A new Council plan approved affordable housing last Wednesday, how many people will benefit from this?
Photo by Rosewoman (taken from Flickr with permission).City of Cardiff Council Planning committee last week approved 29% affordable housing on a former Llanrumney High School site.
Under the agreement between the Council and a private developer, the project has been approved by the land planning board for Ball Road, the former high school in Llanrumney, and 98 houses will be built, almost 30% of which will be affordable.
Planning for new houses at the former Llanrumney High School site. (Photo by WYG Environment Planning Transport Ltd )“Twenty-nine percent of those houses will have to be affordable houses so that people on lower incomes or first-time buyers will be able to buy those houses,” said Councillor Norma Mackie. “They like to build three, four bedroom houses that are expensive, but we put a restriction on them and say, ‘you can only do that if you’re going to build some affordable housing as well.’”
Twenty-nine percent is the result of negotiations with developers, because they think if the percentage were too high, and they wouldn’t make enough money.
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There won’t be enough houses to meet everybody’s needs as developers and builders like to build bigger houses, but not everyone can afford them.
Families with greater demand, such as those with children but living in overcrowded conditions, tend to be at the top of the waiting list for Council housing.
The proposal is intended to help address pressing social needs, such as the lack of homes for single people.
“There will always be demand for to have for houses and for single people on our waiting list, it’s very difficult for them to get a Council or Housing Association property,” said Councillor Mackie. “So, this is a way of maybe getting them off the waiting list.”
Separately, the Council hopes to open a number of its own affordable units in a new programme.
The aim of the Cardiff Living Programme is to build approximately 1,500 mixed-use, energy-efficient, sustainable and high-quality homes in 40 Council owned sites in Cardiff, and sites vary in size from a few dwellings to nearly 300.
Planning includes 29% affordable housing. (Photo by Powell Dobson Architects )At the Llanrumney site, it was suggested to provide a secure bike storage for affordable housing, and the affordable housing also showcased a recycling storage building.
In addition to providing a certain amount of affordable housing, the remaining homes will be sold on the open market.
The development of 98 houses, which includes just under 30% affordable housing, has been approved by the Planning Committee on the former Llanrumney High School site on Ball Road in Llanrumney, subject to the legal agreement with the developer
— Cardiff Council (@cardiffcouncil) February 13, 2019