Affordable housing viability assessment

The Affordable Housing Viability Assessment (AHVA) was commissioned to inform the East Riding Local Plan and to allow the council to consider the impact of providing affordable housing on the economic viability of development, which the council must have regard to when setting planning policy on affordable housing, in accordance with PPS3. The AHVA is only one element of the evidence base that will be used to inform the affordable housing policy. The AHVA does not consider the need for affordable housing or the overall housing requirement. These elements are being considered through separate studies. The AHVA focuses entirely on issues of economic viability.

The AHVA is a strategic study. It considers the impact that requiring affordable housing on residential development sites has on the economic viability of a development. It tested whether the location of the site, the status of the settlement and the size of the development impact on the economic viability of a site within the East Riding. The assumptions that were used in the methodology were developed with a stakeholder group.

An Addendum to the Assessment was commissioned to:

undertake a more sensitive assessment of the Goole Housing Market Area (HMA). It was recognised that results for the whole market area were disproportionately affected by the very low viability of development in the town itself whilst other locations in the HMA would have much greater viability;
test whether the site size threshold could be reduced to less than 15 dwellings and whether the threshold should vary dependent on the urban/rural nature of a settlement; and
consider an approach to off-site contributions.

A second addendum to the Assessment was commissioned to:

assess the impact of incorporating a £3,000 per unit allowance for the Community Infrastructure Levy instead of the current s106 contributions allowance of £2,000; and
assess the impact of the introduction of Affordable Rent tenure on viability.

The initial reports were completed by the consultants between March 2010 and April 2011. They were agreed by the council in October 2011.

The standard assumptions used (particularly relating to land values and developer profit) DO NOT apply to sites for which planning permission is being sought and therefore cannot be used in individual site specific viability appraisals.

Affordable Housing Viability Assessment (pdf 825kb)

Affordable Housing Viability Assessment - Summary (pdf 467kb)

Affordable Housing Viability Assessment - Addendum (pdf 2.1mb)

Affordable Housing Viability Assessment - Second Addendum (pdf 73kb)