Selling Planning’s offices will deliver more homes

Wednesday 30th June 2010, 3:00PM BST.

From Senator Freddie Cohen.
MICHAEL Green (JEP, 29 Jun) has misunderstood my suggestion on the redevelopment of the Planning and TTS offices at South Hill.

I fully support using the value of the site to deliver affordable or social housing for Islanders. There are two alternatives: either we build affordable homes on the South Hill site or we sell the site for higher value housing and use the receipts to build a higher number of affordable homes elsewhere.

It’s surely obvious that, if we follow the latter route, we will deliver many more affordable homes for Islanders as we will be using the sale value of a high value site and applying the proceeds to deliver affordable housing on other sites.

I am fully committed to the delivery of affordable and social housing and, indeed, am designing the new Island Plan to deliver as many as possible. This will deliver affordable housing on every large development site without requiring the rezoning of green fields in the countryside.

I am committed to meeting the demand both for shared equity discounted housing and social rented housing.

1
Toastedteacakes

June 30, 2010 at 4:28 pm

Whoever heard of social housing built on prime site land.

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2
mistershifter

June 30, 2010 at 4:40 pm

By selling the site to, oh let me guess, Dandara, you will indeed make more money. Dandara however will make ten fold.

The whole developer situation should have been a little better thought out.

Each development should have had a percentage of dwellings for first time buyers supplied by the developer, at a lower price, and a slice of the total project profit paid toward other social housing projects.

If they don’t like how the numbers added up, ( I’m sure there would still be a fat profit made! ) then allow another, possibly local builder to develop the sites.

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3
kareneliot

June 30, 2010 at 4:48 pm

I my experience there are three types of ‘affordable home’ in Jersey:

(1) A seventh floor flat with tiny bedrooms, inadequate soundproofing and no space for a bin in the kitchen, which hoovers up half of your salary

(2) An extension/conversion of part of your parent’s property, in which you have no equity and sleep on a sofa bed

(3) A half million pound, three bedroomed shoebox with a brass doorknocker, which sretches the definition of ‘affordable’ to include only the top ten per cent of earners

Freddie, can we please cut out these middle men and allow people to set up their own co-operative self-build schemes, where there is a cost for materials but not for labour? In other countries you can build yourself a house for £60K. If it’s on States land, why is this not possible in Jersey?

Nobody I know wants to live in a Dandara flat, but despite being a full-time professional with a postgraduate qualification I cannot aford anything else.

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4
Helen Back

June 30, 2010 at 7:56 pm

I can’t afford a Dandara flat and im on ok money, i visited the flats at the waterfront and they are terrible, tiny and noisey, same thing for the Glouster street flats.
I have recently read States housing benefits those under the £40,000 per year, so most of Jersey can get one. Im putting my name forward i might have to wait 15 years but should get one eventually, maybe i will have a couple of children and claim poverty.

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5
Overpopulated

July 3, 2010 at 9:44 am

I read somewhere that there are over 1,000 properties of various prices for sale currently in Jersey – if they are not selling why do we ‘need’ to build more?

I would like to know how Dandara make money – many of their new builds are still for sale – and they want to build more?

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6
R B Bougourd

July 3, 2010 at 8:55 pm

Toastedteacakes:
‘Whoever heard of social housing built on prime site land.’

Never seen Clos Du Roncier?

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7
Toastedteacakes

July 5, 2010 at 3:40 pm

RB No. 6 Clos du Roncier is a settlement for the retired. I have no objection to that site being used for this reason.

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8
Realist

July 6, 2010 at 12:05 am

I had understood that Dandara were originally favourably invited to Jersey by the States to construct affordable social housing.Plus ca change, some years down the line.Now we have a monopoly leviathan that is joined at the hip with planning and affordable housing is limited to those that can afford half a million quid and then find themselves in a miniscule Alice in Wonderland living space.

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