Greenbelt 100% Affordable Housing

Arcadian Estates was contacted by the new owner of a narrow strip of redundant land on the edge of a greenbelt village in 2011. The site lay between a canal and a main road, and would have been an ideal infill site for housing were it not located in the greenbelt. It was clear from local policy that there would be no chance of achieving a planning consent for market housing, and the size of the land (about 1.5 acres) did not warrant the cost of long term promotion through the local plan process with only a small chance of success of release from the greenbelt. Arcadian Estates identified an exception to greenbelt policy, if houses are to be affordable, where the site is adjacent to the village boundary, and a local need can be identified for this type of housing.

Arcadian Estates negotiated a conditional sale of the land (subject to gaining the required planning consents) with a construction company that specialised in building affordable homes. The construction company dealt with the planning, and entered into an agreement with a Housing Association to purchase and manage the completed units. From introduction to the developer to the completed sale of the land to accommodate 13 affordable homes took only nine months. Whilst the yield from the land sale for affordable housing was much less than would have been achieved if market housing was possible, it was still over twenty times the agricultural value that the land was initially purchased for.