Taxpayers’ cash set to help fund non-affordable homes project
THE mayor and council leaders are set to give two more taxpayer loans, totalling £16.3m, to a city centre development containing no affordable homes.
Waterside Places, which is developing Islington Wharf in Ancoats, had already received a £10m loan from the region’s housing investment fund for the previous phase of the scheme.
On Friday, leaders will consider a recommendation to provide two more, one for £8m and another for £8.3m, for the fourth and final part of the development.
That would come jointly from the region’s housing investment fund and a separate pot for commercial investments.
The 106-apartment Islington Wharf scheme, off Old Mill Street, does not contain any affordable housing, despite the mayor criticising the housing fund after his election for having ‘failed to include sufficient numbers of affordable homes within them.’
It received planning permission from Manchester council last July, in a decision that exempted it from either building a proportion of cheaper homes on-site or providing a financial payment for some elsewhere in the city. Planning papers state that the land values used to acquire the site back in 2007 were fixed before the town hall’s current affordable housing policy came into effect, meaning it does not legally apply.
However the developer also stated that it would not be financially viable to provide any affordable homes, or a cash contribution towards some.
On Friday, leaders will consider an £8.3m loan to the scheme from the region’s ‘growing places’ fund, which makes commercial investments to support economic growth.
The paper also states that a further £8m loan is being recommended from the region’s housing investment fund, although the paperwork for that proposal is yet to be published.
That housing pot, designed to kickstart development on brownfield land, has proved controversial since its inception under the 2014 devolution deal, due to its regular focus on major city centre schemes lacking affordable homes, including skyscrapers that have included luxury flats.
In the 2017 mayoral election Andy Burnham raised concerns about the lack of affordable homes featuring in Manchester’s housing boom.
However the loans due to be signed off on Friday would bring the total provided to the Islington Wharf scheme to £26.3m – the previous one having been provided in 2016 – with no affordable housing or 106 payments provided in either phases.
A spokesman for the mayor insisted he had refocused the fund since taking office, however, ‘to deliver more affordable homes and invest in schemes which support vulnerable people.’
“Fifteen-million pounds has been invested in initiatives which refurbish properties for those fleeing domestic violence, children leaving care, ex-offenders, asylum seekers, people with complex mental health issues, people with physical and learning disabilities and those on the housing waiting list,” they said.