Victor Boyhan: Rejects 'Boxes' in New Apartment Planning Bill

what they originally got their planning for without having any submissions allowed into it because it's an alteration and to flip it the other way imagine if the wind energy guidelines were released tomorrow and it shows that the wind turbines that were put up for the last two or three years were actually too high compared to what we are now saying they should be. I can't imagine any developer is going to say we'll look for an alteration and we'll make the turbines smaller so we don't agree with we've been able to, if you have your planning permission, be able to go back in time and get an alteration to use the new plans. Thank you. This is perhaps the most difficult, this and the judicial reviews are the two biggest concerns in this legislation for me and there were in 2024 but this particularly is coming to focus in this legislation. So I suppose at the very outset I suppose I'm conscious again, city and county councillors are the people that ultimately confirm or make a county or city development plan and you you will be aware they put a lot of time into that now we're moving that of course the proposal is to move this to a five to a ten year plan and I understand all of the processes and I'm conscious that we're making legislation here and it was interesting for those who didn't read the Gazette, the law Gazette produced by the Bar Council, there was a very interesting article and it was sent to everyone today in relation to Jim O'Callaghan and I thought he made a really really good point and this could be a general application for anything but he talked about the legislature and of course when we legislate we, and it's passed, we empower the executive who then decides to proceed with an element of the legislation or not but in terms then that becomes relevant then when you're talking about judicial review because what we as a legislature have done we have given a legislative effect the three strands of the legislature of course being the Dáil, the Seannaise and Uachtarán na hÉireann and when all that's gone through that process that then becomes law and then when people link into judicial reviews like in relation to this particular aspect of the bill of course the courts have to have regard to what the legislature intended and I'm not too sure if the legislature, some people in the legislature really know what they intended and things fall out of legislation that we don't you know always envisage is going to be the case so I think that's an important point. I suppose it's also important point, I'm not going to stray into this area, there is legal proceedings in relation to these matters and you will know that a number of councillors have put the money where their mouth is and this legislate, this is now before the courts in Europe and there was of course you had a consultation process, the difference between a statutory and non-statutory consultation process is another issue and another difficulty with a lot of legislation but particularly around the planning and development sector but my concerns really are and as are other people's concerns, I spoke to a number of City and County Councils who over the last year or two have really strongly articulated their concerns in relation to this legislation. These be individual, they'll be party members but ultimately they're within councils. They've argued and their concerns relate to the concerns about the apartment design standards and there seems to be no reflection or tweaking for what's relevant to a particular given planning authority. We have 31 planning areas as you know Minister, authorities. Building height is a concern, the layout, the apartment mixes. What are we about? We're about creating sustainable, livable, healthy communities. So why have we a difficulty in having three and four bedroom apartment units? I mean with the Canadian ambassador in here earlier on and I was telling him when I was in Ontario that friends of mine had a four-bedroom place. I mean like we're not used to the model that is across Europe and across other places and there are people that may choose to live a downsized two or three bedroom unit and free up a five bedroom unit. That's the reality of it. So we have a problem there about the layout and I know some councillors and local authorities have been told no we've got to mass-produce and pump out one bedroom studios. Studios are one bedrooms but people don't really live in isolation. Most people and most people don't want to live in isolation and they certainly want people to be able to come and stay at some point in their tenure in a particular property. So we need flexibility. So that's an issue. The apartment mixes. This is not providing for the sort of sustainable, attractive mixes that are required and the mixed demographic, the mixed age is all so important when we're developing community. Issues and concerns about the apartment floor areas. I mean there are offices in Leinster House that are bigger than some of these proposed one-bedroom units. That's the reality of it. Whether you like, well you know that Minister, and you know suddenly we're expecting people to live in these. I just want to share with you, I have a south-facing office in Leinster LH 2000 next door. We now have three ventilators on all the time to try and cool it down. It's 35 degrees in there this week. The facilities had to come over and ask that said we can't cool the place down. We're single aspect. Remember what single aspect is. We're facing south. So we're burning up in the place. Staff in Leinster House this week are burning up in offices and they only have to stay in them from working day 8 to 8 or whatever. But that's not acceptable. So we're suggesting that these single aspect cubes, be they be high, be they be cross, be they be low, are practical and sustainable. Where does it come in in terms of fossil fuel? Where does it come in about sustainable energy in cooling these down in the summer and then move and go to the north single cube, because that's at best they are, and one is facing north. So one is facing low in a building, possibly a basement or sub semi underground level, and they're facing north. How does one heat them? They're cold. They're cool. So that's not sustainable and it really isn't. In an ideal world we need certainly dual aspect. But then if you have a number of rooms you can move around the