HOUSING REQUIREMENT

3.6 This plan will continue to identify two housing market areas, the Aberdeen Housing Market Area (AHMA) and the Rural Housing Market Area (RHMA). Government guidance requires the structure plan to provide an appropriate level of housing land within each housing market area. The plan also contains policies which state a commitment to provide for a five year supply of land which is effective (that is, land which is expected to be free of constraints in the five year period under consideration and will therefore be available for the construction of houses). Policies also identify land capable of becoming effective in order to maintain the five year housing land supply. Effective housing is provided not only by sites allocated in local plans but also from unallocated sites within settlements. The supply should provide for development in a variety of locations and contain a mix of house types and tenures, as well as meeting any special needs in the area.

3.7 The policies of the plan are also informed by strategic employment, population and housing forecasts. On the basis of the most recent forecasts, published in October 1999, likely housing requirements are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Housing requirements 2000-2015

3.8 The promotional economic policies of the plan, together with the actions of the local authorities, other agencies and the private sector, are geared to creating improved prospects for the North East. In anticipation of, and to help foster a more buoyant economy, the robustness of the structure plan can be secured by introducing headroom flexibility of +20% for the AHMA, where there is most development pressure, and +10% for the Aberdeenshire RHMA (see Table 3).

Table 3 Housing requirements 2000-2015 including headroom flexibility

3.9 The annual Housing Land Audit 2000 shows that there are sites in the established housing land supply for approximately 12,300 houses throughout the North East. Of these, almost 4,000 units are subject to constraints, including servicing, ownership or other difficulties, which creates some uncertainty over when they might be developed. Others are constrained by market considerations. As these constrained sites become available for development they will provide an important additional contribution to the effective housing land supply over time.

3.10 The housing requirement for the period up to the end of 2010 will be met from:

• existing commitments (including the effective supply);

• new structure plan land allocations in accordance with the development strategy;

• constrained sites becoming effective; and

• windfall opportunities in brownfield locations and within settlements.

These are all detailed in Policy 8 and 9 and Table 4a and 4b.

3.11 Policy 7 requires that a five-year effective land supply be maintained throughout the life of the plan. For the period January 2000 to December 2005 existing commitments included within the January 2000 effective housing land supply, combined with structure plan allocations shown in Policy 8, will contribute roughly 9,300 houses towards the housing requirement in the Aberdeen Housing Market Area and 4,400 towards the Rural Housing Market Area requirement. This is 50% above the AHMA forecast requirement, and 63% above the RHMA requirement as shown in Table 2 – thereby allowing sufficient headroom flexibility to meet the requirements identified in Table 3. This will also be augmented by windfall sites and sites constrained in 2000 subsequently being made effective, thereby ensuring a five year effective housing land supply beyond December 2005. Despite the lower headroom flexibility within the RHMA the figures seem to suggest that a higher requirement is provided within this Housing Market Area. There are two reasons for this apparent anomaly: the actual numbers on which the percentages are based are smaller, and thus a small increase in the number of sites equates to a higher percentage increase than in the AHMA; and there are far less brownfield windfall sites for potential recruitment to the established housing land supply. These factors require that a proportionately larger allocation must be made at the beginning of the plan period. Local plans are permitted to introduce sequential phasing strategies, if considered necessary, to control the orderly release of land. Not all of these sites will be developed before the end of 2005, but the plan permits planning permissions to be granted in accordance with Policy 8 within this period to allow a continuous supply of effective housing land.

3.12 The situation will, however, be monitored using the annual Housing Land Audit (to identify the extent of the housing land supply) and the biennial strategic forecasts (to identify the housing requirement). If at any time the audit and forecast shows that a shortfall in the effective five year supply is likely to occur then this will indicate the need for an early review of the housing element of the plan.

3.13 For the period 2006-2010, structure plan housing policies indicate where any identified shortfall between the forecast requirement and the existing effective supply should be addressed, in accordance with the development strategy. This means that allocations will focus development on brownfield sites in Aberdeen, together with development in the edge of city communities and main service centres with good accessibility by a number of transport modes. Small scale development (usually under 15 houses) will be spread among rural service centres to support services, local housing needs and economic development (see Policy 9). Although brownfield opportunities are less common in Aberdeenshire, they may still provide occasional valuable opportunities to reinforce key towns. Indicative housing land allocations are made to all the main service centres, with the exception of Stonehaven, where there are particularly sensitive landscape and other constraints, and Ellon, which is already committed to accepting considerable growth. Policy 9 indicates the scale and location of these housing allocations which will be subject to review when the structure plan is reviewed either in five years time or earlier should monitoring show this to be necessary. Local plans should make indicative allowance for these allocations by identifying sites. Planning permission will not, however, be granted for development of these sites until after any review of housing allocations. In Aberdeen, the strategy requires brownfield sites to continue to be brought forward and it is reasonable to expect this to continue although it may not be possible to identify the full allocation of sites at this time within a local plan.

3.14 For the period January 2011 to December 2015, Policy 10 indicates longer-term development continuing in accordance with the structure plan strategy. Whereas the pattern of development permitted by Policy 8 is largely inherited from existing commitments, Policy 9 reflects the structure plan strategy of creating a long-term sustainable framework of settlements, giving full consideration to the ability of each place to accommodate development in a sustainable manner.

3.15 Allocations are made from a base date of January 2000 in order to synchronise with the Housing Land Audit 2000 and the 1999 based forecasts.