It would allow custom-build houses to be completed for approximately £200,000 less than current purchase prices on the local market.
The ‘Guernsey Right to Build’ scheme, developed by Deputy Marc Laine, includes solutions to overcome problems with land, finance, planning and construction, which have combined to push the island’s latest housing crisis high up the political agenda.
Deputy Laine believes his ideas, which he has been working on for months, would open home ownership to locals currently squeezed out of the housing market.
‘The group this scheme is designed to serve earn above the threshold for social housing but cannot compete on the local private market,’ he said.
‘They are teachers, mechanics, civil servants, young families and the tradespeople the island depends on. They hold local market qualifications. Many are renting at a cost that makes saving a deposit impossible or living with parents because there is nowhere affordable to go.
‘The longer this continues, the more of them leave.
‘In 2018, 18% of people who left Guernsey were Guernsey-born.
‘By 2023, that figure was 24.6%. Guernsey is not losing these people because they want to go. It is losing them because it has given them no affordable way to stay.’
Deputy Laine has circulated his Guernsey Right to Build scheme to all States members and is asking for backing from the Housing Committee by instructing its officials to work up the fine details.
He believes it could be started quickly and provide a large number of custom-build homes over the next three years.
They would be largely built off-island using modern methods of construction and require minimal labour to be erected in the island, either on sites owned by the States or the Guernsey Housing Association or as part of private developments which must include a certain proportion of less expensive housing.
The proposed scheme has five components which Deputy Laine said would ‘create a complete pathway from eligible applicant to completed home’.
The Housing Committee would maintain a register of applicants.
They would need to hold local market qualifications and be living with family or in a rental property. They would also be tied to living in the new house, once completed, to prevent buy-to-let or investment use.
The Development & Planning Authority would provide a detailed brief for each development site, allowing a credible valuation upfront to help buyers obtain a mortgage.
Serviced plots would be sold to registered applicants at infrastructure cost, which has been estimated at about £80,000, or £140,000 if a slab concrete foundation is included.
A local bank has reportedly indicated that it is willing to offer a mortgage product tailored to custom-build projects. It has been suggested that a States guarantee during the build phase could lower interest rates for borrowers.
Finally, a covenant would prevent owners from selling the completed home for a windfall profit.
It could apply on a reducing basis, with less of any gain being clawed back with each year of occupation, until it expired completely after 30 years.
‘Housing costs are now a direct cause of the island losing the working-age residents it cannot afford to lose,’ said Deputy Laine.
‘The Guernsey Right to Build scheme offers one credible route around blockages in housing supply without waiting for a long-term strategy, without depending on developers choosing to build affordable homes, and without asking the GHA to scale up.
‘It puts land, finance and planning certainty directly into the hands of the people who need a home and lets them commission it.’