Agenda item

This report requests that the Local Development Framework (LDF) Working Group recommend to the Executive that they approve the LDF Core Strategy Issues & Options 2 and supporting documentation, subject to the recommendations of the group, for consultation in the Summer. 

Members considered a report that presented them with the documentation for the LDF Core Strategy Issues & Options 2.

 

Members received a presentation on the Core Strategy Issues & Options 2 which covered the following areas:

 

·                          Core Strategy: Purpose

·                          Core Strategy: Vision

·                          Spatial Strategy: Options to direct the location of new development in York

·                          Spatial Strategy: Broad Influences

·                          Spatial Strategy: Spatial Options

o       Option 1 – RSS and Settlement Accessibility

o       Option 2 – Existing Market Trends

o       Option 3 – Housing Inequality

·                          Spatial Strategy: Detailed Influences

·                          Core Strategy: Housing Growth

·                          Core Strategy: Employment Growth

·                          Core Strategy: Housing & Employment Growth

·                          Strategic Themes:

§         Housing Issues

§         Educational Facilities

§         Health Facilities

§         Open Space & Sports Facilities

§         Transport & Accessibility

§         Tourism

§         Retail & Leisure

§         Green Belt Issues

§         Design & Construction

§         Waste & Minerals

§         Historic Environment

§         Natural Environment

§         Flooding

 

Members discussed the consultation, it was suggested that consideration should be given to sending a consultation leaflet to every household in the city. It was agreed that the questions within the consultation papers would need to be simplified and that the aim was to get a meaningful response from residents and it must be an informed consultation.  The possibility of combining this consultation with the consultation on the Community Strategy was also discussed.

 

Members discussed the document and detailed a number of suggested amendments:

 

Section 1: Vision

 

·                          Members felt that this section detailed Future York’s vision more heavily than the Council’s existing

               vision and felt that this should be addressed to achieve a more even balance between the two.

·                          Figure 3: The Spatial Planning Objectives: The first paragraph was too long and should come to a stop

after ‘…sustainable economic development.’ Members discussed whether we were delivering the right jobs for the York workforce in the light of recent job losses within the City and the need for training and skills to be matched to the new jobs:-

·                          In the fifth paragraph from the bottom family housing should be added as this is  a very large issue within the City.

·                          It was suggested that the paragraphs in Figure 3 be numbered for ease of reference.

Key Issues: Members felt that the phraseology in these questions difficult to understand and advised that they should be made clearer before the document went for public consultation. They felt that it was important to get the information across clearly in order to obtain meaningful responses from members of the public.

 

Section 2: Spatial Strategy

 

·                          In paragraph 2.2 under the heading Broad Influences: Housing Inequalities – Members suggested that

‘Inequalities’ in this context was a confusing word. The main issued here were affordability, types of housing and shortages of appropriate housing.

·                          Some Members felt that the this section focused too much on new housing and not enough on conversions of existing buildings. There was no mention of the impact the Universities would have on the demand for housing and the knock on effects of multi-occupancy housing on family housing.

·                          Figure 4: York Spatial Issues Map – Members made various comments regarding this map including:

o       Some of the blue areas (that indicate flood zones) are already developed and this map does not reflect this; this could be reflected better if the developed areas were hatched. This also applied to the overlap between the character areas and flood zones.

o       The map does not reflect the city centre congestion problems as the scale is too small

o       The Wetherby Road (B1224) needs to be indicated on the map

o       There is a lot of information on the map; an A3 map would be clearer

·                          Table 1: The relationship between York and its villages –accessibility and past market trends – Members made various comments including:

o       The table needs a key

o       the document or the table needs to make it clear that this table only covers the villages over 1000 population – it does not cover all the villages and areas within York

·                          Key Issues 2a; Option 3: Members asked if this included the Housing Market Assessment (HMA) figure and Officers clarified that it could be factored in by adding more text at paragraph 2.9.

