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Our position on Affordable Housing PDF Print E-mail
The redevelopment of this land provides Harrogate with an opportunity to create two high quality additions to one Conservation Area and to the setting of another. The characteristics of the Conservation Area as set out in the official designation statement are very important and the other policies must respect them.  They were adopted by HBC to ensure that any development respected the aims of the Conservation Area.

The special planning status associated with Conservation Areas requires high quality designs to achieve the statutory requirement "to preserve and enhance the character and appearance of the area".  This is a statutory obligation on the developer and the Local Planning Authority.  They must have this uppermost in mind when considering the interpretation of the other policies.

The Affordable Housing policy is important and applies to most residential developments. However many of the methods and special controls that are used to ensure that housing provided is really affordable conflict with the most important aims that have been adopted to protect the character of the Duchy Conservation Area.

Where planning policy makes it impossible to include affordable housing in a residential development there is a policy option available. This makes sure that the community receives all the Affordable Housing units that it should while also protecting the character of the Conservation Area.

This option has already been used by HBC. The developer pays money to the Local Planning Authority for the "Off-site provision of affordable housing".

This money is controlled by HBC. They use it to provide Affordable Housing on another new housing site.  Developers sometimes find that having to pay for affordable housing makes some "difficult sites" uneconomic to develop. These already paid for units might be the difference between new houses and an empty blighted site.

This allows flexibility in the application of planning policies; in this case the protection of the character of the Duchy Conservation Area; to be respected without the community losing any of the Affordable Housing that would have been built here if the land was not subject to this special protection.

Affordable Housing policy also includes a critical rule to ensure that the housing development provides the basis of a mixed sustainable community.  The balance between the number of Affordable Homes and the Open Market for sale Homes is the critical factor. The importance of this is well known in the areas that have suffered the consequences of not getting this balance right.

The proven basis to achieve this is that there should be more Homes for Sale than Affordable Homes. This is to ensure that there are enough Private owners whose aim is to preserve the character and quality of the area to protect their financial and personal investment. This is then expected to be able to overcome the possible problems associated with the short term occupiers of the Affordable Homes.

Our overall consideration of these policies on the Yorkshire Water Authority land is that we should PRESS the Planning Committee to opt for the following:

Depot land: limit the Affordable Homes to 30-35% of the total. This would produce either 18 Affordable Homes & 33 Open Market Homes or 20Affordable Homes & 31 Open Market Homes.  We think this will form a good basis for a "mixed sustainable community"

Reservoir land: No Affordable Homes due to the special Conservation Area constraints. To avoid any loss to the community 18 Affordable Homes would be paid for as "Off-site". This represents 50% of the expected total of 35 houses on this part.

 
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