Aylesbury Vale Area Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document

9. Where should the affordable housing provision be located?

56. The council will normally expect affordable housing to be provided on site. However, we recognise that in line with VALP Policy H1 (c) for practical reasons there may be exceptional local site-specific circumstances for provision to be made off-site on an alternative site made available by the developer. This could be because:

• Physical or other constraints or circumstances which would mean that on-site provision is not practicable.
• Where affordable housing may not be required on-site in the form proposed e.g. applications for schemes designed for elderly people in areas where there is a need for affordable housing for families.
• A neighbourhood plan sets out different arrangements for provision of affordable housing in its plan area

Off-site Provision

57. Any proposals for off-site provision must still ensure that a mix of dwellings is achieved on the sites concerned and the developer must demonstrate that there are strong qualitative or practical reasons for why the affordable housing cannot be incorporated on the original site.

58. Where the council agrees that affordable housing can be provided on an alternative site provided by the developer, provision should be in a location considered suitable by the council. It should result in the provision of no less than the number of dwellings that would have been required on site.

Commuted Sums (Financial Contribution)

59. A commuted sum is an amount of money, paid to the council by a developer, where the size of a development triggers a requirement for affordable housing, but it is not possible to achieve appropriate affordable housing on site. The commuted sum paid in lieu of on-site provision will be used by the council to provide suitable affordable housing elsewhere in the Aylesbury Vale area.

60. The acceptance of anything other than on-site provision is purely at the Council's discretion but must meet the terms of Policy H1 (c) and is not an option available to developers / landowners / agents where it is simply their preference. It will only be looked at as a last resort where provision of affordable housing on-site cannot reasonably be secured.

61. A financial contribution in lieu of provision of affordable housing will only be accepted if the developer is able to demonstrate that there is no scope for on- or off-site provision or, in accordance with VALP policy H1 (f), where the affordable housing policy would result in a requirement for less than 0.5 of an affordable unit. It should be noted that the council does not consider the marketability of the private housing as a factor that would result in affordable housing being provided off-site.

62. Where the council agrees to a financial contribution in lieu of direct provision, the council will expect the contribution to be of at least a broadly equivalent value to the provision that would have been provided on site. This means the financial contribution should be equivalent to the level of developer subsidy that would have been necessary to ensure that the affordable housing policy requirements were met on site.

63. The indicative circumstances in which commuted sums may be considered as an alternative to all or part of the on-site share are set out below.

Practicality - Registered providers may highlight sites that will not work from a management point of view.

Type of housing - It may not be possible to provide on-site affordable housing of the right type or tenure to accommodate those on the council's housing register.

Viability - Some developments, particularly small developments, may not be able to viably provide affordable housing on site. An off-site commuted sum should be broadly equivalent to the cost of providing the affordable housing on another local site.

64. The council has a commuted sum calculator, and this should be used to calculate any commuted sum payments. All monies received from commuted sums will be ring-fenced for affordable housing purposes in the Local Plan Area.