Plans for major planning law reforms inf lame tensions between FG and Greens
TENSIONS are rising between Fine Gael and the Greens over Minister of State Peter Burke’s plans to significantly reform planning laws by the end of the year.
The Fine Gael TD was appointed to chair the Government’s Planning Advisory Forum after a series of controversies.
He leads the Government’s drive to speed up the planning process and make it more difficult for legal challenges to halt housing and other developments.
Housing Department officials have started a review that will see several different laws brought together in one planning
Act.
Mr Burke is pushing for the review to be completed before the end of the year.
The Irish Mail on Sunday has learned the first stage of reform will occur in July. The Bill is currently at committee stage before the Seanad.
Moves to speed up the reforms come amid growing frustration within Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over planning delays.
There is concern within the department over the large number of judicial reviews of permissions, which one internal document seen by the MoS says ‘are generating significant uncertainty… and have led to the direct loss of permissions’.
There is particular concern over the 74 judicial review cases that have been taken against Strategic Housing Developments – designed to fast-track large developments – since 2017, which delayed construction of 23,775 homes. Mr Burke said: ‘The State has an unprecedented €165bn to deliver in public infrastructure over the next decade and it needs to be assured the Planning and Development Act is tested to ensure it can deliver that investment, otherwise communities will suffer.
‘We need to ensure legal challenges to the planning code are adjudicated on efficiently and not held up for years on end which causes uncertainty.’
Mr Burke’s plans are understood to have backing from Fianna Fáil, whose influential backbencher TD Barry Cowen has introduced legislation to put a 12-week limit for An Bord Pleanála to consider applications and appeals to ensure it ‘doesn’t unduly delay’ decisions on infrastructural projects.
One of reforms said to be attracting the ire of the Greens is a plan to
‘revise the criteria of environmental NGOs to take judicial review proceedings and avail of the special cost rules’.
Sources indicated Mr Burke intends to revise the rules for judicial reviews and introduce cost capping.
Under this proposal, An Bord Pleanála can recover some of its legal costs from an applicant who loses a judicial review challenge.