item4b pt 1.pdf - Oxford City Council

Site size:
4. The first argument submitted by the applicant’s agent as to why no
provision for affordable housing should be made relates to the site area.
5. The gross area of the site, as defined by the red line boundary on the site
plan submitted with the application is 0.31ha. The applicant’s agent
argues that the wooded area is undevelopable and should therefore be
excluded from the calculation of the site area. The applicant’s agent
considers this to result in a developable area of 0.21ha which is below the
threshold for requiring affordable housing under Policy HS.4 of the
adopted Oxford Local Plan 2001-2016.
6. Whilst the Officer’s main report presented to committee on this application
(dated 15 th February 2006) states at paragraph 13 that the applicant’s
agent’s argument is reasonable in the light of an appeal decision in
Broadland District Council, that appeal decision and this current
application at St Ebba’s are not identical and it is considered that the
issues should be discussed further.
7. The wooded area in the Broadland DC appeal site is protected by a
general TPO and the Inspector considered that it’s loss would be “highly
detrimental to the landscape of this nationally important area”. The
wooded area of the St Ebba’s sites does not have a protective designation,
nor are any of the trees covered by a TPO and whilst this does not
necessarily mean that the wooded area would be acceptable for
development, it would be a generalisation to presume that it was
‘undevelopable’. Regardless of whether or not the woodland is considered
to have value in landscape, screening or habitat terms, the fact that
woodland is present, is not considered to inevitably make that area
undevelopable as certainly the mere presence of trees do not
automatically rendered land undevelopable.
8. In the Broadland DC appeal decision, the appeal Inspector did not
consider that wooded area to be part of the curtilage of the proposed
dwellings and he therefore did not consider it as being part of the site area.
This reduced the site area below the 1ha threshold for the provision of
affordable housing in Broadland DC. However, in this case at St Ebba’s,
the wooded area is considered part of the development site as it is labelled
(plan no. 619.20) as amenity space for the dwellings.
9. If this wooded area was not intended as amenity space for the proposed
dwellings, then it would not be unreasonable to expect the owner retaining
control of the wooded area to want to fence it off to prevent trespassers.
This would then raise an issue of whether the proposed development at St
Ebba’s would be acceptable without the wooded area as amenity space.
10. Because of the notable differences between the St Ebba’s proposal and
the Broadland DC appeal site, the wooded area at St Ebba’s should be not
REPORT 2