Housing development powers for villages

[ex-archaeologist]

Here is the full text from the Tory Party policy document; 'Strong Foundations building homes and communities Policy Green Paper No. 10 p. 23-4' its rather long I am afraid.

We will therefore legislate to allow the creation of new bodies – to be called Local Housing Trusts – for those
villages and towns which wish to develop new housing to benefit their community. These bodies will have
unparalleled power to develop new homes and other space for community use, subject only to the agreement
of local people.
Under our Local Housing scheme, any community which wishes to benefit from development could essentially
provide themselves with permission to expand, as long as they can demonstrate that they have met various standard
criteria. In particular they will have to demonstrate strong local approval for their planned development – with no
more than 10 per cent opposition in a community referendum. The community in this case is defined as residents
on the electoral register within the relevant parish or town council. Any Local Housing Trust development will
also have to be ‘in keeping’ with the area’s existing architectural style.
Strong Foundations: Building Homes and Communities
The type and quantity of housing to be built will be for the Local Housing Trust to decide. We anticipate that
communities might wish to build 5-10 properties, which could be a mixture of market housing for sale, affordable
housing for rent, sheltered housing for elderly local residents, or low cost starter homes for young local families
struggling to get on the housing ladder. As well as building homes for existing local residents, Trusts may well
also wish to advertise housing to attract new residents to move to the area. This is particularly important in rural
areas where shrinking populations threaten the continued existence of local services like post offices, GP surgeries
and schools.
Having consulted on the details of their plans and polled to secure their community mandate, the Trust will present
a dossier on their proposed development to their local planning authority. The role of the council will be to check
if the necessary criteria have been met. We will legislate to ensure that if the criteria have been met, planning
permission is automatically granted; if not, then the decision will revert to the local planning authority and be
treated as any other planning application.
In other words, provided a community can agree on the size and type of housing development that it wants, it will
get a mandatory presumption in favour of the development from the local planning authority. This will provide
genuine local democratic control over the delivery of new housing, as well as significantly speeding up
development. And because so many of the communities that will benefit from Local Housing Trusts have spent
years being stifled by top-down plans, the new housing they deliver will be in additional to, rather than in place
of, development elsewhere.
As well as housing, Local Housing Trusts will be allowed to assist the community by providing other services
for the benefit of local people. For instance, they might offer long-term low rent commercial accommodation
for a village shop on a serviced tenancy, a community hall, or a sports facility.
Crucially the constitution of a Local Housing Trust will ensure that the benefits of development will remain within
the community in perpetuity. So any affordable housing that is sold at below market rates to local residents cannot
be subsequently sold on the open market, but can only be sold back to the Trust and therefore recycled within the
community.
In order to prevent overdevelopment, Local Housing Trusts will be able to expand the size of the community
by a maximum of 10 per cent over any 10 year period. This will ensure that local infrastructure can cope with
the number of new residents, although, as mentioned above, new development may actually be necessary to protect
the viability of local amenities.
Local Housing Trusts will be required to undergo extensive consultation with the local community regarding their
development plans. As part of this consultation process, we will permit Local Housing Trusts to increase or
decrease the number of houses proposed depending on the number of interested parties. Provided a Trust
has not exceeded the 10 per cent expansion limit, we will allow individuals to seek to ‘bolt on’ additional
new housing units to the development. Such individuals will have to demonstrate that they can borrow the
money necessary to build a new dwelling and, as before, their applications will be subject to an approval
threshold from the community (no more than 10 per cent opposition). They will also have to agree to be
bound by the same constraints on benefit as the rest of the Local Housing Trusts, including being ‘in keeping’
with the area’s existing architectural style.

I particularly like this bit:

Provided a Trust
has not exceeded the 10 per cent expansion limit, we will allow individuals to seek to ‘bolt on’ additional
new housing units to the development.

The full Tory Party Policy on planning can be found in another 'Green Paper' called 'Open Source Planning' which can be found via google.