Housing developers have been given consent for a highly unusual move to increase the amount of affordable housing on an estate where they had been given consent to create scores of open market homes,
A meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s Richmond constituency planning committee heard while blueprints for 87 homes, 30 per cent of which were to be affordable, had been approved in August for a site at Old Hatchery, Aiskew.
However, councillors were told just three months later developer Keepmoat, working with Broadacres Housing Association, was seeking for consent to make the estate 100 per cent affordable.
The meeting was shown figures illustrating a high demand for affordable housing in the Bedale and Aiskew area.
The meeting heard the revised proposal would feature:
- 60 more affordable homes than first planned
- No change to total the number of homes
- No change to the size, style or layout of the properties
- 39 shared ownership and 49 social rent homes
The move follows councils in North Yorkshire frequently receiving requests from developers to reduce the proportion of affordable housing on estates after being planning consent, claiming they . to build more lucrative open market housing to make their schemes viable.
Officers told members although the proposals were likely to result in a greater public benefit as a result of the “over-supply” of affordable housing within the development and the proposed tenure mix would meet an identified need for rented affordable properties within the local area.
Planning officers said although many of the properties on the proposed estate would be two and three-bedroom homes, some 15 four-bedroom and four one-bedroom homes would also be included.
A spokesman for Keepmoat Homes said since it started the scheme the price of materials and labour had increased by 17 per cent but the price of market housing in the area had only risen by about four per cent.
A spokesman for the firm said when it got quotes back to build the homes a “sizeable viability gap” had emerged.
He said while most developers would have responded to the situation by asking to be allowed to include fewer less profitable affordable homes in the scheme, Keepmoat was a partnership housebuilder that was committed to creating housing that would meet community needs.
The spokesman said Keepmoat’s board had agreed to drop their profit from that expected by a developer to one expected by a building contractor to bridge the viability gap.
Councillor Stephen Watson said: “It’s good to see rather than going for the easy option and saying the figures didn’t stack up instead the option of going for more affordable housing is being used.”
After the meeting, Aiskew and Leeming division councillor John Weighell said: “All affordable everywhere would not be a viable proposition.
“At the moment we can get all the houses we need through exception sites and that is very valuable in the short term, but it is not a medium or long term strategy we could live with because you have got to have houses for the general public.”
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