Deputies agreed to earmark Lukis House in the Grange, and Swissville and Garden Hill in the Rohais, for social housing once various services are moved from those sites to a new children’s hub at Raymond Falla House.
The number of potential development sites available for social housing will reach double figures if the States backs proposed changes to the Island Development Plan late next month.
‘Hopefully that should mean around 10 sites which will be in the Housing Committee’s gift to bring forward at a rapid pace,’ said Policy & Resources president Lindsay de Sausmarez.
‘I’m just hoping they’ve got the capacity to be able to hit the ground running in that respect.’
A request to earmark the sites in St Peter Port was made in an amendment by Housing president Steve Williams, and was agreed by the States last week, 48 hours after it was revealed that the number of homes under construction had recently exceeded the 400-mark, a new 10-year high.
‘This is to establish a future potential pipeline of States-owned land for new housing to help address the pressing housing problems which are facing a large proportion of the island’s residents across all ages,’ said Deputy Williams.
‘We cannot have a stop-start approach to providing homes and we should prioritise States-owned land where we can, rather than spending taxpayers’ money buying land.’
Housing Committee member Deputy Rhona Humphreys told the States that the sites had been valued at £8m. and argued that this should be considered when debating Health & Social Care’s proposed children’s services hub at a maximum cost of £22m.
Another Housing member, Deputy Garry Collins, said that the three sites could accommodate between 80 and 150 units of social housing.
Deputy Williams’ amendment was approved with no votes against, although two members abstained and three did not vote.
Although she backed the amendment, Deputy de Sausmarez said it was unnecessary ‘in terms of P&R’s enthusiasm for supporting affordable housing’, and hoped the Assembly recognised that.
But Housing vice-president Sasha Kazantseva-Miller indicated that there were other potential development sites where her committee would like more support from P&R.
‘I think we may have some areas of disagreement on certain sites where we would perhaps like to have more control and ownership, such as the Coutanchez campus,’ said Deputy Kazantseva-Miller.
‘I think it’s increasingly important that policy direction is given by this Assembly to the States Property Unit.’
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