PLAN­NING

Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021

Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance: Housing

Con­tents

1. Intro­duc­tion.. 2 Pur­pose of the Guid­ance 2 Main focus 2
2. Afford­able Hous­ing: Policy Con­text 3 Nation­al Policy 3 Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 3 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 3
3. What is afford­able hous­ing? 7
4. Deliv­er­ing Afford­able Hous­ing 8 With Pub­lic Sub­sidy 8 Fin­an­cial Con­tri­bu­tion (also known as Com­muted Sum) 8
5. Off­s­ite Con­tri­bu­tions 10
6. Com­muted Sums 11 Exemp­tions for com­muted sums 11
7. Afford­able Hous­ing Excep­tions Sites 12 100% Afford­able Hous­ing 12 Cross-sub­sidy 12
8. Viab­il­ity 14 Flex­ib­il­ity in the per­cent­age require­ment of afford­able hous­ing or mak­ing a com­muted sum 14

Flex­ib­il­ity in the length of time that a house must remain afford­able 14

1. Design­ing for Afford­ab­il­ity 15 What are smal­ler dwell­ings? 15 Dwell­ing Types 15
2. Oth­er Hous­ing Mat­ters 16 Hous­ing in set­tle­ments 16 Hous­ing devel­op­ment in exist­ing rur­al groups 16 Oth­er hous­ing in the coun­tryside 16 Alter­a­tions to exist­ing houses 17 Con­ver­sions 17 Replace­ment houses 18 Hous­ing for Gypsy/​Travellers and trav­el­ling show people 19 Appendix I: Afford­able Hous­ing Deliv­ery 20 Social Ren­ted 20 Mid-mar­ket Private Ren­ted 20 Shared Equity includ­ing use of the Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­den 21 Shared Own­er­ship 23 Dis­count for Sale (includ­ing self-build plots) 24 Appendix 2: Hous­ing Con­tacts 27 Loc­al Author­it­ies (LAs) 27 Registered Social Land­lords (RSLs) 27

1. Intro­duc­tion

Pur­pose of the Guidance

This guid­ance is one of a series of Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance and Non- stat­utory Guid­ance that sup­port the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) and explains how Policy 1: Hous­ing policy will be applied in prac­tice across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

It is aimed at those apply­ing for plan­ning per­mis­sion, com­munity groups and agen­cies look­ing to pro­gress hous­ing pro­pos­als and to aid the devel­op­ment man­age­ment team with­in the plan­ning author­ity, to inter­pret the detail of the policies.

Main focus

The main focus of this guid­ance is afford­able hous­ing. The short­age of afford­able hous­ing has been iden­ti­fied as a major issue and one of the greatest chal­lenges facing the com­munit­ies with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. There­fore, one of the main aims of the Local

Devel­op­ment Plan is to increase the amount of afford­able hous­ing delivered across the Nation­al Park.

This guid­ance defines afford­able hous­ing and explains where on-site deliv­ery is required as well as where excep­tions to this might be made. It also sets out the expec­ted level of fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion that is required for smal­ler devel­op­ments (of less than 4 dwell­ings) and situ­ations where on-site deliv­ery is not possible.

Guid­ance is also provided on house build­ing in set­tle­ments, in the coun­tryside and in rur­al groups. It also provides guid­ance on alter­a­tions, con­ver­sions, replace­ment houses and hous­ing pro­vi­sion for gypsies, trav­el­lers and trav­el­ling show people.

2. Afford­able Hous­ing: Policy Context

Nation­al Policy

SPP requires that Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans (LDP’s) clearly set out the scale and dis­tri­bu­tion of afford­able hous­ing require­ment and how short­ages iden­ti­fied in Hous­ing Need and Demand Assess­ments and Loc­al Hous­ing Strategies will be addressed.

Accord­ing to SPP, the level of afford­able hous­ing required as a con­tri­bu­tion with­in a mar­ket site should gen­er­ally be no more than 25% of the total num­ber of houses. Fur­ther details are provided in Plan­ning Advice Note 2/2010, which states that 25% is a bench­mark fig­ure and that this bench­mark does not apply if a dif­fer­ent per­cent­age is required loc­ally. This must be jus­ti­fied by the HNDA and iden­ti­fied in the Loc­al Hous­ing Strategy (LHS) and the LDP.

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

2017 – 2022 The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP), which was agreed by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and adop­ted in 2017, recog­nises that it is cur­rently hard for many house­holds that work with­in the Nation­al Park to access hous­ing on the open mar­ket. There­fore 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.

The NPPP there­fore seeks, through Policy 3.1 and Pri­or­ity 7, to

• identi­fy sites in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan where the afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tion will be more than the nor­mal nation­al max­im­um of 25% because of acute afford­ab­il­ity pres­sures and the short­age of sup­ply; and
• tar­get pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing towards the Nation­al Park and to sites with the greatest poten­tial for deliv­er­ing afford­able housing.

Deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing with­in the Nation­al Park requires work­ing in col­lab­or­a­tion with each loc­al author­ity and oth­er hous­ing pro­viders to ensure that afford­able hous­ing can be secured and alloc­ated in line with the rel­ev­ant alloc­a­tions policy.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021

The Hous­ing Sup­ply Tar­get iden­ti­fies a need for 489 afford­able homes between 2020 and 2029. The pre­ferred loc­a­tion for new hous­ing in the Nation­al Park is with­in the Stra­tegic, Inter­me­di­ate and Rur­al Set­tle­ments. With­in most of these set­tle­ments there are a num­ber sites iden­ti­fied for hous­ing, each with an indic­at­ive num­ber of units iden­ti­fied and an afford­able hous­ing require­ment set accord­ing to Policy 1.5.

1.5 Afford­able housing Devel­op­ments con­sist­ing of four or more dwell­ings should include pro­vi­sion for afford­able hous­ing amount­ing to:

a) 45% of the total num­ber of dwell­ings on the devel­op­ment site in the set­tle­ments of Aviemore, Bal­later, Blair Atholl and Braemar

b) 25% of the total num­ber of dwell­ings on the devel­op­ment site in all oth­er areas of the Nation­al Park.

Pro­pos­als for few­er than four mar­ket dwell­ings will also be required to make a con­tri­bu­tion towards afford­able hous­ing. This will be a mon­et­ary pay­ment towards meet­ing hous­ing need in the loc­al community.

Developers seek­ing to nego­ti­ate a reduc­tion in afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion must demon­strate through a Viab­il­ity Assess­ment that the require­ments make an oth­er­wise com­mer­cially viable pro­pos­al unviable.

Afford­able hous­ing excep­tions sites will be con­sidered in loc­a­tions that would not nor­mally be used for hous­ing, provid­ing they are jus­ti­fied by evid­ence of unmet loc­al need. In excep­tion­al cases where the deliv­ery of 100% afford­able hous­ing is not viable, a lim­ited amount of open mar­ket hous­ing may be sup­por­ted to cross-sub­sid­ise the afford­able hous­ing. These applic­a­tions will be determ­ined accord­ing to Policy 1.6.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­it­ies (CNPA’s) pref­er­ence is for afford­able hous­ing to be delivered on-site through a Loc­al Author­ity (LA) or Registered Social Land­lord (RSL). How­ever, it is recog­nised that there are a num­ber of chal­lenges to deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing in rur­al areas such as the small-scale nature of sites and gain­ing RSL involve­ment. Where this is not pos­sible, oth­er afford­able hous­ing options should be con­sidered, such as dis­coun­ted sale. Appendix I gives fur­ther inform­a­tion on the dif­fer­ent types of afford­able hous­ing that could be provided.

1.6 Afford­able hous­ing excep­tion sites Devel­op­ment of 100% afford­able hous­ing sites will be sup­por­ted in loc­a­tions that would not nor­mally be used for hous­ing only where:

i. it is jus­ti­fied by evid­ence of unmet loc­al need at that loc­a­tion and;

ii. the hous­ing is designed to address that need.

Any plan­ning applic­a­tions for such hous­ing must be accom­pan­ied by evid­ence of the unmet loc­al need at that loc­a­tion such as com­munity needs assess­ments, hous­ing needs and demand assess­ments or oth­er rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion avail­able at the time of the application.

In excep­tion­al cases where the deliv­ery of 100% afford­able hous­ing is not viable, a lim­ited amount of open mar­ket hous­ing may be sup­por­ted to cross-sub­sid­ise the afford­able hous­ing provid­ing evid­ence shows that:

a) the whole devel­op­ment com­prises a min­im­um of two afford­able houses; and

b) the open mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to provide the neces­sary sub­sidy to facil­it­ate the devel­op­ment of the afford­able ele­ment; and

c) the afford­able hous­ing could not be delivered without the input of the sub­sidy provided by the open mar­ket ele­ment of the proposal.

The LDP also requires that all new hous­ing, wheth­er it falls under the defin­i­tion of afford­able or mar­ket, is designed to meet loc­al needs and there­fore tar­get those who struggle to access the hous­ing mar­ket. Policy 1.4 requires that a mix of hous­ing types and sizes with an emphas­is on smal­ler dwellings.

1.4 Design­ing for affordability Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment will be required to provide a mix of dwell­ing types and sizes to help secure a bal­anced hous­ing stock, with an emphas­is on smal­ler dwellings.

3. What is afford­able housing?

Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) (2020) broadly defines afford­able hous­ing as hous­ing of a reas­on­able qual­ity that is afford­able to people on mod­est incomes. Afford­able hous­ing may be provided in the form of social ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion, mid-mar­ket ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion, shared own­er­ship hous­ing, shared equity hous­ing, hous­ing sold at a dis­count (includ­ing plots for self-build), and low-cost hous­ing without sub­sidy. The CNPA regards lower quart­ile earn­ings as being ​“mod­est”.