rooms. But this high focus and attention to building cubes on top of cubes and saying they'll be grand. And as someone said to me in a housing authority not too far from here, we have a huge single, mostly men over a certain age, and we don't have bedsits anymore. We normally don't have bedsits because it was government policy to close them down, get rid of them. And bedsits, good, clean, designed bedsits had an opportunity and they served some people and people chose to live in them. So this is suggesting that we're going to shoe people into boxes on top of each other, facing south to burn up for a few months or facing north where they're so cold in the winter. On both sides they will need energy to either heat them up or to cool them down. So that's not sustainable Minister and it's ridiculous. And there's a heavy emphasis, too heavy emphasis on single aspect units. And of course you get the story, the homeless will be shooed into them. The students are out all day, we'll throw them into them. And there is a case for studio apartments, absolutely, absolutely. I've not against that. But nicely and properly designed because we're talking about people's living space. We're talking about living well, living healthy and living meaningful lives in interactive communities. So I think you're wrong there. So the floor-to-ceiling height reduction. And why is it in this cohort of residential units that we've issues with there? We talk about sustainability or it's really about profitability. And I know business people want to make money. But at the end of the day many of these units will of course come into our social housing stock. So I just think, I don't draw a difference between whether they're public, private. I mean I believe in good sustainable housing regardless of who it's for. And it shouldn't colour the decision because there's a certain cohort of people that it is anticipated may live in them. There's a lack of internal storage. I went to see some of these units over the weekend. There are places where there was no internal storage. That's unacceptable. Where's the storage for the bicycles with the new active travel that you're talking about? Where's the story for the storage for the waste, the segregated waste, as part of our new environmental arrangements and understanding and importance of segregating our waste? Where's the facilities for that? Where's the private amenity space both internal in buildings, given that we do have rain for a considerable time of the year. And then the external in terms of the landscaped areas and the forecourts and all of that. Where are all the play facilities and the safe open spaces within complexes where you envisage building these apartments? What's the issues around the security considerations, the oversight, the passive surveillance of these new homes? And you could go on and on and the car parking. I think of one very near to myself where the residents were told they had no car parking. And your social tenants, the block next door which is so happens to be private. This is an LDA development and they're private and they have car parking. But the social tenants are told no, you don't have, you can't drive. And a particular woman said to me, well I have a car and I work in a shoe shop in Bray. Am I to sell my car? He said you might have to get the dirt. And she said well how do I pay the credit union? I owe them 12,000 for this secondhand car. Oh it's not our problem. There's no units for you. You accept it on that basis. And she said yes I accepted it because I was 16 years on a housing list and I was really told by my folks you know you need to get out. You need a bit of space to grow and develop and we need a bit of space from you. And this is the best that she could achieve. So no car and no facilities. And they call this proper planning and sustainable development. And that's simply not good enough. And then of course the issue of play. And then how and where are these units going to be interfaced with existing residential property? Because you need that dynamic and mix in terms of good planning and sustainable development. So based on all those issues I have concerns. And I cannot support a bill that doesn't address this issue and rams this through. Because it can't be about profitability. It has to be about sustainability. And there's an over-emphasis on making profit. And I have seen, because I was in the housing planning committee for two terms, I've seen with developers, not them all, because many of them are very responsible and yes they have to pay their bills. But I've seen the goalposts continue to change and continue to move and it's kept being cranked up and the government feel I have to do this, I have to do that and I have to do the other. And remember, and I don't want to go off the point, I'm seeing apartments at six and seven hundred, as part of part five agreements, that local authorities have been asked to pay five, six and seven hundred thousand for apartments for social housing. When in effect if that money was ring-fenced, and I do believe in full integration and I don't believe you should be able to tell the difference, but that somehow that's all part of this housing strategy. That we're actually getting units that we perhaps mightn't even want and we certainly don't want to be paying. We're not getting them and no one's giving them to us. We're paying, the taxpayers paying mad money for units because again we're being held to ransom by certain developers who have an agenda for themselves. But that's not them all, it would be unfair to paint that picture. So based on that, I don't think we've talked this through. There is litigation ongoing, there will be an outcome of that and I think it's important that when we vote on this legislation we are fully aware and cognizant of fact that a High Court judge has referred this matter to Europe, for the premises of this area, to Europe for determination and I don't want to come back and say we were bitten in the face and we didn't know what we were talking about. We need to be cautious if we're going to embrace this type of policy because quite frankly I don't think, I personally don't think it's the right policy and I couldn't support it. I just want to come back on what Senator Higgins has said and I think it's an important point and I missed out on and I just want to reiterate that. Our concern about the Our House Convention and the