Item9HousingSGAppendix1

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix | 24/06/2022

AGENDA ITEM 9

APPENDIX I

HOUS­ING SUP­PLE­MENT­ARY GUIDANCE

TABLE OF CON­SULTA­TION POINTS RAISED AND CNPA RESPONSE

1

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG SMI Con­siders the com­muted sums set out in the SG are unaf­ford­able for loc­al people to build their own homes. The cost can­not be bor­rowed against a mort­gage and this approach pen­al­ises those who can least afford it. The option of get­ting a viab­il­ity assess­ment also adds anoth­er sig­ni­fic­ant cost for try­ing to build a home which many may not be able to afford. Altern­at­ives should be con­sidered such as using the Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­den for self-build house plots. | It is acknow­ledged that the com­muted sums set out in Table I (Page 11) are a sig­ni­fic­ant increase from the cur­rent rate, par­tic­u­larly for single dwell­ings. The com­muted sums have been revised for one to three dwell­ings to 10% of the total charge per unit (As set out in the updated SG). Ref­er­ence to the use of rur­al hous­ing bur­dens will be included with­in the deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing sec­tion (4) and great­er detail is also included with­in Appendix 1. SM2 Grant­own and Con­cern expressed about the high levels of com­muted sums pro­posed. vicin­ity Whilst it is accep­ted an increase is required, a devel­op­ment of a single home com­munity is dif­fer­ent from a devel­op­ment of 2 or 3 dwell­ings and as such, single coun­cil dwell­ings should not have to pay the unit price but a per­cent­age of the unit price as pre­vi­ously. In addi­tion, the exemp­tion based on value does not recog­nise that a single dwell­ing could be for a single per­son. | As noted above, the sums have been sig­ni­fic­antly reduced to just 10% of the total charge per unit. SM3 NatureScot Cross ref­er­ence needed to oth­er rel­ev­ant policies such as Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing which could help devel­op high qual­ity afford­able homes. Ref­er­ence should be included in the intro­duc­tion for the need to con­sider oth­er policies and seek pre-applic­a­tion advice to identi­fy con­straints and oppor­tun­it­ies. | It is agreed that all policies apply and a line in the intro­duc­tion will be added high­light­ing this. How­ever the focus of the SG is afford­able hous­ing and it is not con­sidered neces­sary to cross ref­er­ence to oth­er spe­cif­ic policies with­in the Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance. SM4 Sco­tia Homes The state­ment that the cost of land can­not be con­sidered a val­id reas­on for a pro­ject to be unvi­able should be removed or reworded. From exper­i­ence, oth­er author­it­ies have sug­ges­ted that abnor­mal costs should be absorbed by the price of land but landown­ers will not con­sider selling for such a price which does make a pro­ject unvi­able. A fair land price or close to mar­ket value needs to be included to enable the pro­ject to hap­pen. | These con­cerns are noted, how­ever the cost of land is the start­ing point for any devel­op­ment and its cost has to be taken into account when cost­ing a devel­op­ment as it is known from the out­set. Only in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances will land value be taken into account and there­fore the word­ing in Sec­tion 8 will be amended to ​‘The cost of land is not gen­er­ally accep­ted as a val­id reason’.

A state­ment should also be included to encour­age engage­ment with com­munit­ies who may have an interest in the ten­ure and meth­ods of deliv­ery Oth­er ​‘unfore­seen costs’ can be taken into account in a for afford­able hous­ing. | viab­il­ity assess­ment such as those asso­ci­ated with pre­par­ing land to make it ready for devel­op­ment which had not been known at the time of purchase.

2

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG SM6 Objects to the com­muted sum for single houses as this will exclude those on lower and aver­age incomes from build­ing their own homes. Obtain­ing fin­ance for self-build is already very dif­fi­cult and the addi­tion­al amount will have a major impact. Of the view that the cost of land does need to be taken into account as it forms a sig­ni­fic­ant part of the build cost, par­tic­u­larly with­in the CNP. The ​‘mar­ket val­ues’ in Appendix 3 are unreal­ist­ic as the mar­ket value of a prop­erty includes the land upon which it is built.

