CARDIFF Council has pledged to build 4,000 new council homes by 203t – but only 2,800 of those will be affordable housing, with the other 1,200 to be sold on the private market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new target will be partly funded by a \u00a3419 million investment in social housing included in Cardiff Council\u2019s 2022\/23 budget proposals, which were announced on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are building on what we have delivered already, and we now want to expand the scale and pace of our house-building programme,\u201d said Dave Jacques, Cardiff council operational manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stressed that the houses being built for sale would be priced \u201caffordably,\u201d to allow them to be sold to members of the communities in which they were built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement was criticised by housing campaigners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHouse prices in Cardiff have grown twice as fast as wages in the last 15 years,\u201d said Sam Coates, communications officer for ACORN Cardiff, a community organisation campaigning for more affordable homes in the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to overstate the city\u2019s housing crisis. The council is keen to promote their plans for new social housing, but too often new developments are too small in scale, or rely on much larger private sector developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Building 2,800 council homes over 10 years may just stem the growth of the list of families waiting to be housed. There will still be many thousands of households living in crowded, unsuitable or unsafe conditions.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of last December, there were 8,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Cardiff, with an extra 400 applying per month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council has estimated that the city will need to build between 19,000 and 30,500 new homes over the next 15 years to house its growing population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a scrutiny meeting on Monday, Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities Lynda Thorne acknowledged that the pandemic and issues around Brexit have had an impact on the council’s house-building programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said the differences in salary between local government and the commercial housing market had made recruiting staff more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident, however, that going forward we will meet this target,\u201d she said. \u201cOur planned objectives seek to address housing needs across the city, and also shows our commitment to moving towards zero carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council also confirmed that all the new homes will be built without gas boilers to reduce emissions, and pledged to make its house-building operation as environmentally-friendly as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wales has some of the least energy-efficient homes<\/a> in Europe, with old and inefficient houses leading to higher CO2 emissions as well as larger energy bills for residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n