One Site or Two?
Provision of affordable housing
When you apply for planning permission for residential development the local planning authority will decide whether, and if so, how much, affordable housing should be provided on the site. Each local authority has a policy in their development plan which sets the threshold beyond which affordable housing should be provided. National Planning Policy Statement 3 (“PPS3”) proposes a threshold of 15 dwellings.
Planning application
Mrs Shaw applied for planning permission for residential development on a site in Charnwood. The site was small, just 0.4 hectares, and could only support 14 houses. The site was however part of a larger site of about 1 hectare which was allocated for 30 residential dwellings in the Borough of Charnwood Local Plan 2004.
The Council’s decision
The Council decided that Mrs Shaw should provide an element of affordable housing on the site. The Local Plan required provision of 15% affordable housing on new residential development sites. In September 2005 however the Council had adopted Supplementary Planning Guidance which stated that the Council would seek a minimum of 30% affordable housing on all sites which met the threshold set out in PPS3. The Council therefore wanted provision of 10 affordable housing units across the whole site. As the appeal site formed only part of the whole site, the Council decided that proportionately it should provide 4 units of affordable housing. Mrs Shaw appealed against this decision.
The appeal
Mrs Shaw argued that her site should be considered in isolation and as it would only support 14 houses it fell below the threshold for provision of affordable housing set in PPS3. Her argument was based on the fact that if one looked at the site allocated for residential development in the Local Plan, it was in fact split over two sites and the other site was not contiguous with or adjacent to the appeal site as there was a footpath that ran between the two sites. In addition the two sites were in different ownerships, had different planning histories and indeed different current land uses.
The Planning Inspector’s decision
The Planning Inspector disagreed. Whilst he accepted that the site was not being artificially separated in order to avoid the need to provide affordable housing, nonetheless, in his view the appeal site had to be assessed on the basis that it formed part of a larger allocated site in the Local Plan. He held therefore that given the site’s allocation, its sustainable location and the need for low cost homes in the area, the appeal site should make an appropriate contribution toward the provision of affordable housing. Four units would be appropriate as this would amount to 30% provision in accordance with the Council’s Supplementary Planning Guidance. The appeal was therefore dismissed and the Council’s decision was upheld.
Lessons learned
Following this case, developers will want to be very careful when assessing whether they would need to provide affordable housing. In particular, when developing a site which one would assume would fall below the threshold for provision of affordable housing it is vital to check that it does not form part of a larger site allocated for residential development in the development plan such that affordable housing may still be required which could have a significant impact on the economic viability of the scheme.
This article was first published in the Property Law Journal on 16 May 2009.