Demon­strat­ing viab­il­ity will incur more upfront fees before fin­ance can be secured (and there is no guar­an­tee that it will be accep­ted). Self-build­ers need to know what they are going to have to pay before sub­mit­ting the plan­ning applic­a­tion and not find they have more money to pay to release their plan­ning per­mis­sion. The com­muted sum levy will put massive pres­sure on build budgets and will res­ult in people exper­i­en­cing fin­an­cial hard­ship or be unable to com­plete their homes.

There is no dir­ect com­muted sum for second homes (or oth­er gen­er­al open mar­ket house sales) which are a key factor affect­ing hous­ing afford­ab­il­ity and avail­ab­il­ity. The amount required should be akin to the same as stamp duty for pur­chas­ing an exist­ing house not the ​‘obscene’ fig­ure many times that. This does not answer the afford­able hous­ing prob­lem. Pres­sure needed on the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to legis­late against the scourge of second homes or include leg­al text in title deeds led by plan­ning con­di­tions to ensure new houses are kept as full-time dwell­ings in per­petu­ity and not sold as second homes. Ulti­mately, people build­ing their own homes helps to reduce pres­sure on hous­ing stock and sup­ports the loc­al eco­nomy so should not be pen­al­ised. | Enga­ging with com­munit­ies is encour­aged Sec­tion 4 already sup­ports col­lab­or­a­tion between groups is wel­comed. This has been expan­ded to spe­cific­ally include com­munity groups.

As noted above, the sums have been sig­ni­fic­antly reduced, par­tic­u­larly for single dwell­ings to just 10% of the total charge per unit mak­ing it much more afford­able for those build­ing a single house.

The reduc­tion in the com­muted sum for single dwell­ings will reduce the need for a viab­il­ity assess­ment. It is not inten­ded that the com­muted sum will render a devel­op­ment unvi­able and by set­ting out the required sums in the SG provides all applic­ants with a clar­ity on what they will be required to pay.

Com­muted sums will be required for all small-scale devel­op­ments of three or less dwell­ings irre­spect­ive of wheth­er they are pro­posed to be or become second homes. Any devel­op­ments big­ger than this must com­prise the appro­pri­ate pro­por­tion of on-site afford­able housing.

Legis­lat­ing against second homes or char­ging a com­muted sum for any exist­ing second home is out­with the remit of plan­ning or this SG.

3

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG SM7 Kin­craig and Feshiebridge becom­ing a hol­i­day vil­lage with no res­id­ents — 1 res­id­ent and 3 Vicin­ity hol­i­day lets. Nearby hous­ing in Kin­craig is priced well out of loc­al wages so Com­munity become hol­i­day homes. | The LDP and this SG acknow­ledge the impacts of second homes and the need to sup­port more afford­able hous­ing. No amend­ments sought. Coun­cil SM8 HIE When con­sid­er­ing the devel­op­ments that will require con­tri­bu­tions HIE sug­gest that all Staff accom­mod­a­tion or hostel style accom­mod­a­tion should be treated as a com­mer­cial devel­op­ment. | It is not pos­sible to amend the LDP policies to which this SG relates how­ever it is agreed that staff accom­mod­a­tion / hostel accom­mod­a­tion is in itself a form of afford­able hous­ing. The SG will be amended to exempt staff accom­mod­a­tion and hostel accom­mod­a­tion from afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tions. It may be neces­sary to con­di­tion such devel­op­ments to ensure they can only be used for this pur­pose. SM9 Great­er focus needed on the import­ance of wild­life, mead­ows, trees and biod­iversity. Under Design­ing for Afford­ab­il­ity (Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment Rights), ref­er­ence is made to plan­ning cri­ter­ia includ­ing road access, neigh­bour amen­ity, wild­life, land­scape and her­it­age con­sid­er­a­tions and more inform­a­tion should be provided on each of these ele­ments. No men­tion of Choice based let­ting or how the situ­ation can be man­aged to ensure that loc­al people get access to prop­er­ties. No men­tion of the turn­around of prop­er­ties where plan­ning needs to take account of set­tle­ments with a large retired pop­u­la­tion which will have a quick­er turn­around than those with a young­er demo­graph­ic. | Whilst it is acknow­ledged that nat­ur­al her­it­age is an import­ant con­sid­er­a­tion in any plan­ning applic­a­tion, it is not con­sidered that detailed guid­ance on this should be provided with­in this Afford­able Hous­ing SG. Fur­ther detail is provided in Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Heritage/​Policy 3: and the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age SG and all hous­ing pro­pos­als should be con­sidered against these.

