Plans to build 16 units of ‘affordable housing’ at the Pointues Rocques vinery site have been dropped with the developers now asking for permission to build an extra 16 private market properties there instead.
The previously approved plans were for 68 new residential units in total comprising 30 houses, 10 flats, 12 maisonettes, and 16 affordable houses.
Now, the architect behind the plans has resubmitted a planning application asking for the permission to be altered to changed the “16 previously approved affordable houses to private market dwellings”.
PF+A said in their letter to the Development and Planning Authority that the actual designs for the properties are “unchanged”.
The firm explained that as the GP11 policy (for building affordable housing on large development sites) has been removed from the Island Development Plan it is no longer applicable to their designs.
The developers and designers have also taken on board feedback from those living near to the site and have asked for changes to be made to the previously approved access routes for vehicles, and boundaries.
Planning permission is valid for three years meaning work would have had to start this year or it would have lapsed.
If planning permission is given to alter the designs and remove the affordable housing element from the proposed work then the site’s owners will have another three years’ grace to start building or sell the site with the planning permission attached.
Last April, it was announced that the Guernsey Housing Association was in talks with the site owners about taking on more of the Pointues Rocques properties.
That could have doubled the number of social housing available at the new development.
However, that same month the States voted to pull the GP11 policy out of the IDP and developers were told to “get building”, after some had complained the controversial rule was holding them back.