‘Affordable housing policy is stifling local home building’

It comes a week after Employment & Social Security and the Guernsey Housing Association strongly refuted any suggestion that policy GP11 was stifling housing developments.

But now a joint letter from six of Guernsey’s leading developers – which account for more than three-quarters of residential development in the island – has challenged the statement.

They state their industry was complex and their challenges were often poorly understood by others. GP11 only applies to sites with 20 or more properties, meaning that some of the development must be affordable.

‘As a result, quite naturally, development plans over the last five years under the Island Development Plan have been concentrated wholly on smaller projects, which fall below this threshold,’ the group wrote.

‘We are not aware of any planning permission for 20-plus dwellings having been granted under the IDP and so it is clear to us that the development of larger sites has been stifled by GP11.’

They accepted that removing GP11 would not cure Guernsey’s housing problem, but it would help bring larger sites forward for development.

‘As such sites are intended to provide the majority of new private residential development under the IDP, increasing land supply in this way can only help the housing market,’ they said.

When GP11 was first drafted, it was going to apply to all developments with five or more dwellings. But the threshold was increased to 20 before the rules came in, creating a disadvantage for larger sites.

The group also raised concerns about supplementary planning guidance for GP11, which imposes other restrictions.

‘[That includes] a prioritised list of the ways in which affordable housing may be provided,’ they wrote.

‘The strict application of this order of priority in the SPG has been a further disincentive to developers bringing forward larger sites.’

GP11 was phased in over three years, with lower rates of affordable housing over this period. But the developers said a delay in planners creating development frameworks and getting them approved meant it was not possible to submit applications in time.

The group said that Jersey’s Island Plan proposed a broadly similar provisions to GP11 but, following developer representations the policy was never implemented and was subsequently deleted.

‘This was pointed out at the IDP Planning Inquiry but ignored – sadly Guernsey did not learn from Jersey’s experience,’ they said.

‘Finally, it should be appreciated that GP11 could only reasonably have been expected to provide at most 10% of the affordable housing requirement in the IDP. The remaining 90+% always needed to be provided by other means – essentially States owned land or sites purchased by the States/GHA. So GP11 is actually only a very small part of the affordable housing issue and its removal or suspension is likely to have far greater benefits for market housing supply than any detriment to affordable housing.’

The States was approached for comment.