Choice based let­ting and spe­cify­ing who can get access to prop­er­ties is not a mat­ter than plan­ning or this SG can con­trol or influ­ence. SM10 Aber­deen­shire Seeks clar­ity on where the evid­ence is for the high­er levels of afford­able Coun­cil hous­ing (45% in Bal­later & Brae­mar) and the Hous­ing Sup­ply Tar­get. Loc­al Hous­ing Author­ity should be abbre­vi­ated to ​‘LA’. Clar­ity needed on what a ​‘smal­ler’ dwell­ing is i.e. is it no. of bed­rooms or phys­ic­al footprint.

The SG does not cor­rectly out­line the cur­rent fund­ing and approv­al mech­an­isms for afford­able hous­ing which should be in accord­ance with the Loc­al Hous­ing Strategy (LHS) for each area. Ref­er­ence is made to the Afford­able Hous­ing Invest­ment Pro­gramme but this should be the ​‘Sup­ply’ Pro­gramme which is led by the loc­al author­ity as the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity (SHA). | The option to intro­duce increased afford­able hous­ing rates with­in the Nation­al Park was agreed through the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (2017) and evid­ence to sup­port the increase to 45% for Aviemore, Bal­later, Blair Atholl and Brae­mar was set out in the evid­ence reports accom­pa­ny­ing the Main Issues Report and Pro­posed LDP. This approach was agreed by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and has there­fore been imple­men­ted with­in the LDP 2021 and this SG provides detail on how the Policy should be imple­men­ted and does not provide jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the policy.

4

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG Page 9, para. 2 should be amended to read ​‘Coun­cils can also derive fund­ing’. Ref­er­ence to the Loc­al Hous­ing Asso­ci­ation (LHA) should be removed as there is no such thing and replaced with Loc­al Hous­ing Author­ity (LA).

On page 9, under the ​‘With pub­lic sub­sidy’ head­ing, it should be made clear that developers need to approach the loc­al author­ity to gain fund­ing as it is the SHA who enable the draw­down of funding.

Under ​‘Fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tions’ it states that they will be used to provide hous­ing else­where in the loc­al authority/​housing mar­ket area how­ever mon­ies with­in Aber­deen­shire are alloc­ated with­in the same academy catch­ment area in which they are generated.

For all ren­ted afford­able hous­ing, applic­ants must be taken from or nom­in­ated from the hous­ing wait­ing lists of the LA or hous­ing associations.

‘Off­s­ite Con­tri­bu­tions’ — should only be con­sidered where the SHA has been con­sul­ted and agrees to ensure com­pli­ance with the LHS.

‘Com­muted Sums’ — Include ​‘Academy catch­ment area’ in addi­tion to hous­ing mar­ket area.

‘Afford­able Hous­ing Excep­tion Sites’ — Clar­ity reques­ted on what is meant by an ​‘inde­pend­ent assessor’ — who would that be/​qualifications needed. Sug­gests that it could be approved by the SHA as a rel­ev­ant body with appro­pri­ate exper­i­ence and evid­ence. For social ren­ted prop­er­ties, applic­ants are not asked for fin­an­cial inform­a­tion or assessed on this. In respect of the cri­ter­ia that ​‘Details to con­firm the res­id­ents of the new devel­op­ment have a need to live in the loc­al­ity chosen’, hous­ing need is not loc­al con­nec­tion and should come first but have a Loc­al Let­tings Ini­ti­at­ive (LLI) to fur­ther assess.

‘Viab­il­ity’ — There price paid for land is not jus­ti­fic­a­tion for fail­ing to accord with devel­op­ment plan policies and only unfore­seen costs should be taken | In rela­tion to ​‘smal­ler dwell­ings’ it is acknow­ledged that space stand­ards vary between author­it­ies, and this will be ref­er­enced with­in sec­tion 9: Design­ing for Afford­ab­il­ity. The siz­ing guide which sets out intern­al areas of smal­ler dwell­ings has also be moved to be more prominent.

