Plans for a 64-home estate in St Clears have been given the green light, despite frustration among Carmarthenshire councillors that only five of them will be designated as affordable. New schemes in St Clears should have a 30% affordable home allocation, according to a report before the council's planning committee, which equates to 19 out of 64.
Applicants Obsidian Developments Ltd and Ansellton Ltd were initially expected to contribute £300,000 towards education and open space, as well as 30% affordable housing, as part of any planning consent. But they raised viability concerns which, following scrutiny and negotiation by Carmarthenshire Council officers, resulted in five affordable homes being agreed plus a £16,762 affordable housing contribution. In addition the developers will pay to widen a nearby pavement at a pedestrian pinch-point on High Street, which is expected to cost around £300,000.
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The low level of affordable homes was repeatedly questioned by planning committee members, who wanted to know how the final figure of five had been arrived at. Cllr Ken Howell said in his view that developers tried to "find every kind of excuse" not to build more of them. Developers should increase the sale price of their houses, he said, in response to higher development costs.
Cllr Howell and others also asked where the five homes would be situated within the site, which is flanked by High Street, the A40 and Heol Goi. A planning officer said the correct viability assessment and valuation process had been followed, and that the cost of building on sites had increased over the last couple of years.
The officer said he couldn't go into details of the viability appraisal negotiations because they were commercially sensitive. But he added: "As a general rule we look at land values, building costs and overall development costs, and development values at the end. We have to look at the balance about whether a site will actually come forward (for development)." He said the site in question had not been developed despite being allocated for housing several years ago.
The planning officer also said the widening of the nearby pavement, at a point known as Gothic Corner, would have major benefits for High Street residents as well as occupiers of the planned estate because they currently had "to take their lives into their own hands" to walk along it to the upper end of High Street, where the shops are located.
St Clears and Llansteffan councillor Philip Hughes said he had been fighting for safer pedestrian access at Gothic Corner for decades, and that he supported the application.
Meanwhile the planning officer said the five affordable homes would be situated in a corner of the estate, overlooking the A40. He said the planning department would have wanted them spread out, had there been more of them. He added that housing associations, for example, preferred it when affordable homes were next to one another.
Cllr John James said he was "very disappointed" by this answer, and felt the future affordable home occupiers were "being treated as second-class". Cllr James, however, proposed that the committee supported the officers' recommendation of approval for the 64 houses. Conditions include that the developers must widen the Gothic Corner pavement - work which will require an old stone wall to be taken down and rebuilt - before the first of the new houses is occupied.
The committee all voted in favour of the recommendation, bar one abstention. There were 16 objections to the application on a number of grounds, but no-one spoke at the planning committee meeting against it.
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