Affordable Housing Viability Assessments

In essence, viability centres upon whether there is an alternative use for land that would produce a higher value for the landowner/developer than the proposed use. As a general point, a viability assessment comprises a series of land valuations that test a number of different development scenarios for viability. These scenarios would be both residential and non-residential. In order to establish viability, a consultant will establish the level of land value per hectare that will be the viability threshold for different potential land uses and then demonstrate the degree to which the cumulative impacts of emerging policies allow this threshold to be exceeded. Land values above this level would be considered as viable, whilst those below would be considered as unviable.

Some items that would form the inputs into the valuations would include housing numbers, housing mixes, densities/land areas, infrastructure costs, affordable housing tenures and the means by which the viability thresholds would be established.

A consultant will establish the reasonableness of the existing market value areas to understand any impact this may be having on current strategic allocations which are yet to come forward.

The identification of value areas will be undertaken in the context of residential, employment and mixed-use development (particularly as part of large scale urban extensions and new communities). The market value areas will be reported and mapped with GIS shapefiles provided.

We will provide a commentary on the viability of key forms of residential, employment and mixed-use developments according to their size and location and the likely scale of viable sites.