The aim of this policy should be to respond to the demand for truly affordable housing that people want to
live in. The Cambridge Green Party believes we need a large increase in council owned and managed secure rented property backed up by community ownership cooperatives, housing associations and cohousing projects.
We would like to see an assessment of the success or otherwise of previous policies to address the shortage
of truly affordable housing.
We have previously engaged with the issue of Affordable Housing - see for our example our response to the new housing policies consultation earlier this year [1]. Our key points from that consultation remain salient:
we believe that a discount of 20% relative to the market rate is insufficient to make ‘Affordable Private Rent’
homes truly affordable for local people. We are very concerned that the Setting of Affordable Rents Policy
seems to demonstrate that, by the Council’s own metrics, ‘affordable’ housing will in fact be no such thing.
The justification given is that providing greater discounts would not be “viable” in terms of Registered Housing Providers’ business plans. We also think that 40% ‘affordable’ housing in developments is insufficient and call for a minimum of 50%.
It would be useful to have a definition of the term Affordable housing which encompasses both home-owning and rental.
[1]
https://southcambs.greenparty.org.uk/assets/images/local parties/southcambridgeshire/Green%20response
%20housing%20consultation%20March%202021.pdf