Brian Stanley: Registration chaos and shoebox apartments

Thanks Ciann Comhairle and welcome to the opportunity to speak on this important bill. Minister can I just join with my previous colleague, previous speaker, Deputy Nolan in relation to Táil Éireann. The email that we're given, you've often heard us saying you're from a country area like me so you'll know you've heard this one, plain handball against a haystack, that's what it's like. You know, it's just simply that system is not working with registration. I have cases, the same as other deputies will have, in terms of delays in registration and I'd like you to take note of this and officials. There's a real problem, a case of a young farmer who has to change the plot of land that a farmhouse is on for the last 200 years. It's in the name of an old landlord title, right, and that landlord is long, long, long gone and has to be changed into their family name. He farms the land around it, the farm is his, a 90 acre farm, but he has to live in a town eight miles away, Ciann Comhairle, he's living in private rented accommodation with his young family, he's a young, active, progressive farmer and the delays and the delays and the delays and solicitors are even on to us saying can we do anything about it and something has to be done and I'll give you this example. I had cases back ten years ago, if I had a case in Leash where there was difficulty with registration and I needed to contact the Land Registry, I would phone up Cork, Lord Waterford, Ciann Comhairle, I would ask to be put through to the Leash section, the phone was always answered, which was fantastic, and I would give them the folio number and if they weren't able to solve the issue there and then, they would come back to me within 24 hours. It never failed and there had to be no, you know, they really done their best and okay, there is procedures that have to go through, there's notification of interested parties or parties that may have an interest in property, I understand all of that, but this email system is playing handball against Haystacks, that's what it's like and I would really ask the Minister here and the officials for somebody, because I think it comes under this department, it comes under local government and housing as far as I know and somebody needs to sort it. Just in relation to the bill, could I just say that the, in relation to, there's some good things in it, right, the judicial reviews areas, of course there's concerns, there has been concerns about that and, you know, it has to be, you can't have a situation where a project is delayed unnecessarily, particularly by people who are not affected by it and people who may be objecting for other reasons, but I defend the right of affected parties, people who own an adjoining property who may not live in the area, but particularly people who live in an area, to still have as a place of last resort, to have the option of a judicial review, but I do support tightening up that and ensuring that it doesn't unduly delay projects that are badly needed. The issue of key towns, the spirit of it is good, it's common sense in relation to key towns, again obviously we don't want to see other, and I'll come back to this before I'm finished in relation to smaller towns and villages, you know, we don't want to see the smaller towns and villages suffering as a consequence of that, but if we're going to designate them as key towns, they must have essential services, must have jobs, they must have health services, education, school places and sports and leisure facilities, you know, it has to be, it can't be just a series of houses and estates dropped in fields around the edges of towns and that needs to, that's very important. The county development plan process, Minister, you know people are, some deputies have said, you know, to welcome the certainty, and I certainly, I definitely wouldn't want to be delaying these things too long, but I have concerns about the duration, the ten year duration, I was on council for the makings of a couple of county development plans, the one problem I see with this, one problem, and it could be an unintended consequence, is that you will finish up with county development plans, you'll have variations of them, you'll have variations, and you'll have material contraventions which can be done within the period of county development plans, while waiting for a new one, and I've been there for those, and Leish County Council, for example, two weeks ago, they carried out a variation, and I have the new plan across in the office, it's as big as the, the variation is as big as the plan was itself, so what I'm saying is, it's effectively a new plan, and this is something that, you know, that you need to take on board, that the other thing is, is the role of the councillors, and I note in the briefing note from the department, that about the engagements, who the engagements were with, the department engaged with and Minister engaged with City and County Manager's Association, fair enough, Planning and Environmental and Local Government Bar Association, that's RA2, the Planning Institute, and the Construction Federation, but Cian Corridor, there was no engagement with councillors, there was no engagement with the representative body of local government, you know, why wasn't the Association of Irish Local Government contacted, the Local Authority Members Association, they weren't contacted, you know, year after year, issue after issue in here, piece of legislation after legislation, that it had something to do with local government, they've never been, I remember raising this kind of nonsense with Phil Hogan, when he was the Minister, 15 years ago, the councillors were forgotten about, no one thought, no one thought it fit, either at senior