Delivering affordable housing in rural areas
Cheryl Tracy is community investment co-ordinator at Monmouthshire Housing Association and winner of Rising Stars Cymru 2013. She impressed the judges and voters alike with her passion and enthusiasm for housing and the difference we can make to the lives of tenants, residents and communities. As part of her prize package Cheryl was afforded the opportunity to write a piece for WHQ and, in an article which fully demonstrates why she was such a worthy winner, she looks at challenges facing RSLs in delivering affordable housing in rural areas.
When I found out that the theme of this edition of WHQ was demand and supply, I decided to talk with David James, the rural housing enabler for Monmouthshire, to find out more about the challenges facing RSLs in delivering affordable housing in rural areas.
The housing crisis and current shortage of homes in Wales has been well documented. This shortage of affordable housing is felt more acutely within rural areas due to a number of complex factors. These include higher house prices, higher costs to develop, higher land costs and local opposition, which can delay the development process. This has meant young people have been priced out of the communities they grew up in and an examination of the 2011 Census confirms the increasing average age of people living in these communities. Together with the closure of many services, it is questionable as to whether some of these communities are sustainable.
This article will focus on three factors affecting rural development; the planning system, development costs and community engagement.
Planning system
Agricultural land has become a sought after commodity, a position which is unlikely to change because of rising food prices. This has made it more difficult for RSLs to to make developments ‘stack up’, especially without social housing grant.
The planning system could help negate some of this rising cost by changing the way it allocates land for development. Currently, land is identified in the local development plan, meaning landowners are then able to hold the land to ransom, selling it to the highest bidder. A different approach could include looking at the needs of a community against a set of criteria. If a community was identified as being sustainable and suitable for development, it would then be up to landowners to bring land forward with each site being evaluated at the time. This should help reduce land costs, especially if the planning system favoured the land delivering the most community benefit.
The planning system could also go further to ensure the sustainability of communities by being more prescriptive about what is built. Over the last decade or so a lot of rural development has been large, unaffordable houses which do not meet the needs of the communities. The planning system could outline what needs to be built focusing on smaller affordable housing units, making it easier for local people to stay within their community and help sustain local services, such as the school or village shop.
Development costs
In addition to higher land costs, developing in a rural community has other costs when compared to urban developments. Rural developments are often small and discrete which means RSLs are unable to benefit from economies of scale to drive down prices. These developments also need to be built to Level 3+ of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which can sometimes be difficult
to achieve when access to mains gas and other services cannot be attained. With the additional costs of rural development, it can be very difficult to reach benchmark rents so there can be a reliance on intermediate rent to help with scheme viability.
Community engagement
There is a perception that rural communities can be harder to develop in due to local opposition and ‘NIMBYISM’ slowing up the development process. This perception is perhaps unfair and opposition
can be lessened at the beginning of any development by entering into meaningful dialogue with the local community. This ensures the development process is transparent, meaning local people clearly understand the lettings policy and are engaged with its design from the outset. This is not only essential in order for the development to run smoothly, but also for the integration of the new tenants and homeowners into the community on completion. If sustainable development is to be achieved this needs to become a fundamental part of the process.
Sustainable communities
What is clear is that development within rural areas needs to be more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of communities. More needs to be done to ensure land is not just sold to the highest bidder, but instead serves the best interests of the local community. RSLs and local authorities need to work more closely together to find innovative means and different funding models to ensure we can continue to make our rural communities ‘vibrant and viable’ places to live.
As David James confirms: ‘Where we have managed to build rural affordable housing the difference it makes to people and the communities is absolutely fantastic to see.’
If you are considering entering Rising Stars 2014, or know someone who should, and would like more information then please contact victoria.thorne@cih.org