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Council to force developers to disclose viability assessments if they miss affordable targets
A council is considering forcing developers that claim they cannot meet its affordable housing targets to make viability assessments public.
Labour-led Brighton & Hove City Council has set out the proposals in its city plan, which is due to go before its Tourism, Development & Culture Committee on 11 January.
The authority currently demands that schemes with five or more residential units include affordable housing, with a 40% threshold on developments of 15 homes or more.
Developers are able to submit viability assessments to be independently assessed by the District Valuer Services (DVS) in an attempt to prove that meeting this affordable housing target would render the scheme commercially unfeasible.
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The information submitted and the DVS assessment are not disclosed to the public.
But Brighton & Hove is proposing to insist that developers submit an unredacted viability assessment up front along with the rest of the planning application.
If approved by the committee, the requirement would come into force in early 2018.
A public consultation on the plans held in autumn indicated general support for the move – though developers warned that disclosing commercially sensitive information could hinder development in the city.
Alan Robins, chair of the council’s Tourism, Development & Culture Committee, said: “In many cases there may be perfectly good reasons why a developer cannot meet 40%. For example a council might want them to pay for other things such as a new leisure centre. But sometimes developers might be trying their luck by raising viability issues.
“Either way, it could be beneficial for the public to have the same information as councillors on the planning committee, so that everyone understands why a given amount of affordable housing was accepted or rejected.”
Viability assessments were introduced as part of the National Planning Policy Framework in 2012. They allow developers to limit their contributions to infrastructure and affordable housing by demonstrating that to do so would not guarantee them “competitive returns”.
In November last year, housing minister Alok Sharma told a committee of MPs that the system “as it is does not work”.
The government published proposals in September to make the viability of infrastructure and affordable housing contributions on schemes tested at the plan-making stage.
It is currently considering responses to the consultation.
A number of councils, including several London boroughs and Bristol City Council, have already taken steps to make viability assessments public.