Sec­tion 4. Deliv­er­ing Afford­able Hous­ing will be amended to bet­ter reflect the need for developers to con­tact the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Author­ity in rela­tion to fund­ing for afford­able hous­ing which should be in accord­ance with the LHS and ensur­ing that sites are set out with­in the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plan.

Ref­er­ence to Afford­able hous­ing Invest­ment Pro­gramme (page 9) will be removed and the first para­graph amended to read ​‘Fund­ing for afford­able hous­ing is dir­ec­ted to LAs (as the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity who pre­pare the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plan) and RSLs (who also receive grant fund­ing to deliv­er homes). Developers should con­tact the rel­ev­ant LA as early as pos­sible to dis­cuss fund­ing and deliv­ery opportunities.

Word­ing amend­ments on page 9 are agreed and the above amend­ment provides clar­ity that developers need to approach LAs to obtain funding

It is acknow­ledged that in Aber­deen­shire and some oth­er loc­al author­it­ies that con­tri­bu­tions should be spent with­in the academy/​secondary school catch­ment area. It is there­fore agreed that sec­ond­ary school catch­ment will be added in the Fin­an­cial Con­tri­bu­tion sec­tion (page 9) and Com­muted Sums sec­tion (page 11).

5

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG into account and jus­ti­fic­a­tion provided as to why they could not be taken into account. The out­come of any viab­il­ity assess­ment should be dis­cussed and agreed with the rel­ev­ant LA. The NPA should not be the only arbit­er as the LA will have to determ­ine if they can meet short­fall. In respect of flex­ib­il­ity, fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion is sought on how the length of time a house must remain afford­able affects the viab­il­ity of the scheme. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil deliv­er a range of afford­able hous­ing schemes without the need for a time lim­it and could only be con­sidered where the site does not require any pub­lic sub­sidy and sug­gests adding the fol­low­ing word­ing at the end of the para­graph: ​“delivered by a Registered Social Land­lord or Loc­al Authority”.

‘Design­ing for afford­ab­il­ity’ — Afford­able hous­ing should be visu­ally in char­ac­ter with the open mar­ket hous­ing and be phys­ic­ally integ­rated (and not loc­ated in the less desir­able parts of a site). The Design sec­tion does not deal with sub­di­vi­sion of lar­ger sites into mul­tiple devel­op­ments to avoid con­tri­bu­tions which should not be sup­por­ted. Where mul­tiple related applic­a­tions are received over a peri­od of time, con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the cumu­lat­ive impact of the devel­op­ment and full afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tions should be based on site capa­city. Con­sid­er­a­tion needed for effects of the pan­dem­ic includ­ing more people work­ing from home, home school­ing which could be con­sidered. In addi­tion, whilst exemp­tion for lar­ger prop­er­ties to accom­mod­ate spe­cial needs is noted, Gov­ern­ment policy requires a per­cent­age of afford­able homes to be fully wheel­chair access­ible and Aberdeenshire’s LHS requires 15% of new build afford­able hous­ing to be suit­able for par­tic­u­lar needs and 10% wheel­chair accessible.

Appendix I is not needed. It attempts to define how afford­able hous­ing ten­ures work in prac­tice how­ever they vary between LA and could change with­in the life­time of the LDP. Sug­gests a note that afford­able hous­ing can be delivered by a recog­nised form of afford­able hous­ing which could include ser­viced land, social ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion, mid-mar­ket ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion (MMR), shared equity and dis­coun­ted low-cost hous­ing for sale (includ­ing plots). | It is not con­sidered neces­sary for off­s­ite con­tri­bu­tions to only be con­sidered accept­able where in com­pli­ance with the LHS. How­ever it is reas­on­able to include that. ​‘Con­sulta­tion with the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity may be required’.

An inde­pend­ent assessor does not need to be a spe­cif­ic per­son but a suit­able per­son or organ­isa­tion who can con­firm that the applic­a­tion will meet an iden­ti­fied need and this could as sug­ges­ted include the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Authority.

