|
|
 |
| |
Housing target to be scrapped
DEVELOPERS are set to be told they no longer have to make sure that 50 per cent of their housing projects include affordable properties.
The Town Hall is to relax its long-standing guidance that half of all new housing developments should include cheap homes.
Changes lined up by the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition will see the recommendation only retained for big building sites where architects are planning more than 50 homes. A sliding scale will operate in which small schemes will be expected to include a much smaller number of affordable homes.
Opponents to the changes – alterations in a planning code held by the council, known as the Local Development Framework – say the move will lead to developers dodging the obligation to help people in search of inexpensive accommodation.
The details of the change are included in the fine print clauses of a document held by the Town Hall that is so filled with planning jargon even the Lib Dems who run the council have described it as difficult to decipher.
The details buried inside the report caused a feisty to and fro at Monday’s full council meeting as both the Greens and Labour called for a rethink. Green Party councillor Alex Goodman warned the changes were so out of kilter that they could be spiked by the government.
And Labour councillor Theo Blackwell said it showed a “naive” view of Camden’s property market.
But Conservative leader Councillor Andrew Marshall said: “The fact is that this will be giving us affordable housing where we didn’t have it before. It is an advance. I’d rather have that than ideological purity and failing to meet your targets.” |
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
