delay from Government designation to approval by An Bord Pleanála, with further delay to the start of building. No significant house-building has occurred at Clonburris in the intervening 11 years, despite it being promoted for fast-track development.

Delivery wasn’t always so slow. Construction of the first phase of the IFSC in the Docklands commenced within 15 months of the establishment of the Custom House Docks Development Authority in the late 1980s.

The Government’s 2016 Rebuilding Ireland plan to increase housing delivery and tackle homelessness sets out a suite of positive and ambitious targets, but it will only succeed if the barriers to delivery are tackled. There are three: viability, certainty, and administration.

You won’t find the word ‘viability’ in the Planning and Development Acts and, unlike in the UK, there is no onus for planning authorities to consider viability in the preparation and adoption of development plans. On the issue of certainty, the Government’s recent Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund initiative attracted bid projects totalling over €800m from 21 local authorities, each vying for some of the €226m available to fund the cost of infrastructure to secure the early delivery of additional affordable housing.

But such a structure forces local authorities into a ‘Dragons’ Den’-type scenario – making pitches and facing rejection. Australia has a single infrastructure authority. Infrastructure Australia publishes an annual list of the top 100 infrastructure projects for which a full business case has been positively assessed. Why can’t Ireland?

Having 31 local authorities for a population of 4.78 million people is cited as positive local democracy. But why are Ireland’s authorities not mandated to pool their expertise to agree a single list of financial contributions payable on the procurement of planning permission?

Rebuilding Ireland commits to implementation of a root-and-branch review of the planning system. One item that needs to be addressed is the introduction of time limits in which planning authorities must reply to developers who submit compliance material, or details – such as the name of the estate – provided by a developer to the council for approval before development begins. Developers are at the mercy of the planning authority to respond.

Any delay has knock-on effects for other bodies such as the ESB, which will not connect the scheme until the estate is officially named.

Many of the planningreform initiatives recently begun increase the role of An Bord Pleanála, which must be adequately resourced. The number of board members was recently depleted from nine to four before being restored to its full complement. Such reductions affect timescales, lead to uncertainty and affect viability.

Tackling the perennial problem of housing supply demands not only a whole-ofgovernment approach, but also public/private sector collaboration and buy-in.