The pro­cess of deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing can be com­plex involving sev­er­al dif­fer­ent agen­cies, fund­ing mech­an­isms and pro­ced­ures. The developer, Nation­al Park Author­ity, Registered Social Land­lords (RSLs), Loc­al Author­it­ies (LAs) and landown­ers must all work togeth­er to ensure deliv­ery on the ground.

The fol­low­ing types of afford­able hous­ing are out­lined in Appendix 1:

• Social Ren­ted
• Mid-mar­ket Private Rented
• Shared Equity
• Shared Own­er­ship
• Dis­count for Sale (includ­ing self-build plots)

4. Deliv­er­ing Afford­able Housing

Fund­ing for afford­able hous­ing is dir­ec­ted to LAs (as the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity who pre­pare the Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plan (SHIP)) 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.

The Scot­tish Government’s Rur­al and Island Hous­ing Fund provides fund­ing to com­munity organ­isa­tions, devel­op­ment trusts, landown­ers, developers and tra­di­tion­al hous­ing pro­viders to devel­op new afford­able hous­ing for own­er­ship or rent or bring empty homes back into use as afford­able hous­ing in rur­al areas.

Col­lab­or­a­tion between groups includ­ing loc­al com­munit­ies will be wel­comed. Coun­cils also derive fund­ing from oth­er sources such as second home coun­cil tax, long-term empty homes and fin­an­cial contributions.

With Pub­lic Subsidy

Secur­ing pub­lic sub­sidy to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing on site is the pre­ferred approach as this secures afford­able hous­ing in per­petu­ity as either ren­ted or hous­ing for sale using a mech­an­ism such as the Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­den. The hous­ing can either be trans­ferred to a Hous­ing Asso­ci­ation (HA) or RSL once built or con­struc­ted by an RSL fol­low­ing land trans­fer of part of a site.

In pre­par­ing their annu­al SHIP, LAs are required to engage with stake­hold­ers includ­ing hous­ing, plan­ning, RSLs, com­munit­ies, and developers amongst oth­ers to help inform the devel­op­ment of the SHIP. Developers must approach a loc­al author­ity or RSL to dis­cuss any poten­tial sites and it will be for the LA to agree if the site is included in its SHIP. It is there­fore import­ant that applic­ants speak to a LA and / or RSL early in the pro­cess. Appendix 2 provides con­tact details for the dif­fer­ent LAs and RSLS oper­at­ing in the area.

Fin­an­cial Con­tri­bu­tion (also

known as Com­muted Sum) The CNPA accepts that in some instances such as for a devel­op­ment of less than four houses, where fund­ing may not be avail­able or for pro­pos­als such as con­ver­sions that do not lend them­selves to on-site deliv­ery, a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion may be more appropriate/​suitable. The fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be used to provide afford­able hous­ing else­where in the hous­ing mar­ket area or sec­ond­ary school catch­ment (depend­ing on the LA).

On alloc­ated sites the pref­er­ence is on-site deliv­ery rather than a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion and fur­ther inform­a­tion on how this will be cal­cu­lated is set out in Sec­tion 6.

It can be used for:

• secur­ing land for afford­able housing,

• sup­port­ing site apprais­al work for sites being developed for afford­able hous­ing e.g. flood risk assessment,

• on and off-site infra­struc­ture costs for sites being developed for afford­able hous­ing, and
• the pur­chase of hous­ing units for use as afford­able housing.

5. Off­s­ite Contributions

Where assess­ments demon­strate that the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing is more suit­able on a dif­fer­ent site, this will be con­sidered. A pro­pos­al that incor­por­ates an ele­ment of off­s­ite pro­vi­sion will only be gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion when details of the meth­ods of deliv­ery have been agreed and con­sulta­tion with the rel­ev­ant Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity may be required. The devel­op­ment of both sites will be sub­ject to a leg­al agree­ment to ensure that the afford­able hous­ing ele­ment of the devel­op­ment is built with­in an agreed timeframe.

6. Com­muted Sums

All res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment must make a con­tri­bu­tion towards afford­able hous­ing provision.

Where pro­pos­als are made for the devel­op­ment of few­er than four mar­ket dwell­ings, a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be sought that will be put towards the deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing. This mon­et­ary con­tri­bu­tion will be ring-fenced by the rel­ev­ant LA for the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing with­in in the rel­ev­ant hous­ing mar­ket area or sec­ond­ary school catchment.

A viab­il­ity study has been con­duc­ted to determ­ine the appro­pri­ate com­muted sum for each Hous­ing Mar­ket Area (HMA) with­in the Nation­al Park. The level of con­tri­bu­tion per unit has been set at 10% of the full mar­ket cost of deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing and is shown in Table 1.

