Affordable Housing
Case reference FOI2019/00001
Published 21 May 2019
Request
A request for information from your planners.
1) The percentage of affordable housing required for housing developments of 10 dwellings or more or that are greater than 0.5 hectares in area. If more than one level is set in planning policies - for example varying by location in the district or size of development - the maximum, minimum and district average percentages.
2) The average percentage of affordable housing agreed on approval of planning applications for housing developments of 10 dwellings or more or that are greater than 0.5 hectares in the council's area for each of 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Response
We have considered your request for information regarding -
1) The percentage of affordable housing required for housing developments of 10 dwellings or more or that are greater than 0.5 hectares in area. If more than one level is set in planning policies - for example varying by location in the district or size of development - the maximum, minimum and district average percentages.
Policy H11 of the Adopted Guildford Borough Local Plan 2003 indicates the minimum affordable housing contribution required from housing developments, which is different for urban and rural areas, as follows:
- For urban areas (i.e. areas not designated as rural), 30% on developments of 15 or more dwellings, or residential sites of 0.5ha or more irrespective of the number of dwellings*.
- In settlements in rural areas with a population of 3,000 or fewer, 30% on developments of 10 or more dwellings, or residential sites of 0.4ha or more irrespective of the number of dwellings*.
*No affordable housing contribution is required where the gross total number of residential units approved falls below the maximum thresholds specified in the National Planning Policy Framework (paragraph 63) and Planning Practice Guidance ('Planning Obligations', Paragraph: 031 Reference ID: 23b-031-20161116).
Policy H11 sets only minimum, and not maximum contributions. Please note that the Planning Contributions SPD adopted in September 2017 stated that, having regard to demonstrable housing need in the borough, developers will be normally be required to make a 35% provision for affordable housing where deliverable.
For information, the policy requirement for affordable housing increased to 40% following the examination of the Submission Local Plan (SLP) in July 2018 and the conclusion of the planning inspector that Plan is sound subject to his recommended modifications. The modified Policy H2 of the SLP is now attributed considerable weight in decision-making, as per paragraph 48 of the NPPF. This subsequent increase to 40% is less relevant to question (2) below however, due to the date of the examination being after the last monitoring period.
2) The average percentage of affordable housing agreed on approval of planning applications for housing developments of 10 dwellings or more or that are greater than 0.5 hectares in the council's area for each of 2016, 2017 and 2018.
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The following tables provide the average affordable housing contribution percentage agreed on all applications approved that met the relevant unit and/or site size threshold (in Local Plan policy H11) for each of the monitoring years between 2015 and 2018. 2017/18 is the most recent monitoring period for which this data is available for a whole year.
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**Note that these averages do not take account of those schemes where a 100% affordable housing contribution was agreed.
Documents
This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.