85 Highbury Park report PDF - Greater London Authority

Affordable housing20 Affordable housing provision is shown in the table below, with proportions of the overalllevel of residential provision (149 units) included as a percentage.Type of unit Private tenure Intermediate Social rent Total affordableOne bedroom flat 33 6 4 10 (7%)Two bedroom flat 39 6 12 18 (12%)Three bedroom flat 10 3 5 8 (5%)Four bedroom house 19 0 11 11 (7%)Five bedroom house 0 0 1 1 (0.7%)Total 101 (68%) 15 (10%) 33 (22%) 48 (32%)21 London Plan Policy 3A.10 requires borough councils to seek the maximum reasonableamount of affordable housing when negotiating on individual private residential and mix-useschemes. In doing so, each council should have regard to its own overall target for the amount ofaffordable housing provision. Policy 3A.9 states that such targets should be based on anassessment of regional and local housing need and a realistic assessment of supply, and shouldtake account of the London Plan strategic target that 35% of housing should be social and 15%intermediate provision, and of the promotion of mixed and balanced communities. In addition,Policy 3A.10 encourages councils to have regard to the need to encourage rather than restrainresidential development, and to the individual circumstances of the site. Targets should be appliedflexibly, taking account of individual site costs, the availability of public subsidy and other schemerequirements.22 Policy 3A.10 is supported by paragraph 3.52, which urges borough councils to take accountof economic viability when estimating the appropriate amount of affordable provision. The ‘ThreeDragons’ development control toolkit is recommended for this purpose. The results of a toolkitappraisal might need to be independently verified.23 Where borough councils have not yet set overall targets as required by Policy 3A.9, theyshould have regard to the overall London Plan targets. It may be appropriate to consider emergingpolicies, but the weight that can be attached to these will depend on the extent to which they havebeen consulted on or tested by public examination. The Islington Council Core Strategy, which isat “final draft” pre-submission stage, sets a guideline of 50% affordable provision. Although theproposed level of affordable housing does not achieve this level, more than 50% of the provisionwould be family housing. The provision of additional affordable housing to achieve the 50% levelof overall provision would have an effect on the viability of the scheme, potentially affecting thenumber of family units. Islington Council’s housing team are presently assessing the viability of theaffordable housing, and officers support the level of affordable family provision.24 The proposed tenure split achieves the 70/30 social rent/intermediate mix of the existingLondon Plan, and is acceptable.25 The viability assessment submitted is based on a forecasting approach. Given the predictedimprovement within the economy, it may be appropriate for the Council to review the affordableprovision at a later stage. Although the scheme as it stands does not meet their overall target,page 5