·                          The maps that accompany Options 1, 2 and 3  - the titles of these need to be changed to better reflect the options being proposed.

·                          Maps for options 1-3 – it was also noted that the wording “of a scale appropriate to their size” in the description for the pale blue circle was ambiguous and needed changing. The scope for economic development in the two blue circled categories of settlement seem to be the wrong way round. The scope for supporting economic development should be greater in the higher order settlement in the hierarchy (with the larger light blue circles).

 

Section 3: Housing & Employment Growth

 

·                          Figure 5: Members felt that existing residential areas such as the terraced streets and suburban housing areas should be used to better illustrate housing densities rather than just new housing schemes. It was also noted that the titles of some of the current illustrations were incorrect.

·                          Figure 6: This diagram is difficult to interpret in terms of how much land is needed for this many houses. Housing growth figures should be compared to the number of houses in existing places (eg Copmanthorpe) so that people can understand the implications of the figures for numbers of houses needed against places or areas they know.

·                          Table 6: the text accompanying this table should draw out the fact that people who live and work in York use public transport, cycling and walking much more than those commuting in, who drive more.

·                          The employment section needs context regarding the existing economy in York such as the near full employment.

·                          Key Issue 3b: an extra option regarding the HMA needed to be included. Some Members felt that more information was needed regarding the HMA findings such as the high housing need and demand and people being pushed out of the York housing market by lack of  affordable housing.

·                          Key Issue 3c: Some Members also felt that the direct link between housing mix and housing density needs to be made yet housing mix only appears in Section 4 of the documentation. Meeting family housing needs will lead to lower densities than smaller flatted development. Also. In Option 1 the figures for densities achieved in the past 10 years needed to be included, say what average densities have been achieved in the city centre and other parts of the city.

·                          Key Issue 3d: Another Option needed to be included on employment growth. Officers undertook to look at this issue and see if the’ baseline’ projection from the SQW Employment Land Study should be used as a third option or whether an open ‘other options’ option should be used instead.

 

Section 4: Housing Mix & Type

 

·                          Figure 7: York’s district housing markets; the legend was unreadable and needed to be improved

·                          Paragraph 4.9 – explain what is meant by newly forming households and check/ further explain the figure of £9337 as it seems very low.

·                          Paragraph 4.17 – there was a privately owned travellers site in Fulford at the bottom of  St. Oswald’s Road and therefore an amendment was necessary.

·                          Paragraph 4.18 – not all students were accommodated on campus and therefore a study needed to be undertaken to look at which areas have a high density of student accommodation. It was noted that York St. John’s University had much less accommodation on campus than York University – so need to check the 40% figure. Officers should consider whether options could be developed on this issue such as should we place restrictions on student housing in some areas or have an unrestrictive approach.

·                          Paragraph 4.19 –need to state that this is a national definition of key workers but in York there are other key workers to York’s economy such as bus drivers, who have difficulty in accessing housing.

·                          Figure 4.20 – There is now a substantial Polish community within York and this needs to be referenced.

·                          Key Issue 4c: Option 1 needed to include wording such as ‘if financially achievable for new buyers’.

·                          Key Issue 4e: It needed to be noted that this list is not in a priority order. It was also suggested that the following be added to the list:

o       People with disabilities

o       People with mental health problems

o       BME groups

 

Section 5: The Role of Retail and Leisure

 

·                          Need some context about why we seek to focus development and protect existing town and district retail centres (where parking is often limited) from competition from out of centre retail centres (where parking is often extensive). This is important context for Key Issue 5b option 2.

·                          The Wetherby Road (B1224) needs to be indicated on Figure 9.

·                          The information regarding the Park and Ride sites needs checking to distinguish between existing and proposed sites.

·                          Key Issue 5b: A clear distinction needed to be made between Monks Cross and Clifton Moor as existing out of centre retailing and York Northwest which is a proposed new district centre. Need to make it clear that for the former two the issue is whether these out of centre retail parks should be designated as district centres or not.  The protection of existing centres needed to be mentioned to give context to this option.