political level in government, or senior officials, to speak to councillors, certainly that's what it says here, in the briefing note, and that's an omission, that's an omission, and that's the other concern I have about the 10 year, I see the need for certainty, you know, it's a six year process at the moment, fair enough, maybe go to seven or eight, 10 years is a lot, it's a long time, and you're going to finish up with, I predict, an unintended consequence here, of material contraventions of the plan, having to be brought before the councils on a regular basis, and variations, and the variation made in Leash is a positive one, I have to say that, you know, it's needed, your department and the government requested it, and the councillors obliged, and the management obliged, and I think the councillors got it fairly right, they put a lot of work into it, and the planners, so I'm just saying that, highlighting that here, the apartment sizes, what are we going to do, are we going to keep going until we have people living in shoeboxes, you know, 32 square metres, I measured it over in the office, before I came across what it would mean in the office, it's part of my office, part of my office is 32 square metres, my office in Elster House, that's, it's lunacy, and it's really unfair, and I know the developers want it, I know the construction federation will be, you know, have been hammering down your doors for a few years to try and extract more profits, and I'm not sure that it has led to, I know you'll say, oh there's a lot more apartments being built now, but there are a whole lot of other reasons for that, and we all know them, you know, it means more profit, less space, and the position of renters and people trying to buy their first home is diminished, 32 square metres, I mean that's awful, and 76 square metres for a three bedroom accommodation, 76 square metres, has anyone here ever lived in a house with 70, 76 square metres? I lived in one that was 57 square metres, you know, it's very, very small, the last house I lived in was 57 square metres, but like 30, 32 square metres, and that was a two bedroomed house, but this is saying a three bedroomed house, 76 square metres, that's awful, and it's, you know, it's not fair to people, and we have to start thinking about quality of life, you know, profit has won out here in this country over everything else. Can I just say in relation to the rural planning guidelines, in general I welcome, you know, what's been announced this week in relation to the, what's been announced by the Minister, we don't have all the details yet, but based on what I've seen, just, we want to be careful though that we don't wind up with scatters of housing all over the place, people who genuinely need to live in a rural area, you know, for work reasons or have a family connection, you know, that should be allowed, subject to other considerations such as environmental and planning regulations, etc. Leish County Council has been operating fairly near to that model over the years. However, it's a missed opportunity, now maybe you'll tell me you'll come back to this again. If we want rural development done properly, we have to build up, we have to also build up, along with the changes in the guidelines, and as I said, we need to be careful, we don't want, you know, we don't want turbocharged bungalow blitz, we do want to facilitate those people who genuinely need to live in a rural area, but if we want to really do rural development properly, we must build up and consolidate the cores of our villages. If we want to create and strengthen rural communities, then we must have living villages, and you will know, Minister, in your constituency, the same as in mine, there's a lot of villages that are not living, you know, the shop is slow, the post office is gone, and the petrol station, the service station is gone, the garage station is gone, and all of that, right? But we'll have to, we'll, we have to see, if we want rural area to have a significant role, and we must see this as, well, in terms of addressing the housing crisis, we must have strong village structures. That has to be part of and central to any housing policy, and I support genuine efforts to increase the, you know, to speed up the delivery of housing and to facilitate more housing. There's too many of our villages have been hollowed out due to a lack of new housing and opportunities to live in them, and, you know, there's huge benefits to living in a rural area and living in a rural village. You can walk to school, you can walk to the local pub, to church, to sports field. In nearly all of them now, there's a, in nearly all of them now, there's a bus link, Minister, and that's important. So, you know, if we consolidate the cores and get people living in them, we can get people, so people, children can walk to school, people can walk to the local shop, pub, church, sports field, and, as I said, most of them now have a bus service as well, at least a limited bus service. It reduces the need to always have to use a car. You have neighbours and family support often nearby. If you need home help services when you get elderly, it's easier to have it in villages than it is out on, way out in the countryside, and, importantly, you have access to utilities, which are also, of course, reducing your carbon footprint, which we're all concerned about, and, you know, one-off housing doesn't have that. I'm not saying that, I'm not against one-off housing. Just before you came back in, Minister, I said that, in general, I support what you've done, what you're doing in relation to the policy, you know, for those who genuinely need to live in a rural area, but we do need to be careful not to cover the whole place with unnecessary rural housing. I'm arguing here instead for the consolidated cores of villages, but this needs the councils to zone land close to the centre of villages and not leapfrogging. There's too many examples where there has been leapfrogging over the years, where there's been 10 fields missed and then half a mile out the road, the next thing you see a new housing estate with no footpath, no public lighting, long distance to connect up sewers. It's expensive to do it and the car is used still to get to the local shop, and that's not the way we should be doing it. It should be in close to the centre of the village. And it means, so it means zoning land, you know, for private and public housing in close to the villages. It means local authorities building small groups where needed of social housing, and there's some good examples of that. We need more of them. And I would suggest here, one of the things we should do is for councils to develop service sites, and there's a couple of good examples in Leash. Castletown is one of them, Balliron is the other, where sites, you know, roughly a fifth or a quarter of an acre on the edges of the village, in and out of the village itself, they're sold at cost price to people in the area who want to build their own modest house and have a reasonable sized garden. And you know yourself that a lot of people in rural areas, they might be self-employed, so they might have a van and a trailer, they might have a JCB or something like that. You can't bring that into a housing estate, but if you have a, if you're living on the edge of a village and you have a quarter of an acre of a site, well then problem solved, right? It just fits in with people, with the lifestyle. And I'd ask you to take the example of Balliron, right, in County Leash. Balliron has 10 service sites developed by the council. When we zoned the lands there in 2006, there was the Crossing New Town, Glenbrook Estate, and Glennau Glasham, which is a council estate, have all been developed there, along with, along with the 10 council service sites. Everything is, everything was in within three or four minutes of walking distance to the school, to the church, to the pubs, all of which are going, the GAA, soccer club, in the village. And the other day there was a fantastic new playground opened. And that's the type of, that's the type of development we need to see. That village, and I can show you villages that, where that hasn't happened, and the whole village is hollowed out. So a lot of the villages need, need a small wastewater treatment system, or what they have upgraded a bit, and some of that will come by way of development levies. Some of it won't, some of it will need funding. But my point is, is that it's one way of doing it. And I would argue that, you know, that if we're serious about this rural development, along with making it possible for people who have to live in a rural area to build a one-off, we have to, we have to build up our villages and connect them via, with public transport. A start has been made. That's all working well. But there's more work to do there. And every county has a network of villages. I believe that would help us to solve the housing crisis as well. The vacant homes grant, in general, it's working, you know, I accept that. It's working reasonably well. And, you know, we're not getting too many complaints. That's how I know it's going all right. If it wasn't working well, you know, people would be complaining about it. But in general, it's working and it's getting houses, some in rural areas, back into use and in the villages as well. I mentioned, while you were out, I know you had to pop out for a minute, that in relation to Tallachie, you know, what previous speaker said, you know, I have an outline of the case that I have. It's, I use the term, it's like playing handball against a haystack. And I'm telling you, it's absolutely frustrating. And you were a Waterford TD. And we said 10 years ago, if I had a problem with a registration of a property and a constituent was getting overweight, an order solicitor would contact you and say, can you do anything about this? I would ring the land registry in your constituency, Cork Road, Waterford. I'd ask to be put through to the leash section. Someone would answer the phone, if not the first time, again, an hour later, and they would address your problem immediately. And, you know, they were very, very helpful. Now we have an email address and you might as well be, I won't say it in the chamber. But the point I'm making is that anyway. So look, there's some good things in it, in the, in the bill, the judicial review thing, but just people who are living in the locality, we need to be careful with them. The apartment sizes is the one I have a real problem with, I have a real problem with that. 32 square metres. I measure that internally in my office up there before I come across what that means. You know, it's tiny, 32 square metres. You know, it's not fair to ask people to live in that. And I mean a three bedroom accommodation, three bedrooms, 76 metres. That's awful. You know, we need to start thinking about people's quality of life. And at the same time doing away with the common, with the common spaces. You know, we can't have it everywhere. There's no storage going to be in them. There's no common area. And yet we're going to be confined in a three bedroom, a family in this three bedroom in 76 square metres. That's not, that's not good enough. And that's the piece I have a problem with. And I do think that, you know, everybody's got their way there, CFI and everyone else. But the, and the investors and the developers, but tenants and buyers, purchasers, uh, who are paying big mortgages and paying people, paying high rents. They're the ones, the ones that are so for a minister. Uh, thanks. Thank you deputy.