Cabinet Member for Planning
Minutes:
NOTE: The meeting was adjourned between 7:57 pm and 8:08 pm.
23.1 The Chairman advised Members that in accordance the Council Constitution, Rule 9, the meeting was approaching the Guillotine rule deadline and he proposed that the meeting be extended until the business of the meeting had been completed.
By a unanimous vote
It was RESOLVED: -
That the meeting continues beyond the guillotine deadline, until all business was concluded.
23.2 The Chairman invited Councillor Burn, Cabinet Member for Planning to introduce paper MC/20/9.
23.3 Councillor Burn introduced the report and asked that the words ‘both Councils’ be replaced by Mid Suffolk District Council in the recommendations.
23.4 Councillor Burn PROPOSED recommendation 3.1 and 3.2 in the report, which was SECONDED by Councillor Muller.
23.5 Councillor Amorowson queried the adoption of a flat rate CIL charge and whether it would be an increase or a decrease in income.
23.6 The Assistant Director – Sustainable Communities clarified how the CIL and Section 106 charging rates were currently applied and that the new approach would be an uplift to secure greater income for infrastructure through the proposed new CIL charging process. He explained that CIL was set up for strategic sites, as they were covered by Section 106 funding.
23.7 In response to Councillor Matthissen’s query, the Assistant Director responded that the CIL charges would proceed through a consultation and examination process before a paper would be brought to Council in due course detailing the change over from Section 106 to CIL charges.
23.8 In response to Councillor Warboy’s question regarding the changes to the planning system and the number of dwellings required for affordable homes, the Assistant Director – Sustainable Communities responded it could potentially have an impact on the threshold for affordable homes, if the threshold was increased to 40 to 50 homes.
23.9 He added that the report and the viability study in the appendices indicated how CIL was being calculated and that it was an affordable and deliverable charge. CIL contributions and other infrastructure costs and development costs came from land value rather than increases in house prices.
23.10 The Assistant Director continued to respond to questions including that Suffolk County Council and other infrastructure providers preferred Section 106 charges, that the CIL charges could be reviewed and undergo further viability studies if necessary, that Section 106 funding could still be used for projects such as behaviour projects and that there were no constraints of CIL funding being used across parish boundaries.
23.11 Councillor Field queried the viability report and table 6 in the report in relation to land value and deliverability of land for developments.
23.12 Stuart Cook from Aspinall Verdi Property Regeneration Consultants, who had undertaken the viability study, explained how the land value was calculated to ensure that landowners were still incentivised to sell land to the Council at competitive prices, whilst taking into account the Local Authorities’ policies and CIL charges.
23.13 Members debated the issues including:
· That losing strategic sites would mean that funding would go to CIL funding, which was less flexible than Section 106.
· That the proposed CIL charges would be more complicated due to the range of charges for different categories.
· That moving specific sites from Section 106 to CIL charges could be problematic.
· That the timing of the review of the charges was appropriate.
· That the instalment policy aim was to ensure that smaller developers were not inconvenienced too much.
23.14 The Chairman thanked Councillor Burn, Tom Barker, Assistant Director - Sustainable Communities and Christine Thurlow – Professional Lead for Key Sites and Infrastructure and the members of the CIL Working Group.
23.15 Recommendations 3.1 and 3.2 with the proposed change to replace the words ‘both Councils’ with Mid Suffolk District Council were put to Member for voting.
By a unanimous vote
It was RESOLVED:-
1.1 That Mid Suffolk District Council approve the content of this report (and all Appendices) with a view to agreeing that this material be the subject of a formal consultation for a period of six weeks between the 12th November and the 24th December 2020. (This would be a separate consultation but run in parallel with the consultation exercise for the emerging Joint Local Plan).
1.2 That Mid Suffolk District Council agrees that all responses to the consultation relating to revisions to the rates of CIL charging will be considered, analysed by the Councils Viability Consultants, and taken into account and fed into an Examination in public to be held by an Inspector.
That Mid Suffolk District Council also agrees to fully consider the Inspectors report when the Examination in public is concluded together with any consequent Inspectors report issued with his/her findings to the Council. This would allow Mid Suffolk District Council to consider outcomes together with any revision and subsequent adoption of any new revised CIL charging rates for the Council together with an implementation date.
Supporting documents: