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THE GOVERNMENT HAS approved the new Planning and Development Bill, which it says will be the biggest overhaul of the planning system in a generation.
As well as introducing statutory timelines for planning decisions, the Bill will also introduce significant changes to An Bord Pleanála, with the organisation to be renamed An Coimisiún Pleanála.
The new timelines for planning applications will range from 18 weeks for appeals to 48 weeks for more complex issues and An Board Pleanála will be subject to fines if these timelines aren’t adhered to.
The most recent data for 2023 shows that up until the end of August, just 27% of planning appeals disposed of by An Board Pleanála were dealt with within 18 weeks.
The average time taken for these appeals was 47 weeks .
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien brought the updated Bill to Cabinet this morning with a number of key changes from the draft Bill that was released earlier this year.
First approved by Cabinet in late 2022, when the initial Bill was published earlier this year it attracted criticism due to the reforms relating to how judicial reviews are brought, with the Bill changing how residents associations can take cases against planning decisions.
At just under 700 pages, today’s Bill is 20% bigger than the draft released earlier this year.
In the new version of the Bill, some of these changes have been rolled back.
Residential associations will still allowed to take judicial reviews against planning decisions once they can show that a vote has taken place among their members (in line with a constitution), and that a two-thirds majority in favour of the judicial review has been secured.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said today that the new law will “ensure that there are fewer vexatious [judicial] reviews”.
“Bear in mind what happens, you can have really important housing projects, really important transport projects, really important renewable energy projects. They can get held up for two and three years for a judicial review that either fails or is then withdrawn.
“What are the consequences of that? Who are the losers? We all are because we have to pay higher costs because projects get delayed and people who need housing for example, have to wait longer for that housing to be built,” the Taoiseach said today.
In addition to the overhaul of An Bord Pleanála, the statutory timelines, and the changes to how residents associations can take judicial reviews, the new law will also introduce an Environmental Legal Cost Scheme.
The Environmental Legal Cost Scheme aims to ensure that the cost to applicants of taking a judicial review of a planning decision is not prohibitively expensive.
As part of the scheme, there will be a scale of fees for all planning judicial reviews. Each party will bear its own cost however if an applicant wins it will be able to recover its costs in line with the scale of fees.
If an applicant does not win, it must bear its own costs but can apply to the Environmental Legal Costs Scheme for legal aid which will be means tested.
Commenting on the Bill today, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien said the new legislation will touch “nearly every facet of government and of Irish life”.
The overhaul of An Bord Pleanála, comes in the wake of the controversy in the planning body last year, which resulted in Chairperson Dave Walsh opting to retire early in November.
The re-organisation will see the introduction of Planning Commissioners and a Governing Executive, as well as the separation of both decision-making and the corporate roles.
The Bill is expected to become law in 2024 and will be introduced on a phased basis.
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This will make it safe enough for me and my family to get to the Phoenix Park by bike. Also, added bonus of more 24/7 bus lanes. The bus carries more people in and out of town than any other mode of transport so great to see that bus users won’t be stuck in long lines of car traffic, particularly on the South Quays.
Councillors: give it your support! With some finer details to be resolved for safety of all road users.
@Oisín O’Connor: you seem to be of the fanciful opinion that private cars don’t drive in the bus lanes. Oh, if only we had a way to prevent that using cameras and penalty points…
@Oisín O’Connor: Glad this will be an improvement for you Oisín. We are supporting the proposed interim measures and hope to engage constructively with the city council to iron out some of the perceived wrinkles.
@Fozz: and speeding through red lights.
All these high cost traffic plans, reconstructing roundabouts, installing traffic control systems, but only spasmodic mobile van monitoring.
Yet main junctions have camera surveillance for purely admin purposes.
Can we not have buslane & traffic light cameras for enforcement installed on a rolling self financing programme.
The vans seemingly only operate on accident blackspots,so enforcement only follows from tragedy.
Better to enforce generally to prevent accidents.
@Oisín O’Connor:
As a motorist I fully welcome the lanes and wish you safe cycling.
I am sure most motorists will see the safety benefit of the lanes and fully respect them, unfortunately there will always be the few.
It’s great that dublins bicycle route network is improving. Isn’t it time to start building a metro. ? Great way to get a lot of traffic off the roads ands perhaps some of the lumbering, cumbersome busses
@Marc Power: a metro will cost way more. Require a lot more planning and design. Best way to reduce traffic is a congestion charge. Cars slow down the buses by driving and blocking bus lanes. I can bring you to a spot where cars block buses regularly.
@Craic_a_tower: we need a metro. Everything costs. This should have been started 20 years ago. The found the money for all other infrastructure projects. It can be found for this badly needed piece of transport infrastructure in a rapidly growing city.
Not everyone can or wants to cycle. Not all car drivers block bus lanes. Some do. Doesn’t change the fact that we need a metro
@Marc Power: we don’t need a metro. It would be nice to have. Not everybody has to use a car and they don’t need to drive into the city centre or through it. Finish the ring around the city first. Metros are huge luxuries most started when life was cheap and safety didn’t matter.
@Marc Power: A metro is being planned for the Airport. They’re already doing some of the work on it. The Metro will cost (if I recall correctly) around €4,000,000,000. The proposal in this article is for €800,000, a lot of which will involve upgrades for pedestrians (new crossings) and bus users (new bus lanes).
