A developer has been allowed to cut the number of affordable homes it builds at a Moulton Chapel development by 80 per cent after a tied vote by councillors.
Last night (Wednesday, March 10) South Holland District Council’s Planning Committee couldn’t be split on Postland Development’s request that it could only make the 58 home development financially viable if it lowered the number of affordable homes from 15 to three.
The housebuillder had wanted to build just two affordable homes on the site granted permission last year with the local planning policy standard of 25 per cent such homes.
But an independent valuation carried out by CP Viability Ltd said it should be three homes with the developer estimated to make a £2.59m profit. It claiming the reasons for the request included rising costs identified on site and of building materials.
After a number of councillors voiced objections, the vote on the proposal was tied 7-7 with planning chair Coun Avery casting the deciding vote in favour of the application.
The reason there was an even number of votes was because committee member Coun Andrew Woolf spoke as the ward member against the application which made him ineligible to vote himself.
He told the committee: “This viability assessment makes me very nervous for applications throughout South Holland.
“I can see that the policies and costs have changed since the original application in 2017. It seems insufficient costs were checked at that time and further changes have been made. This committee can not then consider the application which becomes detrimental to Moulton Chapel and the rest of South Holland as it could open up the gates for all developers to potentially submit amended applications based on viability assessments and squeeze 106 agreements already in place.”
Other councillors agreed. Coun Casson said: “Surely the developer has worked out the costs before they buy the land. To me they’re just pulling the wool over our eyes.”
“I can’t help but feel we’re being hoodwinked here and there’s smoke and mirrors going on,” argued Coun Nigel Pepper. “If you’re a developer it shouldn’t be a surprise a site of over 50 homes needs an electric substation.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise problems are encountered when knocking down a garage and it beggars belief how you can miss out on a site that has a main sewerage and rising main.
“They’re things you look for when you buy a plot of land.”
But other councillors argued that the application would be allowed on appeal anyway as the financial review came from an independent company.
Vice chair coin Roger Gambba-Jones said of viability: “This is a trump card handed to developers by the government with the understanding it’s likely to happen and in order to avoid the loss of housing and an even further reduction in the extraordinary figure of 300,000 dwellings per annum they’ve set and required councils to try and achieve.
“Please don’t waste our tax payers money fighting a pointless fight to try and demonstrate something you’re not going to win and losing what is otherwise a very good development.
“You would end up with a volume builder scooping this up and doing it on the side and giving us a bland development you couldn’t differentiate from a hundred others.
“I’d love to fight the fight, but I think this is the wrong fight.”
Before delivering the casting vote, Coun Avery said: “It’s always regrettable to lose a good level of affordable housing and viability is always a prickly issue but for all of your questions this evening by those that don’t like this lack of affordables have been answered with a very detailed report and detailed answers.
“It’s a quality scheme, it’s a very good lay out and a very good mix of properties that has been thoroughly and independently assessed in terms of quantitative and qualitative so we end up with a compromise.”
The independent report outlined what it called the ‘abnormal’ costs of developing the site.
These include £80,000 to demolish a garage, £25,000 decontamination and £269,700 for piling foundations.
“We conclude that the scheme is unable to viably support the full affordable housing on site provision 25 per cent of the scheme, plus the health contribution of £25,752. Instead, our modelling shows that in order for the scheme to be delivered it is appropriate to reduce the affordable housing provision to 5.17 per cent together with the health contribution,” the independent report says.
A reduced number of homes per hectare in the district has also had an impact on the development, it added.
In 2017, the density would have been 70 homes and 24 per cent would have been viable, but now the number has reduced to 58.
