STRATEGIC PLANNING THE STRATEGIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AIMS TO ACCELERATE HOUSING DELIVERY, BUT CHALLENGES REMAIN, PARTICULARLY AROUND THE NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS ENDING UP IN JUDICIAL REVIEW PROCEEDINGS
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trategic Housing Development (SHD) legislation was introduced in July 2017 under the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 as a means to secure permission for residential schemes of 100+ units. The primary aim of the process was to accelerate housing delivery by reducing processing time. This was to be achieved primarily by
requiring applicants to provide comprehensive planning applications following active liaison with relevant planning authorities (PAs). A pre-application gateway (Section 247) process, which takes approximately four weeks, is designed to speed up full engagement with all divisions within the PA to progress applications more efficiently. The objective of this engagement is to give clarity to developers bringing forward projects under SHD where items can be resolved in a semi-formal forum at local authority level. This is followed then by a tripartite consultation (applicant, PA and An Bord Pleanála (ABP)), which is a useful forum for teasing out points of disagreement between departments of the local authority and prospective applicants. Without SHD, the only route for resolving such issues would be following a lengthy planning process and more often an appeal to ABP.
Positives The meeting of deadlines and the timeline certainty following submission at each stage are certainly positives of this process. The SHD system provides consistency in approach, with definite and improved timelines for decisions, allowing more certainty and multidisciplinary engagement in structured ways. The 16-week timeframe whereby ABP is required to issue a decision or else have a financial penalty imposed has focused decision making. The Section 247 pre-application meetings with the local authority benefit from multidisciplinary interaction from the various departments such as roads, drainage and parks; however, there is often a difference of policy between the PA and ABP, which can be challenging. For example, height and density standards and objectives can often differ in Local Area Plans (LAPs) versus Development Plans (DPs). Standards on unit size, storage,
FEATURE Lisa Rocca Director of Planning & Development, Oakmount, and SCSI P&D Committee
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SURVEYORS JOURNAL Volume 11, Issue 1, Spring 2021