The levels may be reviewed dur­ing the Plan peri­od, and should sig­ni­fic­ant change be iden­ti­fied; updated fig­ures will be pub­lished on the Nation­al Park Authority’s website.

Table I Com­muted sum per unit in devel­op­ments of one to three units

Aber­deen­shire	£3250
Angus	£1600
High­land	£1850
Moray	£1700
Perth & Kinross	£3000

Exemp­tions for com­muted sums While the viab­il­ity of pro­jects may still be con­sidered accord­ing to Sec­tion 9 of this guid­ance, provid­ing the devel­op­ment meets one of the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia, a pay­ment will not be required.

The fol­low­ing types of res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment will be exempt from com­muted sums for afford­able housing:

• One-bed­room properties
• Afford­able housing
• Sheltered or spe­cial­ist housing
• Pur­pose built staff accom­mod­a­tion (which should be secured by a condition)
• Replace­ment single dwell­ings (unless addi­tion­al units above the thresholds are being cre­ated and the com­muted sum will be applied across the entire site to the net increase in dwell­ing numbers)

7. Afford­able Hous­ing Excep­tions Sites

100% Afford­able Housing

All 100% afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ments will be sup­por­ted where they meet an iden­ti­fied loc­al need.

Where the pro­pos­al is 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 LA, hous­ing asso­ci­ations or from anoth­er organ­isa­tion with an alloc­a­tions policy appro­pri­ate to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Devel­op­ments must meet an iden­ti­fied need with­in the loc­al com­munity and will need to be evid­enced with sup­port­ing inform­a­tion such as:

• Loc­al hous­ing needs assessments;
• A form­al sup­port­ing state­ment from the LA,

• Details to con­firm the res­id­ents of the new devel­op­ment are in hous­ing need.

• How the devel­op­ment is meet­ing a recog­nised need for afford­able hous­ing in the area.

• Details of the type of afford­able hous­ing and mech­an­ism for retain­ing affordability
• Explan­a­tion of why exist­ing prop­er­ties or sites which are for- sale on the open mar­ket do not meet the need iden­ti­fied. Per­son­al pref­er­ence is not con­sidered to be a val­id mater­i­al consideration.
• Floor plan details to allow com­par­is­on with the bench­marks on gross intern­al space set out in Sec­tion 9.
• Com­par­is­on costs to jus­ti­fy the afford­ab­il­ity of the new devel­op­ment against the cost of exist­ing hous­ing stock.
• Inform­a­tion from the rel­ev­ant LA/RSL to con­firm the devel­op­ment will res­ult in a reduc­tion in their wait­ing list.

Cross-sub­sidy

In excep­tion­al cases where the deliv­ery of 100% afford­able hous­ing is not viable, a lim­ited amount of open mar­ket hous­ing may be sup­por­ted to cross-sub­sid­ise the afford­able housing.

Pub­lic fund­ing should be ini­tially sought to meet the bur­den of devel­op­ment costs. In the event that this is not avail­able then the cross-sub­sidy option may be considered.

As with pro­pos­als for 100% afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ment, inde­pend­ent assessors will be used to carry out an assess­ment to ensure the afford­able ele­ment of the devel­op­ment is of appro­pri­ate size and ten­ure, and is in a loc­a­tion which is justifiable.

The inform­a­tion provided must be suf­fi­cient to allow an inde­pend­ent assessor to con­duct an assess­ment in a timely way which does not delay the pro­cess of determ­in­ing the application.

Evid­ence that any mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to fund the afford­able ele­ment will need to be sub­mit­ted. All afford­able houses must meet a loc­al need. Applic­a­tions must include:

• Inform­a­tion to jus­ti­fy the need for all afford­able hous­ing. Refer to the LA to gath­er most up to date inform­a­tion. Any oth­er com­munity-based stud­ies may also be considered,
• where pro­pos­als include an open mar­ket ele­ment, inform­a­tion to demon­strate that pub­lic fund­ing or oth­er forms of fin­ance are not available,

• inform­a­tion to demon­strate that the open mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to close the fund­ing gap. This should include inform­a­tion on the costs of land pur­chase and con­struc­tion of the afford­able ele­ment. It should not include the cost of the land nor any part of the con­struc­tion of the open mar­ket element,

• a design which is cohes­ive and cre­ates a new or adds to an exist­ing group of build­ings. There should be no dis­cern­ible dif­fer­ence in the appear­ance of the afford­able and open mar­ket ele­ments, and

• floor plan details to allow com­par­is­on with the bench­marks on gross intern­al space set out in Sec­tion 9.