It is noted in the second para­graph (page 12) under ​‘100% Afford­able Hous­ing’ that for ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion ​‘applic­ants and those eli­gible for any form of afford­able hous­ing must be taken or nom­in­ated from the hous­ing wait­ing lists of the loc­al hous­ing author­ity, hous­ing asso­ci­ations or from anoth­er organ­isa­tion’. Giv­en that the Nation­al Park cov­ers five loc­al author­ity areas with dif­fer­ing hous­ing alloc­a­tion policies, it is not con­sidered appro­pri­ate for CNPA to cre­ate a loc­al let­tings initiative.

In respect of viab­il­ity, in sec­tion 8 (page 1 (now 16)) it is acknow­ledged that the cost of land will gen­er­ally not be accep­ted as a val­id reas­on for a devel­op­ment being unvi­able. Where neces­sary the out­come of a viab­il­ity assess­ment will be dis­cussed with the rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity, and this will be reflec­ted at the end of the first para­graph (page 14 now 16).

In terms of flex­ib­il­ity in the amount of time a house must remain afford­able will vary depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances of the indi­vidu­al applic­a­tion. The pref­er­ence is for all afford­able hous­ing to be delivered through a LA or RSL which will help to keep it afford­able in per­petu­ity, but the SG does acknow­ledge there may be cir­cum­stances where a time frame is suit­able, but no fur­ther clar­ity is con­sidered necessary.

6

CNPA Response Respo organ­isa­tion Extract of com­ment raised | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022 nder How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what ID changes will be made to the SG M13 High­land It is sug­ges­ted that a sec­tion is included set­ting out the pro­cess for apply­ing Coun­cil and the con­sid­er­a­tion of plan­ning per­mis­sion with­in the CNP and some form of map­ping is provided to illus­trate the cor­rect LA to apply to. In addi­tion, it is sug­ges­ted that the need for pre-applic­a­tion advice is set out in the | includ­ing ​‘or Loc­al Author­ity’ at the end of the last para­graph (page 14) is agreed.

Com­ments in respect of design­ing for afford­ab­il­ity are noted. It is expec­ted that on site afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion is integ­rated with­in a pro­posed devel­op­ment and all pro­pos­als should meet the cri­ter­ia set out in Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing. The sub­di­vi­sion of sites will be closely mon­itored how­ever it is not con­sidered neces­sary to include this with­in the SG.

The SG does recog­nise that in some cases that afford­able houses may need to be lar­ger due to num­ber of occu­pants or spe­cial­ist needs. It is con­sidered that this is appro­pri­ate as the types of afford­able homes being delivered will be influ­enced and alloc­ated by the RSL/LA and there­fore it is not neces­sary to expli­citly include this with­in the SG. There is no cri­ter­ia with­in this SG (or the policy) that would in any way pre­vent the deliv­ery of spe­cial­ist housing.

It is not con­sidered appro­pri­ate to remove Appendix I which is inten­ded to provide developers/​applicants with fur­ther details about the ways in which afford­able hous­ing can be delivered. It will be cla­ri­fied at the begin­ning of the sec­tion that developers should always approach their LA in the first instance and that this is not an exhaust­ive list of mech­an­isms for delivery.

The CNPA web­site already provides guid­ance about mak­ing a plan­ning applic­a­tion with­in the Nation­al Park and provides con­tact details for each Loc­al Author­ity. How­ever it is agreed If the Appendix is retained, the fol­low­ing amend­ments are sug­ges­ted: Under ​‘Social Ren­ted’, replace ​‘been gif­ted’ with secured. Under ​‘Mid-mar­ket Social Ren­ted’, it states that ​‘This is accom­mod­a­tion provided by either a developer or a LHA/RSL’ how­ever is usu­ally RSL or LA, not developer. In last para­graph, amend word­ing to read ​‘for those who are unable to access social hous­ing, and who can­not afford the private sec­tor’. Amend page 21 word­ing to reflect that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment do not give guar­an­tees. Amend page 22, 3^rd para­graph to read ​‘there are a num­ber of mod­els to deliv­er MMR. In gen­er­al rent levels are about 80% of Loc­al Hous­ing Allow­ance. Please speak to the Loc­al Author­ity who will advise which mod­els are available’.

