Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Housing, Planning and Regeneration. To be introduced by the Leader of the Council.]

This report covers the request to waive one of the Development Agreement conditions to allow for early draw down of the following SDP sites: Welbourne, Ashley Road West and Ashley Road East. The report sets out the reasoning for this request and the benefits of this approach to the Council. This will allow the sites to be drawn down early to facilitate the timely delivery of affordable homes on the Welbourne site.

The Leader of the Council introduced the report which sought approval to waive the Building Contract Condition for sites 3 – Ashley Road West and 4 – Ashley Road East (the Building Contract Condition would remain in respect of site 2 – Welbourne).

The Leader continued to remind Cabinet of the overall aim of the Strategic Development Partnership between Haringey Council and Argent Related which was to create a new town centre for Tottenham Hale, including the delivery of new homes, workspace and a much-needed new health centre.

The Council had worked with Argent Related to change their planning application in November 2018 to include 131 Council homes on the Welbourne site. This represented 13% of the Council’s 1,000 Council homes target.

The Leader looked forward to seeing this development move forward into construction stage in the autumn, as a tangible example of the Council using all the tools at its disposal to secure the delivery of Council homes.

The Leader commended the recommendations for approval to ensure that this delivery happened immediately, securing the Council homes, and just as importantly the district healthcare facility.

In response to questions from Cllr Cawley- Harrison, the following was noted:

·         The Leader disagreed with the assertion that the Council were conceding on the previously agreed delivery timelines and were creating a precedent for other developers to follow. The Leader reiterated that this proposal was ultimately in the best interest of the Council due to the urgent need to provide people in Haringey with social housing. There was a judgement to be made on whether the re- evaluation of land would benefit the Council or the developer Therefore, on balance, it was felt that, if the land was re-valued, it would not benefit the Council and hence the Cabinet were considering this report in order to take a decision, at the present time, to make more money for the land and retain the opportunity to get housing onsite.

·         The Assistant Director for Regeneration further outlined that, on arrival of the new administration in May 2018, there had been re-negotiation on the nature of the homes to be contained on the Welbourne site. This had taken some time and the developer had facilitated this. Therefore, this had cost the Council a short time on the original process, However, what this facilitated, which the Council only missed by a few months, and not years, was a continuing regeneration with increased social housing. The Council did hold developers to account for timescales but when the Council were part of the factors to the change in the timings, this should also be recognised in the development agreement.

Further to considering the exempt information at item 24,

RESOLVED

1. To waive the Building Contract Condition in respect of site 3 – Ashley Road West and site 4 - Ashley Road East contained in clause 9.5 of the Development Agreement dated 21st March 2017 for the reasons set out in section 4 of this report to allow these sites to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 159