8. Viab­il­ity

Flex­ib­il­ity in the percentage

require­ment of afford­able hous­ing or mak­ing a com­muted sum It is recog­nised that all sites and pro­jects will dif­fer in terms of their con­text, char­ac­ter­ist­ics and the deliv­ery meth­ods for afford­able hous­ing. In some cases, abnor­mal costs may jus­ti­fy flex­ib­il­ity or exemp­tion from the per­cent­age of afford­able hous­ing require­ments at any of the loc­a­tions iden­ti­fied in Fig­ure I (Page 4). This is where the devel­op­ment would oth­er­wise be con­sidered to be unvi­able due to high infra­struc­ture or unfore­seen costs and the pro­pos­al would deliv­er desir­able com­munity and eco­nom­ic bene­fits. The cost of the land is gen­er­ally not accep­ted as a val­id reas­on. The applic­ant will have to under­take an apprais­al of the site eco­nom­ics and sub­mis­sion of a viab­il­ity report. This will require an open book approach between the applic­ant, developer or landown­er and the CNPA. The report must be pro­duced by a suit­ably qual­i­fied per­son and evid­ence provided to sup­port the cost­ing. The sens­it­iv­ity of provid­ing such inform­a­tion is acknow­ledged how­ever this is required to demon­strate a genu­ine need to reduce the afford­able hous­ing require­ment to ensure the devel­op­ment is viable and max­im­um com­munity bene­fits are gained. Con­sulta­tion with the rel­ev­ant Stra­tegic Hous­ing Author­ity may be required.

There may be options to change the design, house type, dens­ity or deliv­ery meth­od to improve viab­il­ity and ensure that the scheme pro­gresses. Where genu­ine dif­fi­culties with site viab­il­ity can be proven without doubt, the CNPA will con­sider, through nego­ti­ation, redu­cing the per­cent­age or fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion. A fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be sought as dis­cussed in the Sec­tion 6.

Where the site is loc­ated out­side of a set­tle­ment bound­ary, the require­ment is for 100% afford­able hous­ing. The CNPA wish to keep any open mar­ket ele­ment to a min­im­um and the applic­ant is required to com­ply with the cross-sub­sidy mod­el of delivery.

Flex­ib­il­ity in the length of time

that a house must remain afford­able Whilst it is gen­er­ally expec­ted that all afford­able hous­ing pro­pos­als should be secured in per­petu­ity, there may be flex­ib­il­ity in the policy require­ments where the pro­posed afford­able hous­ing is part of a mix with­in a lar­ger devel­op­ment. For example, this could be where a small per­cent­age of the afford­able hous­ing is only for 10 years, delivered either by shared equity or dis­coun­ted sale meth­od, and can then be sold on at open mar­ket prices but the high­er per­cent­age of afford­able hous­ing on the site is secured in per­petu­ity, delivered by a RSL or LA.

9. Design­ing for Affordability

The Nation­al Park has a dis­pro­por­tion­ately high pro­por­tion of lar­ger and detached hous­ing, which has res­ul­ted in a hous­ing stock that is poorly equipped to meet arising hous­ing needs. Policy 1.4 requires that new devel­op­ment offer a mix of dwell­ing types and sizes with the aim of meet­ing loc­al need. A key part of this is ensur­ing that both afford­able and mar­ket hous­ing focuses on deliv­er­ing smal­ler dwell­ings in terms of num­bers of bed­rooms and pub­lic rooms.

Afford­able hous­ing provided via the Loc­al Author­ity Stra­tegic Hous­ing Invest­ment Plans will always meet the rel­ev­ant stand­ards for pub­licly fun­ded afford­able hous­ing. With respect to open mar­ket dwell­ings, while the mar­ket shows con­tin­ued demand for the sale of large four-plus bed­room prop­er­ties in many parts of the Nation­al Park, they com­mand a price premi­um that means they will rarely be afford­able to people work­ing in the area. hat their prices

What are smal­ler dwellings?

Devel­op­ment should focus on provid­ing homes that have adequate space that allows the occu­pi­er to enjoy a good liv­ing envir­on­ment and should focus on one, two and three-bed­room prop­er­ties unless hous­ing needs in the loc­al area demon­strates lar­ger prop­er­ties are needed

Dwell­ing Types

Over half of all dwell­ings with the Nation­al Park are detached, com­pared to a Scot­tish level of around 20%. Detached houses in the Nation­al Park are often lar­ger and carry a premi­um in price com­pared to equi­val­ent semi-detached or ter­raced prop­er­ties. Developers should focus on deliv­er­ing semi-detached, ter­raced and where appro­pri­ate, flat­ted prop­er­ties as a way of deliv­er­ing hous­ing that is bet­ter tar­geted to hous­ing need.

10. Oth­er Hous­ing Matters

Hous­ing in settlements

Most large-scale hous­ing devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should be loc­ated on alloc­ated sites with­in Stra­tegic and Inter­me­di­ate Set­tle­ments as iden­ti­fied in the LDP.

Hous­ing pro­pos­als on oth­er wind­fall sites will also be con­sidered. These are gen­er­ally smal­ler sites that provide good oppor­tun­it­ies for single or smal­ler scale hous­ing developments.