In respect of shared equity, shared own­er­ship is not really done any­more and each LA have their own schemes.

7

Extract of com­ment raised organ­isa­tion CNPA Response Respo nder ID Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group intro­duc­tion along with links to each respect­ive LA’s advice page. Ref­er­ence should be made to encour­age developers to engage early with LA’s as the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity. In respect of Com­muted Sums, whilst the pay­ments are out­lined in Sec­tion 6, the ​‘Valu­ation Study’ which the fig­ures have been cal­cu­lated from should be linked/​made pub­lic giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ant rise in pay­ment which is likely to be scru­tin­ised. High­land Coun­cil query wheth­er any grace peri­od will be applied — will it only apply to applic­a­tions val­id­ated after Ist April or applic­a­tions determ­ined or will a phased intro­duc­tion be used. Appendix 3: Quer­ies how the value of prop­er­ties expressed in num­ber of ​‘per­sons’ is cal­cu­lated in rela­tion to the num­ber of bed­rooms with­in a prop­erty i.e. is a 3‑bed for 4 or 6 per­sons. Cus­tom and Self Build plots are being pro­moted by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and THC has recently estab­lished a self-build register which should be reflec­ted in the doc­u­ment. THC wish to dis­cuss the prac­tic­al imple­ment­a­tion of the guid­ance to ensure con­sist­ency of approach between CNPA and LAs, par­tic­u­larly how and when the new com­muted sums will be imple­men­ted. In respect of restric­tions on per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights, use of ​‘large’ is vague when apply­ing restric­tions to any decision. The Guid­ance should reflect the neces­sity, urgency and scale of the cli­mate and nature emer­gency and should rep­res­ent a break from ​‘busi­ness as usu­al’. Ref­er­ence is made the NPPP (2017−2022) how­ever it should cla­ri­fy how it integ­rates and adapts to the forth­com­ing NPPP 2022. 100% Afford­able Hous­ing — Con­cerned how nat­ur­al her­it­age interests are to be safe­guarded in prac­tice and the SG should provide inform­a­tion on this. | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022

How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what changes will be made to the SG that links to these could be provided with­in the intro­duc­tion and encour­age developers to engage early with LAs. Due to the sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in pro­posed com­muted sums, it is not con­sidered that the Valu­ation Study needs to be provided for jus­ti­fic­a­tion at this stage. As set out above, the com­muted sum fig­ures have been sig­ni­fic­antly reduced par­tic­u­larly for single houses and this will apply across the plan peri­od once this Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance is adop­ted. We will noti­fy all LAs once the SG is in place and the expect­a­tion is that As noted above, CNPA will noti­fy and engage with all LAs fol­low­ing the approv­al of the SG and how the revised com­muted sums will be imple­men­ted. Appendix 3 has been removed and integ­rated with­in the viab­il­ity sec­tion as the com­muted sum for single houses will be sig­ni­fic­antly reduced and there­fore the exemp­tion based on mar­ket value will no longer apply.

This SG provides cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the inten­tion and imple­ment­a­tion of Policy 1: Hous­ing. It can­not intro­duce new policy cri­ter­ia or con­sid­er­a­tions that are not already set out in the adop­ted policy.

As with all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als, applic­a­tions for hous­ing and afford­able hous­ing will be assessed against all rel­ev­ant policies includ­ing Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age to ensure nat­ur­al her­it­age interests are con­sidered and safeguarded.

