Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government John Paul Phelan has called a meeting of local authority planners next week on the implementation of the vacant site levy, including the removal of family farms from taxable sites.

The department is then likely to issue a circular to update previous guidelines, which had led some councils to include actively farmed land among sites liable to pay the levy.

“Farmland owned by non-farmers that is zoned and in an area of housing should rightfully be levied. But the levy cannot be used as a tool to get families out of farms that they may own for generations,” Minister Phelan told the Irish Farmers Journal.

However, he warned that he would not support a “blanket removal” of agricultural land from the register and sites owned by developers but leased to farmers will remain liable. Kilkenny County Council, which is in Minister Phelan’s constituency and was one of the first local authorities where the issue arose, has not yet made a decision whether to remove farmers’ land from its vacant site register.

“We’re going through the process,” a Kilkenny planning official told the Irish Farmers Journal, with final decisions expected after next week’s national meeting.

This will leave just days before An Bord Pleanála is due to rule on appeals introduced by two Kilkenny farmers whose fields are listed on the register.

“All we need is for the local authority to remove our land from the vacant site register and we can withdraw our appeal to An Bord Pleanála, and save money, time and stress for all involved,” said Joe Mulhall, one of the farmers that is exposed to a levy of 3% of the value of his land in 2019 and 7% in 2020.

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