In set­tle­ments, res­id­en­tial devel­op­ments should usu­ally be loc­ated with­in the set­tle­ment bound­ary as set out in the LDP. Afford­able hous­ing excep­tions sites may how­ever be con­sidered out­with set­tle­ment bound­ar­ies (see sec­tion 7). They must be designed to ensure the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment is rein­forced, mak­ing best use of the land available.

Hous­ing devel­op­ment in existing

rur­al groups Applic­ants must be sure that the site is with­in a defined rur­al build­ing group. The group must include three or more build­ings, one of which is an exist­ing house. Ancil­lary build­ings to the exist­ing house are not included in this cal­cu­la­tion. These include ken­nels, out­build­ings, gar­ages and sheds.

Each build­ing group has its own indi­vidu­al iden­tity. Where both nat­ur­al and man-made bound­ar­ies exist, nat­ur­al bound­ar­ies take pre­ced­ence over man-made bound­ar­ies when defin­ing the extent of a build­ing group. Applic­ants should ensure that the devel­op­ment fits with the exist­ing group and adds to the cohes­ive pat­tern of built form with­in its land­scape setting.

Where a group con­sists of a row of houses front­ing a road, infill or addi­tions using gaps of an appro­pri­ate size may provide oppor­tun­it­ies for new dwell­ings. In such cases, new houses should be of a scale appro­pri­ate to the oth­ers in the loc­al­ity. For more inform­a­tion please refer to the Design and Place­mak­ing Guid­ance which can be found here.

Plan­ning applic­a­tions must include a descrip­tion of the exist­ing group which the devel­op­ment is adding to, detail­ing the num­ber of build­ings in the group and an explan­a­tion of how the pro­posed devel­op­ment adds to the rela­tion­ship between the buildings.

New devel­op­ment must not cause a group to increase in size by more than one third dur­ing the LDP peri­od. This includes extant per­mis­sions which are yet to be completed.

Oth­er hous­ing in the countryside

If a devel­op­ment pro­pos­al is loc­ated out­with a set­tle­ment bound­ary, and is not with­in a rur­al build­ing group then applic­ants must consider:

• Why the pro­pos­al is neces­sary for, or improves, the oper­a­tion­al and eco­nom­ic viab­il­ity of an act­ive busi­ness. This busi­ness must demon­strate a val­id loc­a­tion­al need to be in the coun­tryside. This includes land man­age­ment oper­a­tions, and tour­ism and recre­ation pur­suits; or
• wheth­er the site is on rur­al brown­field land; and
• how it con­serves the exist­ing pat­tern of devel­op­ment. It should not erode the set­tle­ment hier­archy and should not cre­ate a new form of devel­op­ment in the land­scape which is at odds with the exist­ing built and land­scape character.

Applic­a­tions must include inform­a­tion to sup­port the need for the house in the chosen location.

The con­tri­bu­tion the house makes to the busi­ness it is to sup­port will be con­sidered by the plan­ning author­ity. This can be either a new busi­ness ven­ture or an exist­ing one. How­ever, applic­ants must be clear in the inform­a­tion provided that the busi­ness will rely on the house to ensure its eco­nom­ic suc­cess. In the case of a new busi­ness, it is required that the busi­ness ele­ment of the pro­pos­al is in place pri­or to the con­struc­tion and com­ple­tion of the house.

In the design of the devel­op­ment applic­ants must show how the pro­pos­al helps con­serve the exist­ing built form in the area. Applic­ants should not pro­pose a devel­op­ment which is at odds to the exist­ing built form. Applic­ants should also ensure that the set­tle­ment hier­archy is not eroded. This includes adequate con­sid­er­a­tion of altern­at­ive loc­a­tions for the pro­posed devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly where there is an exist­ing build­ing group in close prox­im­ity to the pro­posed devel­op­ment site.

Alter­a­tions to exist­ing houses

When design­ing an alter­a­tion or exten­sion to an exist­ing build­ing, par­tic­u­lar care should be giv­en to ensur­ing that the pro­posed alter­a­tion com­ple­ments the appear­ance and char­ac­ter of the exist­ing build­ing and its sur­round­ing area. This means that applic­ants must con­sider the mass­ing, pro­por­tions, mater­i­als and gen­er­al visu­al appear­ance of the exist­ing build­ing, its neigh­bours and the wider area.

Applic­ants must ensure that the pro­posed alter­a­tion does not have a sig­ni­fic­ant and unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al effect on the res­id­en­tial amen­ity enjoyed by adjoin­ing house­hold­ers. Applic­ants must also ensure that adequate out­side space is main­tained for private garden ground, park­ing and access to the property.

Con­ver­sions

Con­ver­sions of non-domest­ic build­ings into hous­ing not only brings build­ings back to life but it also provides oppor­tun­it­ies to con­serve our built her­it­age and help to main­tain the char­ac­ter and dis­tinct­ive­ness of places with­in the Nation­al Park.

