Agenda item

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“1.0     Purpose of Report or Summary of main Issues

            To provide an overview of the Council’s Housing Land Availability Summary Reports for the 2015/16 and 2016/17 monitoring periods. 

            These reports present the outcomes of annual housing land monitoring and help inform the preparation of the new Local Development Plan (LDP) for the District.  They provide a snapshot of the amount of land available for new residential development as of 1st April each year.

2.0       Recommendations

            Note the outcomes of the annual Housing Monitor reports for 2015/16 and 2016/17 contained at Appendix 1 and 2 (copy available here) respectively and the intention to publish these summaries on the Council’s website.

3.0       Main report

            Background

            Monitoring of housing delivery has been on-going across the Region since the late 1990s, under the responsibilities of the former Department for Environment’s (DOE) Planning Service.  Summary Reports for the Region, including a breakdown within the old Belfast local government district, are available from the NI Planning Portal^[1]to cover the period from 2004 to 2013.  However, no data was published following 1 August 2013.

            The Planning Act (NI) 2011 requires that the Council to make an annual report to the Department for Infrastructure outlining the extent to which the objectives set out in the LDP are being achieved. As the Council are currently preparing the first new LDP for Belfast under this new legislation, the production of Annual Monitoring Reports has not yet commenced.  Instead, annual Housing Land Availability Monitor (referred to as the ‘Housing Monitor’) reports are being prepared by the Council until the new LDP is adopted.

            Housing Land Availability Reports

            The primary purpose of the Housing Monitor is to inform the formulation of the Council’s new LDP.  However, it will also help the Council identify where a shortfall in potential land supply might exist and can inform house-builders on the availability of land that may be suitable for housing.

            The two Housing Land Availability Summary Reports contained at Appendix 1 and 2 present the headline figures from a register of potential housing land maintained by the Council, based on current planning policy designations and planning permissions.  This includes the net gains in housing units each year, as well as providing a snapshot of the amount of land available for new homes and capacity for future housing units as at 1st April each year.  This information is summarised within each report in relation to:

·        Each settlement within the District, including settlement areas in the case of Belfast City;

·        Whether land falls within the existing urban footprint^[2] or is classified as greenfield land; and

·        The type of land use zoning (i.e. land zoned for housing, land zoned for mixed use development, non-zoned land, etc.).

            During the 2016/17 monitoring year 714 units were completed on 17.4 ha of land across the District.  425.8 ha of land remains, with potential capacity for 23,170 residential units.  The total number of dwellings completed in the district has risen by 28.6% from 555 in 2015/16 to 714 in the current monitor year.   The proportion of dwellings completed within the Urban Footprint is recorded at over 93% during both monitoring periods and, as at 1 April 2017, almost 40% of the remaining potential available for future dwellings is on land zoned for housing or mixed use development. 

            It is emphasised that the monitor represents a register of housing land based on current policy designations and planning permissions, rather than an accurate picture of viable housing land.  It is the role of an Urban Capacity Study, which forms part of the evidence base for the new LDP, to assess the suitability, availability and achievability of monitored sites, alongside the identification of new sites that could be later zoned for residential use as part of the LDP process.  Potential sources of additional capacity over and above housing monitor sites could include, for example, increasing density of development on existing sites, utilising vacant floor space above commercial premises, the re-zoning of employment land or consideration of urban extensions.

            The 2015/16 Report at Appendix 1 also contains a summary of the historic DOE housing monitor from 2004 to 2013, remodelled to the new Belfast District boundary.  Although this data matches the new boundary, differences in methodology and the annual monitoring periods mean this information cannot be directly compared to the Council monitoring data produced since the transfer of planning on 1 April 2015.

            Members are asked to note the outcomes of the two annual Housing Monitor reports and the intention to publish these summaries on the Council’s website.  Future housing monitor reports will then be published on an annual basis as soon as practical following the completion of each monitoring period (31 March each year).

            Financial & Resource Implications

            There are no financial or other resource implication arising from this report.

            Equality or Good Relations Implications

            The Housing Monitor reports present factual information and make no recommendations relating to the future allocation of land for housing.  There are therefore no equality or good relations implications arising from this report.”

            The Committee adopted the recommendations.