8

Extract of com­ment raised organ­isa­tion CNPA Response Respo nder ID Viab­il­ity — Whilst sup­port­ing that the cost of land is not accep­ted as a val­id reas­on, con­cern expressed that there is too little inform­a­tion as to what is and is not con­sidered to be an ​‘abnor­mal cost’ asso­ci­ated with ​‘where the devel­op­ment would oth­er­wise be con­sidered to be unvi­able’. It should be added that ​‘unfore­seen costs’ would only apply in extreme cir­cum­stances and clarity/​examples should be included as to what can reas­on­ably be con­sidered ​‘unfore­seen costs’. Con­cern about includ­ing high infra­struc­ture costs as reas­on as such sites are likely to be of high nat­ur­al her­it­age value and this may drive biod­iversity loss. The SG acknow­ledges the sens­it­iv­ity of fin­an­cial inform­a­tion how­ever cla­ri­fic­a­tion is sought as to what inform­a­tion will be avail­able to the pub­lic and pro­cess to safe­guard pub­lic interest. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion is needed in the SG if any restric­tions will be in place as to when a viab­il­ity claim/​assessment can be made and wheth­er there is scope for pub­lic to com­ment on this as it could be made after the peri­od of pub­lic con­sulta­tion is over. The SG should include inform­a­tion about how the pub­lic can chal­lenge non- viab­il­ity and the pro­cesses that the CNPA and Dis­trict Valu­er have gone through to assess the viab­il­ity. This should be made avail­able pub­lic. The SG needs to be clear on when it is refer­ring to open mar­ket hous­ing that is being coun­ted as afford­able, and oth­er open mar­ket hous­ing. The SG should make clear the import­ance of Design in help­ing to achieve net zero, for example through choice of mater­i­als, and Passivhaus stand­ards of energy use. Con­cern expressed about the short time spans on which afford­able houses may remain in the afford­able sec­tor. Releas­ing houses onto the non-afford­able open mar­ket, gen­er­ates fur­ther demand for new afford­able houses, so driv­ing biod­iversity loss and oth­er impacts on nat­ur­al her­it­age through use of land for built devel­op­ment. This does not rep­res­ent a sus­tain­able approach to pro­vi­sion of social and afford­able hous­ing, and is likely to erode amen­ity and green space. | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022

How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what changes will be made to the SG Assess­ing viab­il­ity is a com­plex pro­cess and it is not abso­lute what ​‘unfore­seen costs’ will be. As set out in the SG, the applic­ant must demon­strate – via a suit­ably qual­i­fied per­son provid­ing jus­ti­fic­a­tion — why the costs were not factored in ini­tially. It is then for the author­ity to determ­ine the accept­ab­il­ity — which should be ​‘proven without doubt’- of the viab­il­ity assess­ment and con­sider wheth­er an appro­pri­ate reduc­tion in com­muted sum/​affordable hous­ing require­ment is appropriate.

Viab­il­ity inform­a­tion at this stage can­not be made pub­lic or avail­able for pub­lic scru­tiny. As high­lighted above, CNPA will determ­ine – with assist­ance from a suit­ably qual­i­fied assessor or the rel­ev­ant LA if neces­sary — wheth­er the applic­ant has adequately demon­strated that the required com­muted sum or afford­able hous­ing require­ment will render a devel­op­ment unviable.

The major­ity of the SG relates to afford­able hous­ing and the con­tri­bu­tion of afford­able hous­ing as part of devel­op­ments. The only sec­tion that refers to all hous­ing is sec­tion 10 – Oth­er Hous­ing Mat­ters. It is con­sidered that the cur­rent struc­ture and head­ings are clear.

Whilst it is acknow­ledged that hous­ing design is import­ant, all pro­pos­als are assessed against Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and is not neces­sary or rel­ev­ant to repeat with­in the Hous­ing SG.

The amount of time which homes are expec­ted to remain afford­able, will vary depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances of the indi­vidu­al applic­a­tion. Whilst the inten­tion is that afford­able homes will remain afford­able in per­petu­ity, depend­ing on the

