In what it described as a staged approach to the completion of the focused review of the Island Development Plan, the Development & Planning Authority has listed seven preferred sites to be allocated for Affordable Housing.
They include Les Caches Farm, which garnered over 50 objections during the consultation process, and Two Acres in Forest, close to the chip shop, which resulted in 25 residents objecting.
DPA president Neil Inder said the committee could have waited until publishing the policy letter later this year to show its thinking around sites for affordable housing.
‘But we want to engage early with landowners to understand how quickly their sites can be developed,’ he said.
‘There’s no point in allocating a site for affordable housing and then nothing happening.
‘We need to make sure that these sites can deliver homes as soon as possible. And a preliminary indication to the public and site owners was a pragmatic action on our part.’
The five other sites are Selbourne Vinery, in Les Coutanchez, next to the Guernsey Institute College; Regency Vinery, on the border of St Martin’s and St Peter Port, which outline proposals have identified could accommodate 39 homes; School Lane Vinery in St Martin’s, between Grande Rue car park and the Masonic Hall which includes a former putting green, greenhouses and a private residence that could be used to create 40 new homes near the parish school; Whispers Vinery on Rue des Goddards, which would be in the proposed new Vazon Local Centre, with an estimated density of about 50 homes; and at Route Carre, the former one-acre site of Fletchers Freesias centre, opposite M&S L’Islet.
The publication of the seven sites comes after the DPA received the independent planning inspector’s report, following the public hearing at the start of this year
The DPA said the inspector’s report was now being considered will be published in due course.
The inclusion of Les Caches Farm will come as a shock to the residents of St Peter’s.
Plans for 30 affordable housing units next to a historic farmhouse in St Peter’s was the most vehemently-opposed development site put forward within the latest review.
Plans for the site – the only one put forward within the parish – were very poorly received at a open meeting in the parish in March last year.
Written objections were similar to those raised at the meeting, detailing concerns over the proximity to the airport runway, the historic nature of the building, and the designation of the site as ‘brownfield’ when it had recently been used for grazing sheep.
A spokesman for the DPA said it would now be writing to site owners requesting an indication of their plans for the sites.
‘This preliminary announcement will give site owners and their agents more time to develop their thinking before the DPA’s final decision and the States debate,’ he said.
‘The DPA will submit a policy letter to the States for an autumn debate outlining the proposed changes to the IDP, and it will be for the States to make the final decision about any changes.
‘Should the States agree to the propositions in the policy letter, the IDP will be changed with immediate effect.’
He said that other matters raised as part of the IDP focused review were being considered by the DPA in response to the inspector’s report, and proposals on these other matters would be published in the policy letter.
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