@Craic_a_tower: sorry but that’s a very simplistic way of thinking about a complicated situation. Many cities in far poorer and less hospitable parts of the world build and operate successful metro systems. Over 75 of people in Dublin commute by car for various reasons. For me the best reason to own a car in Dublin is Dublin bus. Dublin is a great city but no more special than the rest of the world. Really not sure what your last sentence was meant to say but all the metros I’ve used around the world seemed safe, modern and well designed. The thing that’s missing in Dublin is imagination and willingness
@Marc Power: if you were hit with a congestion charge you would probably change your ways. Metros are a luxury when adding them to historical cities. Most cities don’t have them. Outside of London name all the metros in the UK
@Marc Power: btw below 30% of commuters travel by private car in Dublin.
@Craic_a_tower: I lived in London for many years. London has a congestion charge but it also has a metro and a great bus system.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp6ci/p6cii/p6mtw/
Not everyone wants to cycle our can cycle. Filling congested streets with buses is not the answer. A congestion charge would help but not solve the traffic problem in Dublin
@Oisín O’Connor: lol thanks you made me laugh. Yes the famous metro link that’s been passed around for 25 years. In that time London finished the docklands light rail… the jubilee line extension and most of crossrail. Here nothing… just constant waffling
@Craic_a_tower: Newsflash the city has ground to a halt what planet are yo on?, a metro is now have critical piece of infrastructure…..christ only in Ireland would you hear such nonsense lol.
@Peter Hughes: if you think the city has ground to a halt you are going to be very unhappy when it gets worse. I lived in London for a while too and it has worse congestion here even with metro and congestion charges
@Craic_a_tower: we need a metro im Dublin. Not nonsensical whinging about cost when the cost of doing nothing is far greater in the long term
I hope the councillors vote this through this evening – it’s far from perfect but the alternative is the existing very dangerous infrastructure for people cycling. It’s a step along the way to safer conditions and should be supported
I tried on two occasions to cycle with kids from near O’Connell Bridge to the Phoenix Park on weekends. Usually I find safe ways for these trips, even if taking a longer route, but there was no option for this route, it was a terrible experience. I can only imagine the horror of doing this daily as a commuting route.
I wholeheartedly welcome this provisional solution and congratulate Owen Keegan for the initiative. It shows concern for people who commute by bike and also makes the Phoenix Park more accessible for people who cycle.
@Stephen McManus: I would never recommend doing that cycle with a child.
@Craic_a_tower: I wouldn’t recommend it either, but my kids are well trained and, as I said, they did it. It wasn’t comfortable or fun, but it was done as safely as an adult would/could.
@Stephen McManus: it doesn’t matter how safe you are at cycling with vehicles speeding and driving too close. The quays are particularly unsafe and I have to use part if them to get to work now for 7 years. The other options are worse. Never ever cycle the north circular road during rush hour
great to see improvements coming. not perfect but a well managed trial should help bridge the gap until the full build gets off to a good start
@Alan D: To be clear it’s not a trial. It’s an interim step until the CC grow a pair and take on the car-park owners and build proper segregated cycle infrastructure.
@Alan D: Dublin’s first cycle lane by St Pat’s college isn’t even segregated from the footpath and shared in parts. Nothing more permanent as temporary in this country.
Cannot understand why everything has to be brought forward on the basis of some expensive consultancy report, when DCC have their own team of traffic engineers.
The logic of this process is that we dont need directly employed engineers.
Just put projects out for tender, get the consultants to assess & recommend, place contracts, survey & certify contract compliance.
My understanding of the route I take would mean it would very awkward to go left from the quays coming from the west. It would involve crossing three lanes of traffic when currently I don’t have to cross any. That doesn’t sound safer
@Craic_a_tower: someone will have to cross lanes no matter where the cycling lanes are located. What really matters is the implementation.
@Stephen McManus: cars don’t have to cross that many lanes at present so this is an increase of needing to cross with a vulnerable road user to convenience car drivers. So in this case the implementation is worse than what is currently there while claiming to be safer.
Fantastic news and well done, this will make cycling so much safer and it will attract more cycle traffic .
I’m not a cyclist but I can see the danger they face.
Unfortunately there are always idiots ( 2 & 4 + wheels and walking) but I genuinely hope this works and it’s a permanent feature.
I remember when there was two way traffic on both sides of quays and the uproar when that was changed.
So I’m sure my fellow motorists will give out about this.
I am very much in favour of cycle lanes and fully respect them.
Hopefully the move will greatly improve safety and maybe even attract tourism.
Wishing safety and fun.
I wish DCC would address the dysfunctional section of bike lane between the Samuel Beckett Bridge and the East Link Bridge. It’s not dual lane two way, it’s jumps from dual lane to single lane. Cyclists going east have no bike lane in sections. There is loads of room to make it right too. It’s a Shane because they did a great job improving flow with the new pedestrian and cyclist bridge over the Royal Canal on North Wall Quay.
hm, cycle lane to the right…what if you want to turn left? You get degraded to a pedestrian as usual. I can also already see the youth idiots cycling into the wrong direction and not budge causing those who do it right into the traffic lane for collision avoidance
IMO the Phoenix ParK should be the epicentre of biking in inner Dublin with designated bikeways connecting the park to the more highly populated areas; not to the CBD where few people live.
have your say