Farmers on alert for inclusion in vacant site levy register
Fear of farmland being subjected to a 7% vacant site levy has spread from Kilkenny to Limerick.
Fine Gael TD for Limerick County Tom Neville said it has come to his attention that in the Limerick area, land zoned for residential purposes but being used for agricultural purposes may incur charges under the vacant site levy.
This levy on vacant land being hoarded, that could be used for development of housing, was more than doubled in last year’s budget. This year it applies at 3%; from next year the levy jumps to 7%.
However, when the matter was raised in the Dáil, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy said if farmland is in productive use, it should not be included. He promised to speak to the Co Limerick local authority about it.
“It is up to each local authority to decide which lands go onto its register,” said the minister.
According to IFA president Joe Healy, a number of farmers appealed the decision of Kilkenny County Council to include their land on vacant site register. IFA’s Kilkenny county chairman James Murphy said the council responded by removing the farmland from the register.
Mr Healy reiterated a call on minister of state at the Department of Housing John Paul Phelan to issue a revised circular to clarify that farmland should not be deemed “vacant”.
Mr Healy said it is very important that any ambiguity is removed, and it be made clear to all local authorities that farmland should not be subject to the vacant site levy.
He said land being used for agricultural purposes is neither vacant nor idle and to impose a levy on it would be completely unacceptable.
Planning authorities will be issuing notices to landowners of vacant sites on their registers, by June 1, 2018, indicating that the levy will apply to those sites on January 1, 2019.
The primary purpose of the levy is to act as an incentive to bring forward vacant, under-used sites, for development for residential or regeneration purposes. This is one of the government responses to the housing requirement of at least 20,000 units per annum,with only 8,000 units being commenced annually in recent years.
The vacant site register will contain all sites vacant for 12 months. Sites may be in areas where the land is zoned for a particular purpose but, pending development appropriate to its zoning, the land may currently or on an interim basis have an agricultural use.
Sites as small as 0.12 acres may be included.
