Housing land audits: research project
Assessment of housing land audits (HLAs) for consistency and compliance, their potential for standardisation and their role in development plan delivery.
Footnotes
1. Completion figures for 2012 to 2015 are too low, as five HLAs did not provide data and two had only partial data. 2016 is close to the Scottish Government’s data and is therefore taken to be a reasonable estimate.
2. The Scottish Government provides authorities with guidance on the production of HNDAs, including a Practitioners’ Guide, HNDA Tool Instructions and a Managers’ Guide: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/supply-demand/chma/hnda. Since the introduction of the guidance in 2014 all authorities have produced their HNDAs in this standardised way.
3. Author note: this research was published 11 years ago and Action Programming has taken up these challenges, although the links with HLAs may not yet be sufficient (see Sections 3 and 4).
4. Places, People and Planning – Thinkpiece, Carlin F., Calvert R., RTPI Scotland, June 2017
5. The Process for Developing Robust Housing Evidence for Local Development Plans, RTPI Cymru, January 2016
6. Briefing Paper Number 03741, 14 June 2017
7. Fixing our Broken Housing Market, February 2017
8. Planning for Homes Consultation Document
9. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-build-out-preliminary-update
10. http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/planning/Review-of-Planning
11. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/01/3486
12. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/06/1061/downloads#res-1
13. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/10/3738
14. /publications/planning-review-analysis-of-consultation-responses-june-2017/
15. https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/sites/aberdeen-cms/files/2017-11/Housing_Land_Audit_2017.pdf
16. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20194/development_activity_reports/1034/housing_land_audit/1
17. https://www.stirling.gov.uk/__documents/infrastructure-delivery/hla-2017-rfs.pdf
19. parts of this response may duplicate the checking of housing completions in Question 4
20. An HLA cannot de-allocate a site, although it could be removed if developed for an alternative use. Some authorities though report deleting windfall (unallocated) sites if their planning permissions lapse.
21. Non-agreed sites range from the 40% of authorities who report they currently have none, to those reporting one or two, and one authority with a historic non-agreement rate of around 7%.
22. This report is reliant solely on the summary written responses received and has not interrogated or cross-compared the methods described.
23. This is similar to the “years’ supply” approach typically used in employment land audits.
24. Some respondents challenged the wording of the question, noting that HLAs are monitoring tools and do not themselves set a demand requirement.
25. Cross-tabulation of question responses suggests that there may be some duplication here – ie. consultation with site promoters / developers may be via rather than separate from Homes for Scotland
26. The Chapter 3 analysis of current HLAs found that some of the publicly available online mapping to support HLAs was not interactive.
27. Author note: this could have distributional consequences as it can be very large allocations with step change infrastructure requirements and viability challenges that roll over without resolution.
28. For the avoidance of doubt, this was not the sole view of a modernising planning authority, but a broader sentiment from those currently steeped in HLAs.
29. Author note: the ‘gatecheck’ is still emerging; from the consultation opinions it may be that the term is unfortunately redolent of ‘gatekeeper’, and thus already open to misinterpretation.
30. A single comment from the online survey of local planning authorities is telling: it is not clear whether HLAs are simply to “confirm that land is available”, or to plan “what we want to happen”.
31. Some topics and points in the table are shared with the withdrawn 2016 Draft Planning and Delivery Advice-Housing and Infrastructure. As this guidance was withdrawn, the two are not cross-compared.
32. Appendix 4 of the withdrawn 2016 Draft Planning Delivery Advice - Housing and Infrastructure provided definitions of affordable housing
33. Paragraphs 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8
34. Paragraphs 4.9, 4.10, 4.18, 4.20
35. The 5-year housing land supply methodology is set out in the Planning Performance Framework and the withdrawn 2016 Draft Planning Delivery Advice - Housing and Infrastructure
Contact
Email: Deborah McLean
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