protocols and the strategic environmental assessments and the other appropriate assessments attached to it and somehow when people are unhappy they choose to ignore them and this is really an important issue that we need to make. We are signatories to the Our House Convention and the protocols so we're bound by them and I think what's really important as well is that we must at all times through our planning processes and our protocols and our code encourage engagement. You know we have to be in a democracy open to genuine participative engagement in the planning process. Citizens are entitled to that. Minister you or I if we had something happening in our backyard we'd be concerned and rightly so and at least we need a level playing pitch to put forward our genuine concerns based on the principles of sustainable proper planning and sustainable development and compliance with the Our House Convention. So I think that's an important point and back to the boxes and the cubes and the one and two bed predominantly the one and two bedroom units. Remember that the local authorities are charged with the responsibility of carrying out a housing assessment and assessing the housing need and this is why you need that agility and flexibility for local councils and in conjunction with their executive, their directors of services and their chief executive. How can we tweak our planning, our future forward planning, how we can tweak that to meet the needs of our housing needs of our citizens within our local administrative area which is clearly their function responsibility and they're charged with that. So we need that flexibility. If it was in Limerick City and County you understand from your housing assessment or your local authority will the needs, the projected needs for a period of time and we need that agility and responsiveness to tweak and to build because I have no difficulty with living in apartments. I know many people would wish to live in apartment because of the central location possibly where it might be. I see the potential for movement from people maybe on the outskirts of a city or town that might wish to come nearer to a central hub where they're more likely to have access to, I'm not saying affordable apartments because it doesn't look like that, but the option of living in apartment. But our planning system has to be responsive to the needs of a local housing assessment and I don't see any evidence of that and I think this rush to throw up more bricks, more buildings, get more money in and all this has been going on for years and it appears that we're not learning much from it. So I just wanted to add to the point about the Our House Convention which Senator Higgins makes makes really well and also the importance of encouraging and facilitating our citizens to engage in a meaningful planning engagement process. Thanks Senator. Minister do you want to come back in? Thank you. No one else? Thanks very much. Can I propose to discuss sections 2061 and 62 together? Is that okay? In order? Sections that are connected and operate together. It's important that both of these sections stand as part of the bill. Section 61 is a technical clarifying amendment to the definition of material alteration in section 138 of the Act of 2024 to add a cross-reference to a new section 138A as asserted by section 62 of this bill. Section 62 inserts a new section 138A into chapter 5 of part 4 of the 2024 Act. There's two alterations of existing permissions allowed for the purpose of alleviating the shortage of residential accommodation to enable the construction of greater numbers of dwellings in apartment schemes. This section operates so that subject to the meeting the specific criteria set out in the bill requests may be made to a deciding authority under section 140 of the 2024 Act to make alterations to an existing permission for an apartment scheme. And under section 142 of the 2024 Act where a requested alteration of permission is not material then the deciding authority shall alter the permission accordingly. Section 138 will apply to development of dwellings in apartment buildings in circumstances where permission is granted before coming into the operation of section 138A. A request for an alteration made under section 140 is made during the expiration of two years from the coming into operation of section 138A and the development of that check commenced before the date on which the request is made. The specific criteria allowing alteration to apartment schemes that are covered by this measure are already established policy. They relate to the apartment mix, the apartment floor areas, dual aspect ratios, lift or stair cores, the floor to ceiling heights of ground floor apartments and consequential works necessary for the purpose of the above alterations are ensuring access to development including works to footpaths, boundaries, gardens and balconies. The bill also sets off restrictions to the measures including in the case of residential development in a strategic development zone the alterations cannot cause the number of dwellings situated in that strategic development zone to exceed the permitted number in the applicable planning scheme and an alteration of permission cannot result in the proposed residential development being designed to accommodate more occupants than it would be designated to accommodate where the alteration is not made and that's an important point. This measure is to help support the viability of development of apartments in the immediate term by allowing the alteration of permissions already granted in certain circumstances. This has targeted a significant number of apartment developments that have received planning permissions but have not yet commenced. Where the specific criteria are not met, depending on the circumstances, the office is then open to the developer to either apply for new planning permission or to apply to make an amendment to permission as the case may be. The Government continues to be fully committed to ensuring that housing is delivered as quickly and effectively as possible. It is vitally important that we do all we can to support the building out of developments that have already been granted planning permission. Given the urgent need to encourage activation to housing development as quickly as possible, I commend these sections of the House and will press that they remain part of the bill. Thank you.