Presentation from the Housing and Community Services Team to update Members on the progress of new housing developments in Welwyn Hatfield.
Minutes:
Members received a detailed presentation from the Principal Housing Development Manager, on behalf of the Housing and Community Services Team, on the progress of new housing developments in Welwyn Hatfield.
Officers responded to questions from Members as followings.
• There was a balance to be struck between providing garages for rent in the Borough and using those sites for affordable housing.
• The garage sites being considered for housing development were either redundant, in poor condition or both.
• Officers were aware of the knock-on effect of using garage sites for housing and the impact on parking.
• There were often additional parking spaces available on a completed site than there had been previously.
• A considerable number of garages rented from the Council were used for storage. Many garages were too small to accommodate a car.
• For every development site full consultation took place with residents, Members and the Planning department.
• Viability assessments were carried out by the Corporate Property and Finance departments.
• The sites the Council developed were often more difficult to develop due to their size, shape and additional complications such as asbestos or main sewer pipes.
• The build cost for Council developments tended to be more expensive due to the standard to which the properties were built or to other issues.
• Council development projects were always benchmarked against other comparative organisations to ensure the development was competitive and gave the best value for money.
• Certain aspects of associated work for the developments was currently outsourced (i.e.: employer’s agents, CDM feasibility work, surveys, site assembly) The Council project manage its own developments.
• There were a number of ways to finance the developments and to calculate the chargeable rent. The Right to Buy continued to apply to any Council owned property and tenant.
• Consideration was being given to, how in the future, a wider offer could be made to residents. These included other rental models, tailored to meet the different needs of people, based on their financial circumstances and to enable people who did not qualify for the diminishing supply of social housing to have access to high quality, secure, rented housing.
• The selection process, through the Choice Based Lettings Scheme is applied generally to all applicants irrespective of the age of the property. However in some cases local lettings policies are put in place so that new- builds can be prioritised, for example to transferring tenants.
• All tenants are made aware of their contractual obligations when they are allocated a property
• Ideally, the allocation of a newly built property would benefit more than one household, and this can happen when a household transfers, freeing up their pervious property.
• Currently there were 2,800 people on the waiting list.
• There were very strict guidelines applied to Government monies (Right to Buy receipts) monitored closely by the Affordable Housing Programme steering group, on a monthly basis.
• It was the Council’s intention to maintain the number of properties in its portfolio and in order to achieve this more homes needed to be built and acquired.
RESOLVED:
That the presentation from the Principal Housing Development Manager on behalf of the Housing and Community Services Team which provided an update on the progress of new housing developments in Welwyn Hatfield be noted.