DPA faces backlash over plan to re-zone green fields
Proposed changes to the Island Development Plan were nearly blocked days before they were published.
The Development & Planning Authority announced on Monday that it wants to re-zone six additional sites, including several green fields, as part of its bid to provide space for 2,000 new homes over the next five years.
But it was warned last week that its proposed changes violated key principles behind the States’ own land planning policies.
In a letter to the DPA, Environment & Infrastructure president Lindsay de Sausmarez said her committee ‘does not agree that the proposed approach is within the spirit of the Strategic Land Use Plan’.
The DPA needed a certificate of consistency from E&I to avoid being forced back to the drawing board.
It obtained one only because E&I wanted to avoid delaying a planning inquiry.
‘One of the core objectives of the Strategic Land Use Plan is the wise management of island resources, including land. Another is the protection of local biodiversity and the countryside,’ said Deputy de Sausmarez.
‘It stresses the desirability of developing urban sites and redeveloping brown field sites over and above the urbanisation of the countryside, which it seeks to protect from development.
‘The committee, therefore, questions whether the proposed approach to the provision of land for affordable housing, involving the allocation of additional greenfield sites for development, is in the spirit of the Strategic Land Use Plan and what it aims to achieve through the Spatial Strategy.’
Three of the sites targeted by the DPA for development are on the boundaries of the St Martin’s local centre. The others are fields near the Coutanchez, Route Militaire and L’Aumone.
They would be used largely for social housing, which requires the allocation of more land partly following the States Assembly’s decision in April to suspend the controversial planning policy GP11, which required larger private housing developments to include affordable housing.
‘The proposals have chosen to allocate new green field sites adjacent to existing centre boundaries to make up the shortfall of land for affordable housing,’ said Deputy de Sausmarez.
‘E&I is not comfortable with this proposed approach when the evidence suggests that there is a significant over-supply of sites for development within existing centre boundaries.
‘The committee is unaware of any evidence supporting the proposed approach over other approaches... and would, therefore, welcome sight of the evidence base and options analysis supporting the proposals.’
E&I considered the DPA’s draft amendments to the Island Development Plan on 3 June, three weeks before they were published.
Its written response acknowledged that States planning policies encourage rather than direct development towards urban and brown field sites and, albeit only by a majority vote, that the draft amendments were ‘technically consistent with the directions of the Strategic Land Use Plan at a high level’.
But the number and extent of concerns raised in the letter suggest the two committees are heading towards a major political battle at the planning inquiry, which will be led by a planning inspector who will be appointed soon.
E&I’s long list of objections also included the risk of segregating large developments of social housing from other types of housing.
‘The proposals could potentially result in new affordable housing development being pushed to the outer fringes of centres while the sites for new development within existing centre boundaries are effectively reserved for private development only, which would not support the creation of balanced communities,’ said Deputy de Sausmarez.
The proposals can be viewed here.
