Housing Market Needs presentation published 09.07.20.

The Planning Policy Manager introduced the report which set out detailed information about the size profile and the tenure split for the period 2022 to 2038 for new dwellings, and presented the headline findings of this key piece of evidence base.

Simon Drummond-Hay and Mark Aldridge from HDH Planning and Development gave a presentation on Housing Market Assessment, which had previously been emailed to Members and added to the website.  Mr Drummond-Hay started by saying there were four key elements to the report, and these included: the overall housing need; overall housing need by tenure and size; affordable need; and need of specific groups.  He and Mark Aldridge then presented the slides and Mr Aldridge highlighted the following in his conclusion:

·         Annual affordable housing need of 287 per year represents 27.7% of the annual dwelling growth of 1,038 - no adjustment is required to the standard method figure;

·         future tenure split: 72.8% market, 18.0% of housing to be Affordable Rented and 9.1% affordable home ownership (of which 4.2% could be Shared Ownership and 4.9% Help-to-Buy/ Starter Homes); and

·         516 additional units of sheltered housing for older people and 305 Registered Care spaces over plan period.

Members were invited to make comments and ask questions.

A Member referred to page 74 in the report, and to the affordable housing need in Swale being 287 units.  He considered this to be a low figure and asked how much Universal Credit, Brexit and Covid-19 had been taken into account?  Mr Drummond-Hay read-out a section from one of the slides: ‘an increase in the total housing figures included in the plan may need to be considered where it could help deliver the required number of affordable homes.’  Mr Drummond-Hay said that housing numbers had previously been realised by the methodology of objectively assessed need for housing, and developers had tried to get a higher figure so more of their sites were included in the plan.  Now, with the standard method, that opportunity was lost, but developers could have the opportunity to go for affordable need, and if they were successful, the solution was to have a higher housing number in the overall plan, so 30 in every 100 houses could be affordable housing.  He said the current need was the waiting list; and the newly arising need was from the newly formed households, and he outlined the calculations that were carried out to achieve the required figure.  Mr Drummond-Hay acknowledged that waiting lists for affordable housing had increased dramatically since the pandemic, but this was a complex situation and difficult to resolve in this type of report which was looking over a period of 20 years.   They had taken the waiting list at face value in accordance with the guidance.  He did not think that it would be beneficial to delve into the minutiae of the current pandemic, and the longer-term view needed to be taken.

A Member suggested there should be a policy on having Category 2 standards on all new housing.  She asked if the Council liaised with Kent County Council (KCC) in terms of the requirement for Registered Care spaces?  The Principal Planning Manager confirmed that the Council did work with KCC, and also the Primary Care Trust.  Mr Drummond-Hay added that the Council’s viability evidence was about to be updated and all the different requirements needed to be considered, both separately and together, with the aim of achieving a balanced plan in the end.

The Chairman referred to slide 25 in relation to older people, and he considered the rate of elderly people would increase.  Mr Drummond-Hay explained that the figure would increase, but there would be the same percentage in the different categories of housing, and this was probably a cautious approach.

A Member referred to the recent change in criteria for the waiting list, and that this would expand the numbers, as the residency time had been dropped before someone could go on the list.  He asked if this had been considered in the report?  Mr Aldridge said the waiting list was as at March 2020.  The Planning Policy Manager said that she would need to check.   Post Meeting Note:  Colleagues in housing had confirmed that changes to the criteria for joining the waiting list was currently under consultation and any amendments to the criteria would not be in place until later in the year.  The impacts on the waiting list would be unknown while the changes ‘bed in’ so could not be addressed at this stage.  Mr Aldridge said that they also looked at the size of the household, and number of rooms they required, and the likely ability of them being able to afford accommodation in the market including the private rented sector.  The list was then taken with all the information and anybody not within housing need as defined by the Planning Policy Guidance was removed and they looked at the household’s ability to afford a potential market solution.

The Chairman thanked the Planning Policy Manager and the consultants for their work on this item.

Recommended:

(1)      That Members note the content of the report and endorse it as part of the evidence base for the local plan review.