Comment

Representation ID: 1805

Received: 12/12/2014

Respondent: Cogent Land LLP (Cogent)

It is therefore important that the current Affordable Housing policy is fully tested in the viability evidence, in order to be able to assess whether meeting these standards will put the housing supply at risk. A view supported by the Dacorum Borough Council CIL Examiner who commented that "the sensitivity testing is useful evidence but for CIL testing purposes the greatest weight must be placed on current (or at least recent) evidence and full policy compliance on matters such as affordable housing content"
We would therefore ask that limited weight is given to this testing. In any event, we would highlight that the sensitivity testing on the larger sites illustrates limited viability in the majority of scenarios tested (see extract below) even with reduced affordable housing. To ensure certainty for both the Council and developers we would therefore ask that the proposed rates are set based on the current affordable housing policy.