Sinn Féin claims minister to blame for threat to planning permission for thousands of homes

A “mishandling” of the winding down of the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) planning process and a “failure to adequately resource” An Bord Pleanála has led to a threat to the planning permissions for thousands of homes, Sinn Féin has said.

The party’s housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin made the accusation against Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien after it was reported that planning permissions for up to 27,000 homes could be at risk.

A “legal problem” has arisen in relation to SHD applications which calls into question whether An Bord Pleanála will be able to grant permission for up to 77 large housing projects, said a report in the Business Post.

The potential problems emerge in instances where changes have been made to local authority development plans in the time since the SHD applications were first submitted amid delays in decisions on the applications.

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[ ‘Very strong’ new rules at An Bord Pleanála to avoid conflicts of interest ]

In such scenarios developers would have to reapply for planning permission.

An Bord Pleanála interim chairwoman Oonagh Buckley said: “There could well be circumstances where we have no choice but to refuse permission in those circumstances legally.”

An Bord Pleanála told the Business Post it is not possible at this stage to determine how many applications will be affected by the possible legal difficulty and it will depend on analysis of individual SHD applications in relation to revised county development plans as well as legal advice.

Mr Ó Broin told The Irish Times that the situation is “not surprising” and blamed a “badly designed transitional mechanism” for getting rid of the SHD planning process.

He said this “led to a dramatic increase in the number of large-scale residential applications at the end of 2021″ at a time when An Bord Pleanála did not have the staff to cope with that increased workload.

He accused Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien of “mishandling” of the winding down of the SHD process and a “failure to adequately resource the Board”.

A spokeswoman for Mr O’Brien defended the resourcing of An Bord Pleanála saying 59 new posts had recently been approved “bringing the total of number of new posts since 2021 to 117 ... to be in place by late 2023”. She also said An Bord Pleanála’s funding allocation of €26.9 million for 2023 is a €4.7 million increase on the previous year.

The spokeswoman said that county development plans “are a direct function of local authorities and their elected representatives and the minister is precluded from becoming involved in them”.

She said: “An Bord Pleanála have worked hard and directed efforts to address the SHD applications in local authority areas where the County Development Plan changed recently or are shortly due to change.”

On the Government’s 2021 plan for ending and replacing the SHD scheme – which restored decision making to local authorities – she suggested Mr Ó Broin “welcomed the legislation at the time”.

Mr Ó Broin later said he welcomed the end of the SHD process but “heavily criticised” the transitional arrangements in the legislation.

Separately the Coalition leaders are due to meet on Monday evening to discuss a number of proposals aimed at ramping up the delivery of housing and restoring vacant homes to use.

The proposals include reductions to the residential development levies charged by local authorities.

More generous grants under the Croí Cónaithe grant scheme of as much as €20,000 more for refurbishing vacant or derelict properties – bringing them up to €50,000 and €70,000 respectively – are also under consideration though the scale of the increase has not yet been agreed.

The scheme would also be expanded to allow for properties built up to 2007. Previously it was limited to properties build pre-1993.

The Irish Times understands proposals are also under consideration for a possible subvention of up to €150,000 per-property to encourage the delivery of homes in stalled developments that already have planning permission.

It would be linked to the delivery of cost-rental homes where the rent is below the market rate.