A report produced in 2023 showed that housing was less affordable in Guernsey than anywhere else in western Europe, and the island will fall massively short of building the additional 1,600 homes which the States calculated were needed between 2023 and 2027.
The Housing Committee is working on various initiatives to build more properties, but has warned they will take time to have any impact on the price of housing, and recently it said it could not set a revised housebuilding target until later in the year.
Marc Laine believed that only his proposed Guernsey Right to Build scheme, unveiled to the public today, had a chance of adding a significant number of homes over the next three years.
The scheme would involve manufacturing custom-build homes off-island and erecting them on pre-approved development sites at a total cost estimated to be approximately £200,000 below current purchase prices on the local market.
‘There is no competing proposal that will deliver homes within three years,’ said Deputy Laine.
‘Private housebuilding is at a five-year high, but the homes coming forward are priced for the local private market and are out of reach for the people this framework is designed to serve.
‘The Guernsey Housing Association will deliver around 70 units over the next three years, which is a genuine contribution, but it reaches a different cohort – those eligible for social rental and partial ownership. It does not help those sitting near the top or above those thresholds and below what the private market demands.
‘The Housing Committee has a £150m. borrowing facility to support its long-term housing strategy, but nothing has yet been drawn against it and no new homes are expected from that process for at least three years.
‘Policy & Resources does not anticipate bringing any housing forward on the sites it controls in this term.’
Deputy Laine’s proposed scheme would be targeted at locals living with family or in rental properties whose income makes it hard to get onto the home ownership ladder but who could afford to service mortgage repayments if house prices were closer to what was typical a generation ago.
In a paper circulated to all States members last week, he pointed to similar custom-build projects used in European countries, and claimed to have spoken to developers who would be willing to install the infrastructure necessary to receive such pre-built homes and connect them to services.
He also stated that his proposed scheme could be started without the need for new primary legislation, large capital outlays, or long-term strategies which could take years to develop.
‘Guernsey built much of its own housing stock through custom build,’ he said.
‘The culture, the skills and the contractor base are still here.
‘The land is available in both public and private hands. What has been missing is a framework.
‘This is that framework.’
Deputy Laine has asked Housing to task its officials with reporting back on seven issues.
They include establishing a register of local applicants, identifying a pilot site for the scheme to be tested and States land for future developments, and investigating whether States guarantees could help keep down participants’ borrowing costs.