Plans for 2,000 homes over the next five years
Space for nearly 2,000 new homes, including 901 classed as affordable, will be provided over the next five years under plans to update the Island Development Plan.
And the Development & Planning Authority has targeted six sites in St Sampson’s, Castel, St Martin’s and St Peter Port specifically for affordable housing.
The IDP, which has been in place since 2016, details how the island can be developed.
But there have been growing concerns there was not enough land for housing to meeting rising demand.
One way the changes seek to address this is moving the L’Aumone local centre boundary to include the old Castel hospital site, which will make it easier to get permission to be redeveloped.
‘We want to make sure that this is not the DPA’s plan, but Guernsey’s plan, reflecting what Guernsey wants and needs,’ said DPA president Victoria Oliver.
A call for sites earlier this earlier this year saw 300 suggestions from the public. But only six emerged from that.
Three are on the boundaries of St Martin’s local centre, while one is a field close to the Guernsey Institute Coutanchez site.
The others are a field west of Route Militaire and a field south of L’Aumone.
‘We had a number of criteria which these sites had to meet,’ said Deputy Oliver.
‘We went through a really robust and transparent procedure and came up with these six.’
The DPA proposes increasing the States Strategic Housing Indicator – which sets out how many new units are needed each year to meet demand and how much land that will take – in order to cope with potentially higher population trends, while also accounting for the need for key worker and specialised housing.
This will see a 15% increase in the land available to private housing, taking the number to 971, and a 25% increase in affordable housing, up to 901.
Additional space for affordable housing will be found by using existing areas allocated for housing already owned by the States or the Guernsey Housing Association.
On top of this, the Saltpans key industrial area will be reallocated as an area for mixed used development, and 60% of this could be used for affordable housing.
Business development will be catered for with changes aiming to speed up change of use of certain vacant office, industrial, storage and distribution sites.
A survey commissioned by the DPA had identified a need for a total of 20,400 sq. m of land for industry, storage and distribution plus 3,200 sq. m needed for office space. All of this will be met by existing reserves of land, it said.
Deputy Oliver said the review provided opportunities to help ensure there were more sites available and removing bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape.
The DPA was keen for people to give their input.
‘We’d really like to encourage islanders to have a look at the proposed changes and have your say,’ said Deputy Oliver.
Once the consultation period ends at the end of next month she said a planning inspector will look at the suggestions. During August there will be further consultation just on the proposals and the suggestions that have been made.
A planning inquiry is likely to take place in public in mid-October and Deputy Oliver hoped the finished report would be ready to be debated by the States in March next year.
The DPA is holding a drop-in on Saturday 29 June, from 9am until 3pm, in the foyer at Beau Sejour to give people the opportunity to find out more about the proposed changes and comment. There will also be a live-streamed online question and answer event, details of which will be announced nearer the time.
More information about the proposals and and the chance to comment is available at gov.gg/IDPReview. Paper copies of the proposed IDP change are available from Edward T Wheadon House.