The con­ver­sion and renov­a­tion of the build­ings must be as sym­path­et­ic as pos­sible to the exist­ing scale, char­ac­ter and mater­i­als. Addi­tions and alter­a­tions should gen­er­ally be lim­ited to those neces­sary to achieve Build­ing Stand­ards, the effi­cient use of space and an appro­pri­ate and coher­ent design concept.

Applic­ants must con­sider how they will achieve adequate private garden space for the pro­posed domest­ic use of the con­ver­ted build­ing. Where the land­scape set­ting is appro­pri­ate, and estab­lished bound­ar­ies such as walls and hedgerows relate well to the site, rather than chan­ging exist­ing bound­ar­ies applic­ants may need to con­sider adja­cent and inter­ven­ing land for ancil­lary purposes.

Con­ver­sion of tra­di­tion­al and ver­nacu­lar build­ings will be con­sidered appro­pri­ate where the build­ing is no longer required for its ori­gin­al use and is unlikely to have a com­mer­cial or eco­nom­ic future in its cur­rent form. Con­ver­sion pro­pos­als should be designed to main­tain the style and char­ac­ter of the ori­gin­al build­ing in terms of form, scale, mater­i­als, and detail­ing, where they con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the con­text and set­ting of the area. This means that the build­ing, its set­ting and ori­gin­al design details must be care­fully con­sidered to ensure that the con­ver­ted build­ing remains in har­mony with its setting.

For all con­ver­sions, applic­ants will need to demon­strate in their plan­ning sub­mis­sion that:

• the build­ing is no longer required for its ori­gin­al use, and that it is unlikely to have a com­mer­cial or eco­nom­ic future in its cur­rent form; and
• the devel­op­ment pro­pos­al main­tains the ori­gin­al char­ac­ter of the building.

Replace­ment houses

Before a pro­pos­al for a replace­ment house is con­sidered, applic­ants will be required to demon­strate in their plan­ning sub­mis­sion that they have invest­ig­ated the feas­ib­il­ity of re-using or renov­at­ing the exist­ing dwell­ing. Only once this has been shown to be to be unfeas­ible will a pro­pos­al for the demoli­tion of an exist­ing build­ing and the con­struc­tion of a replace­ment dwell­ing be con­sidered. In the case of sur­viv­ing tra­di­tion­al ruins, every effort should be made to incor­por­ate this mater­i­al into the replace­ment house. rather than con­sid­er­ing their com­plete replacement

The replace­ment house should be sim­il­ar in scale to that which it replaces and the set­ting of the new house should be sim­il­ar to that of the exist­ing house in terms of ori­ent­a­tion and dis­tance from road unless indi­vidu­al site con­di­tions sug­gest that anoth­er pos­i­tion (with­in the site bound­ar­ies) would cre­ate a bet­ter land­scape fit.

If the pro­posed new house does not occupy the foot­print of the pre­vi­ous house, that foot­print will not be accep­ted as a site for a future house­build­ing pro­pos­al. Pro­pos­als will need to demon­strate that the exist­ing house is loc­ated with­in an estab­lished site with a good land­scape set­ting and land­scape fit; has site bound­ar­ies cap­able of provid­ing a suit­able enclos­ure for a new house; and is in all oth­er respects accept­able in plan­ning terms.

Pro­pos­als for replace­ment houses must:

• Ensure that the ori­gin­al build­ing is not a lis­ted building.
• Demon­strate that the ori­gin­al is incap­able of rehab­il­it­a­tion, being demon­strably unsound struc­tur­ally or is of a non-stand­ard form of con­struc­tion. This will usu­ally be in the form of a qual­i­fied struc­tur­al engin­eers report and fin­an­cial appraisal.
• Be designed in such a way that the new devel­op­ment incor­por­ates the ori­gin­al foot­print of the build­ing to be removed. The only excep­tion to this is where an altern­at­ive loc­a­tion close to the ori­gin­al would min­im­ise any neg­at­ive effects which exist or would res­ult from the new devel­op­ment. If the pro­posed new house does not occupy the foot­print of the pre­vi­ous house, that foot­print will not be accep­ted as a site for a future house build­ing proposal.
• Incor­por­ate exist­ing build­ings and/​or mater­i­als where pos­sible. If such mater­i­als are not to be incor­por­ated into the pro­posed dwell­ing, then the applic­ant must demon­strate (again through a qual­i­fied struc­tur­al engin­eers report) why these mater­i­als can­not be salvaged and re-used on-site.

Hous­ing for Gypsy/​Travellers and

trav­el­ling show people If a devel­op­ment is for hous­ing spe­cific­ally to meet the needs of Gypsy/​Travellers applic­ants should con­sider site selec­tion care­fully. It must also be able to demon­strate that the devel­op­ment is needed, and has been iden­ti­fied as such by the LA.

In design­ing the devel­op­ment applic­ants should con­sider the impact on neigh­bours, and the needs of the res­id­ents, both in terms of access and amen­ity. Screen­ing may be required depend­ing on the nature of the site.