·                          The section is entitled ‘the Role of Retail and Leisure’ but there is little information about leisure in the section. If the information is elsewhere in the document there needs to be a reference to this in this section.

 

Section 6: Design & Construction

 

·                          There needs to be a mention of lifetime homes in this section

·                          Key Issue 6b: There were concerns that the options were the wrong way round – option 2 should come first. Officers suggested that there may be room for another option here – a ‘no threshold’ option.

·                          Key Issue 6c: Options 1, 2 and 3 should be reversed with Option 1 coming first.

 

Section 8: Education Facilities

 

·                          Paragraph 8.1: There is a nursery school that is attached to a local primary school but is independent that needed to be added in here (St Paul’s Nursery School).

 

Section 9: Health Facilities

 

·                          Health is a key issue in the LDF and there needs to be some wording to emphasis this especially as the section is very short

·                          Key issues 9a: This needs to include a third option; ‘dispersed but either accessible by foot or public transport’.

·                          Members felt that more discussions with the Primary Care Trust (PCT) were needed as the LDF is progressed.

 

Section 12: Transport & Accessibility

 

·                          Key Issue 12a should be reconsidered to reflect sustainable transport issues and priorities of the LTP2. This should include the consideration of demand management in addition to infrastructure and other projects to deal with congestion.

·                          Cycling and walking should be included in this section.

·                          Key Issue 12b – it was suggested that consideration be given to rewording this issue and associated option to reflect the Council’s current Local Plan and LTP2 position and allowing respondees to indicate whether they agree.

·                          Members felt that the document should consider the deliverability of the options, especially for very large projects such as the possibility of dualling the outer ring road.

 

Section 14: Flood Risk and Development

 

·                          Paragraph 14.7: Members asked for a separate map to illustrate this.

 

Section 15: York’s Green Belt

 

·                          Figure 11: York’s Green Belt and Historic Character Areas: Members asked what the white squares were on the map and Officers clarified that these were developed areas of land such as the Designer Outlet and various industrial parks. They should be amended accordingly.

·                          There was an error in the colour coding of the key that needed altering (the pale green of the Green belt and other Green Belt purposes was not clearly coloured on the map itself)

·                          Members felt that the question of renewable energy sources was very important and wanted to see questions pertinent to this especially on the siting of wind turbines in the Green Belt.

Section 16: Tourism

 

·                          Key Issue 16: Members felt the following should be added to the list:

o       Evening economy and more family friendly access to facilities

o       Disabled access and facilities within the City in light of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)

·                          Members felt that there should be mention of green tourism within the documentation and cited the development of long distance cycle paths and routes as an example. The sustainability of this source of tourism was also commented upon.

 

Annex B: Profile of York’s Villages and Main Urban Area

 

·                          Members felt that some of the information contained in this annex was inaccurate (e.g. bus routes and frequency to some of the villages)and it was therefore agreed that Officers would re-check some of the facts and also consult with Ward Members to improve the information in this section.

 

RESOLVED:          That Members recommend to the Executive to:

 

(i)                 approve the Draft Issues & Options document for public consultation subject to any changes recommended at the LDF Working Group

(ii)               approve the publication of the ‘LDF Issues and Options Consultation Summer 2006’ document to support the consultation on Draft Issues & Options document

(iii)             delegate to the Director of City Strategy in consultation with the Executive Member and Shadow Executive Member for City Strategy the approval of the final layout of the document, the Sustainability Appraisal and the summary leaflet to accompany the Issues & Options document consultation

(iv)              delegate to the Director of City Strategy in consultation with the Executive Member and Shadow Executive Member for City Strategy the making of any incidental changes to the draft document that are necessary as a result of the recommendation of the LDF Working Group.

 

REASON:               To ensure that the LDF Core Strategy can be progressed to its next stage of development as highlighted in the Council’s Local Development Scheme.