9

Extract of com­ment raised organ­isa­tion CNPA Response Respo nder ID Mid Deeside Com­munity Coun­cil Perth and Kinross Coun­cil Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Dis­agrees with the com­muted sums pro­posed. Loc­al people/​families who have saved up to pur­chase a plot of land (which is already incred­ibly dif­fi­cult to secure), pay for plans to be drawn up and sub­mit the plan­ning applic­a­tion, and then are con­fron­ted with anoth­er fee in order to get the plan­ning per­mis­sion. This cost can­not be added to a mort­gage or form part of the value of the fin­ished house and there­fore for some people they won’t be able to build their home. Get­ting an inde­pend­ent assessor to do a viab­il­ity assess­ment costs more money and there is no guar­an­tee that the assess­ment will show it that the applic­ant can­not afford it. There­fore the applic­ant is in a worse situ­ation than they star­ted. The pro­posed increases in afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tions will pen­al­ise those who can afford it least and altern­at­ives should be used such as the rur­al hous­ing bur­den or allow­ing self-build­ers to show the costs of build­ing their house com­pared to the valu­ation. On page 9 (4. Deliv­er­ing Afford­able Hous­ing), developers should be referred to the Loc­al Author­ity to gain access to fund­ing and ensure the site is in the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plan (SHIP). The Loc­al Author­ity is the SHA which dir­ects and con­trols where fund­ing is inves­ted in afford­able hous­ing through Loc­al Author­ity build­ing as well as through Hous­ing Asso­ci­ations and oth­er part­ners. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment also approaches the Loc­al Author­ity on any applic­a­tion made for fund­ing through the Rur­al Hous­ing Fund. Ref­er­ences to Loc­al Hous­ing Asso­ci­ations and RSLs should be in line with the accep­ted defin­i­tions — RSL cov­ers both Coun­cils and Hous­ing Asso­ci­ations LHA is not used — gen­er­ally just Hous­ing Asso­ci­ation as it may not need to be a loc­al hous­ing asso­ci­ation. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment raised a num­ber of minor changes to word­ing in the doc­u­ment. They also encour­age enga­ging with indi­vidu­al loc­al author­it­ies | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022

How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what changes will be made to the SG meth­od of deliv­ery this may not always be the case depend­ing on the meth­od or mech­an­ism of deliv­ery. As noted above, the sums have been sig­ni­fic­antly reduced, par­tic­u­larly for single dwell­ings to just 10% of the total charge per unit. The word­ing in the first para­graph will be amended to reflect the need for developers to con­tact the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Author­ity in rela­tion to fund­ing for afford­able hous­ing and ensur­ing that sites are set out with­in the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plan (SHIP). Ref­er­ence to Loc­al Hous­ing Asso­ci­ations will be removed/​replaced. The changes pro­posed are agreed (with the excep­tion of those lis­ted below) and will be reflec­ted in the revised SG.

10

Extract of com­ment raised organ­isa­tion CNPA Response Respo nder ID on the use of Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­dens and it might be help­ful if the guid­ance expli­citly high­lighted loc­al author­it­ies’ sup­port. For example, High­land Council’s Loc­al Hous­ing Strategy indic­ates that the Coun­cil con­tin­ues to sup­port the ​‘golden-share’ arrange­ments cur­rently oper­at­ing in rela­tion to Shared Equity hous­ing in rur­al areas, so that the social land­lord (RSL) which built the houses is able to retain a share of the equity and ensure that hous­ing remains avail­able for future afford­able hous­ing needs. It is also high­lighted that space stand­ards can dif­fer between loc­al author­ity and registered social land­lord design guides and align­ment is encour­aged. For example, High­land Coun­cil has an agreed design guide for afford­able hous­ing which the devel­op­ing RSLs in High­land also align too.

Page 15 — Sec­tion 9 ​‘Design­ing for Afford­ab­il­ity’ — there is no ref­er­ence to hous­ing being designed to be afford­able to heat. Sug­gest a sub­sec­tion on prop­er­ties being designed to be energy effi­cient with appro­pri­ate heat­ing sys­tems so as to be afford­able to heat and reduce the like­li­hood of fuel poverty.

On page 4, para­graph 3 states ​‘it is the aim of the NPPP to ensure that when new houses are built, more of them are afford­able to people work­ing in the Park, and that the range and size of new houses are bet­ter tar­geted at meet­ing loc­al needs’. We sug­gest cla­ri­fy­ing how this aligns with loc­al author­ity hous­ing alloc­a­tion policy. | CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 Appendix I 24/06/2022

How this is pro­posed to be addressed and what changes will be made to the SG Appendix I includes fur­ther inform­a­tion and sup­port for the use of Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­dens as an import­ant mech­an­ism for secur­ing afford­able hous­ing in perpetuity.

In Sec­tion 9. Design­ing for Afford­ab­il­ity, ref­er­ence will be made the dif­fer­ent author­it­ies space stand­ards and the need to align with these.

The CNPA does not con­sider this to be with­in the remit of this guidance.

A short para­graph on page 4 has been inser­ted to high­light that deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing requires work­ing in collaboration

11