Applic­a­tions must include:

• Inform­a­tion on the need for the devel­op­ment, and

• clear jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the site selec­tion that matches the iden­ti­fied need.

Appendix I: Affordable

Hous­ing Deliv­ery Appendix I sets out the most com­mon forms of afford­able hous­ing deliv­ery. These options are not pre­script­ive or exhaust­ive, included here to provide gen­er­al inform­a­tion about some poten­tial options for afford­able housing.

Social Ren­ted

The social ren­ted sec­tor relates to hous­ing provided at an afford­able rent and usu­ally man­aged by the Loc­al Author­ity (LA) or Registered Social Land­lord (RSL) such as a hous­ing asso­ci­ation or hous­ing co-operative.

In some cases the LA or RSL is the developer. This is where they have pur­chased or secured a plot of land and then houses or flats are con­struc­ted by them using fund­ing from the gov­ern­ment. Once con­struc­ted the houses or flats would be owned and man­aged by the LA or RSL.

Altern­at­ively, the developer con­structs the units and then trans­fers them to the LA or RSL. The LA or RSL will then own and man­age the units and will alloc­ate them to people in hous­ing need in accord­ance with its alloc­a­tions policy.

This option often res­ults in a quick plan­ning decision as a plan­ning con­di­tion can be used to secure the afford­able hous­ing rather than using a leg­al agree­ment. It is recog­nised that social ren­ted is not always the best meth­od of deliv­ery and that depend­ing on the loc­a­tion and type of devel­op­ment that afford­able hous­ing for sale may be a bet­ter option (see options below on shared equity and dis­coun­ted sale).

Mid-mar­ket Private Rented

Defin­i­tion: This is accom­mod­a­tion provided by either a developer or a LA/ RSL. In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park mid-mar­ket rent­als are often delivered by large rur­al estates or private indi­vidu­als. The rent level is high­er than social rent, but lower than private sec­tor prices. In gen­er­al, rent levels are set between 60 – 80% of the mar­ket rent. In the case of unsub­sid­ised devel­op­ment, i.e. devel­op­ment con­struc­ted and man­aged solely by the private land­lord, the units must either be retained as mid-mar­ket ren­ted prop­er­ties in per­petu­ity or could be sold but under a dif­fer­ent afford­able hous­ing option If the units are man­aged by a LA or RSL, in order that they can be retained as mid-mar­ket rent units in perpetuity.

In the case of a private developer, a leg­al agree­ment is often used to set the lower rent­al value in per­petu­ity. This approach is unique in that it provides a place to live for those who are unable to access social hous­ing and who can­not afford the private sec­tor in the open market.

Approach: An example of this in prac­tice is where a LA and developer work togeth­er to deliv­er mid-mar­ket rent­al units. This is an altern­at­ive to the tra­di­tion­al grant fund­ing mod­els. The units are con­struc­ted by a developer and then trans­ferred to a Lim­ited Liab­il­ity Part­ner­ship (LLP) con­sist­ing of a board with mem­bers from the Coun­cil, developers and the Scot­tish Futures Trust (SFT). The developer receives an upfront pay­ment of 65 – 70% of the pre­dicted sale price at that point. The developer must appoint an agent who man­ages the units on behalf of the LLP.

At the end of a 5 or 10-year peri­od, the units may be sold off but as an afford­able house often under dis­coun­ted sale option. Anoth­er option could be that the houses are sold on the open mar­ket after a cer­tain peri­od of time in which case there would be a cap on the profits for the developer of 20% and the remainder of any profits will be recycled into more afford­able hous­ing i.e. a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion towards afford­able hous­ing in the Nation­al Park.

There are sev­er­al mod­els to deliv­er mid-mar­ket ren­ted hous­ing. In gen­er­al, rent levels are about 80% of LA rent levels for the area. Developers should speak to the LA who will advise on the mod­els avail­able. A plan­ning oblig­a­tion would be used to retain the prop­er­ties as mid-mar­ket rent in per­petu­ity or resale with set cri­ter­ia as described above. This would only apply to devel­op­ments with­in towns and vil­lages not in the countryside.

Shared Equity includ­ing use of the

Rur­al Hous­ing Bur­den Defin­i­tion: This can be a prop­erty con­struc­ted with or without pub­lic sub­sidy. Shared equity is dif­fer­ent from shared own­er­ship as a per­son owns a home out­right, with the remain­ing stake usu­ally held by a hous­ing asso­ci­ation. Unlike shared own­er­ship, the own­er pays no rent for the equity stake which is retained by the Scot­tish Government/​RSL.

Unlike shared own­er­ship the own­er pays no rent and owns the prop­erty out­right but the loan is shared. In the unsub­sid­ised ver­sion the developer or gov­ern­ment sells part of the equity – gen­er­ally a share of 60 to 80% to an eli­gible pur­chaser. The