Is infill the answer?
In the fourth of his blog series Jonathan Griffin addresses the use of brownfield sites and infill for housing development. The problem, he says, is ‘where?’
In both the surveys we have run this year people have suggested infill and the use of brownfield sites as the best way to address any shortage of housing. In the first, 69% of respondents said that the best way to provide new homes that local people can afford was ‘by increasing housing density’. 59% specifically mentioned ‘infill’.
About 50 people mention infill or the use of brownfield sites in the recent Housing Needs Survey.
Infill is easier said than done as I hinted at in an earlier blog. It has a role to play but is very far from the answer to the provision of new affordable housing.
There are two big issues: the availability of land and planning regulations.
Recent developments in the Parish show what can be done. The award-winning Lemon Hill Gardens in Mylor Bridge is perhaps the best example of shoe-horning new homes into a cramped site, providing elderly people easy access to shops and services. The five recently-completed houses at Rosemary Gardens (Bell’s Hill, Mylor Bridge) also show how one house can be turned into five, making better use of space.
Similarly, the development at Tregew crossroads shows how existing buildings can be brought back into use and, with an extension or two, turned into several houses.
Other similar spaces will no doubt become available in due course. But none of these provide affordable homes. They are all open-market houses. The Rosemary Gardens houses are selling for around £400k, while the new Mylor Gardens houses have fetched an average of £481k; hardly in the ‘affordable’ bracket.
Infill may be a solution for small scale developments of open-market houses but not for affordable houses. Another Lemon Hill Gardens on single floors and/or with a resident warden or carer could help provide the type of housing older residents need, if only someone would develop it.
Which leads to the second issue: planning regulations. There is no requirement to include affordable houses in any development under five houses. This is why so many developers only plan for five.
There is an attractive infill site in Mylor Bridge which has planning permission for five open-market houses which could accommodate about 20 affordable houses in a small development and yet there is nothing we, or the planners, can do about it.
The only way we can develop more affordable houses is through major developments involving funding from other agencies and, because of building costs, building several houses in groups.
Infill is attractive as an idea and we need more of it, but can you think where we could find enough unused infill space to accommodate 42 houses? No? That, arguably, is why we need developments like Tregew Meadow and Robert Rundle Way.
A few quick off-the-cuff thoughts:
It being the case that developments of 5 or under houses do not have to include affordable housing, then the answer could be to indicate that such planning applications will not be looked upon favourably in the NDP, and indeed to adopt a policy that discourages such developments.
Surely it is not necessarily the case that the only way we can develop more affordable houses is through major developments? As I recall, earlier this year there was a very interesting and encouraging presentation by Cornwall Community Land Trust, when it was explained that under their auspices quite small-scale developments (from memory ?7 to 12 units?) can be provided.
Surely the only way we might ‘need more’ infill is if such infill were genuinely affordable housing? Otherwise, it’s the same old speculative development.
Are there any instances of affordable housing being provided on two or more sites simultaneously and under the same umbrella, ie one scheme divided between sites? (I guess that it might require separate planning applications but it would be clear that they were part of the same scheme.) Just a thought.
Thanks for these thoughts, Celia.
Forgive some of the contractions in my article, designed to keep it brief. I was trying to set out the basic rules of the game. Creativity is the way we then play our cards.
You are right that a Community Land Trust can do things others cannot because they are, in every sense, a charitable developer: in it to maximise benefit, not profit. We are very keen on developing a Mylor CLT but it will still need to secure land at a sensible price.
It would be great if we could use infill to provide AH but where are the sites? Rosemary Gardens was a pull-down-and-replace. There is a similar proposal for a house called Highlands, across Passage Hill, being discussed at present. The resulting houses may not be large but the prices are definitely open market ones.
There are higher costs in developing ones and twos than an estate and higher input costs are the last thing AH needs. But that is no bar to trying and that is something a CLT is good at.
I hope we will see at one of the consultation sessions this/next week.