The Committee for Housing, working in partnership with the Guernsey Building Trades Employers Association, published the first edition of the Housing Site Availability Framework last month to provide clearer information about how housing sites are progressing through the planning and development process.
The report, which will be updated at least twice a year, currently lists sites where houses are being built, could be built on, or already have planning permission to be developed.
Paul Nobes, managing director at developers Infinity, said the framework should prove a very useful tool for planners, the Development & Planning Authority, the Housing Committee and for the island’s developers.
‘It will become even more useful in the next 12 to 18 months, because you’ll see which of those sites simply don’t come forward and don’t move and it will give them a very good idea of what numbers are achievable,’ he said.
‘At the moment the numbers are a little bit skewed, because you’ve got the CI Tyres site and the Mallard with outline permission. That’s going to make it look very rosy. But actually, apart from those two major projects, there’s actually been less development than usual.’
The framework also includes larger sites earmarked for housing such as Leale’s Yard, Data Park and the College of Further Education site at the Coutanchez, however Mr Nobes said that there were five or six also included that were not likely to see construction start in the near future.
‘At least what the framework will do is prove the point that some sites with planning are not being developed. We don’t believe that areas like Leale’s Yard are likely to come forward for six to 10 years because of the amount of infrastructure that’s needed. And if you took all those numbers out, there wouldn’t be a huge amount left.’
Mr Nobes agreed with John Bampkin, who worked on the report for the GBTEA, that there was only capacity within the island’s construction sector to build around 200 to 250 homes a year.
Infinity hope to start construction of 85 new homes at the Mallard in partnership with the GHA this summer. 69 of these units would be affordable housing, while the rest would be private market units.
However, the company has been quite open in saying that after that build is completed, there would be no more medium-to-large sites on its books.
‘We alone could probably be dealing with 60 to 75 new homes a year,’ he said. ‘But we can’t find any other sites to develop at the minute. We’re looking, but we can’t find anything.’
Mr Nobes had attended much of the recent hearing for the review of the Island Development Plan, where the lack of available and realistic housing sites was raised as a major issue.
‘To cut a long story short, as we all know we need more housing, and that’s what the inspector heard. We believe that the DPA now has that report and we would love it to be published in full, as I think it’s important that the people who were at the meetings, and the interested parties, can see what his recommendations are.’
Mr Nobes said the other unresolved issue when it came to larger sites and affordable housing was who the end user would be.
This echoed the words of Housing president Steve Williams, who told the Guernsey Press Politics Podcast in January that there was little chance of providing the number of additional social housing units needed over the next few years, unless the States restarted its own construction programme in some form.
‘If the GHA, of whom I am a huge fan, can’t do everything because they have to spend more on existing homes and not just new ones, who is going to provide the new affordable homes on those designated mixed-tenure sites?’ asked Mr Nobes.
‘Because you can’t ask seven landowners to set up their own Housing Association on seven separate sites for 20 to 40 units, all of which might need to be regulated in some way.
‘I know that’s something the States is working on, but that is sort of chicken and egg, where we now have the designated land via the call for sites, we haven’t actually got anyone to negotiate the affordable housing aspect with.’