Developer Contributions Towards Meeting Open Space, Sport and Recreation Facilities SPD

4 Calculating Developers Contributions Towards Meeting Open Space Needs

What types of open space, sport and recreation will be required?

4.1 The Council will normally require developers to provide for the ten typologies as set out below. Each typology has its own purposes and particular features. Detailed definition is set out in Annex A of the Companion Guide to PPG17 on Planning for Open Space, Sports and Recreation.

1. Parks and Gardens – including urban parks, country parks and formal gardens.
2. Natural and semi-natural urban greenspace - includes woodlands, urban forestry, scrub, grasslands e.g. commons, wetlands, open and running water, wastelands, derelict open land and rock areas (e.g. cliffs, quarries and pits).
3. Amenity Greenspace – including informal recreation spaces, greenspaces in and around housing, domestic gardens and village greens.
4. Provision for Children and Young People –including play areas, skateboard parks, outdoor basketball hoops and other more informal areas.
5. Allotments and Community Gardens and urban farms
6. Cemeteries, Disused Churchyards and other Burial Grounds
7. Green Corridors - including river and canal banks, access to waterways, cycleways and rights of way.
8. Civic Spaces - including civic and market squares and other hard surfaced areas designed for pedestrians.
9. Outdoor Sports Facilities – with natural or artificial surfaces, either public or privately owned, including tennis courts, bowling greens, sports pitches, golf courses, athletics tracks, school and other institutional playing fields and other sports areas.
10. Built Sports Facilities – including swimming pools, indoor sports halls and leisure centres, indoor bowls centres, indoor tennis centres and ice rinks.

When will this SPD be applied?

4.2 The need for on-site provision or developers' contributions to off-site provision may arise from applications for two types of development:

• Those relating to the redevelopment of existing open space or sport and recreation provision for some other use i.e replacement of lost facilities.
• Those which create the need for open space or sport and recreation provision in the area, either residential or larger employment uses.

Both of these require the application of adopted provision standards within the context of defined areas of accessibility, or quality and quantity deficiency, or surplus in order to determine the need for either additional provision or the enhancement of existing provision. However, provision standards are only the starting point in negotiations with developers and high quality environments will not result simply from applying them in a mechanical way.

4.3 The Council’s standards for the provision of open space, sport and recreation facilities will be applied to all applications for new residential and employment development. This includes proposals that involve:

• New dwellings
• Conversions
• Changes of use
• Flats/apartments
• Bedsits
• Affordable housing
• Self-catering holiday accommodation (that is capable of normal residential use)
• Agricultural workers dwellings
• Renewal of planning permission that has expired at the time of submission
• Revised planning permission (where the number of bedrooms increases as a result of the revision)
• Planning applications to make temporary dwellings permanent  and
• New employment uses creating over 50 jobs

The following forms of development will not be subject to the policy:

• Residential homes
• Nursing homes
• Extra care/sheltered housing
• Residential extensions
• Residential annexes
• Revised planning permission (provided that the number of bedrooms is not increased by the revision)
• Temporary dwellings

Note: Certain developments such as sheltered housing and residential homes will be expected to provide appropriate on-site provision for residents.

4.4 As Calderdale has undertaken assessments of need and audits of existing facilities compliant with PPG17, locally determined provision standards will meet the tests of reasonableness in relation to Circular 05/2005. This means that Calderdale will be justified in using them as the basis for planning conditions or obligations in appropriate circumstances. Paragraphs 23 and 33 of PPG17 make clear that obligations can be used to reduce or prevent both quantitative and qualitative deficiencies in provision.

4.5 There is a need to ensure that consistency is achieved between applications and that the contribution per dwelling is reasonable and related to its effects. The above framework set out in Table 4.1 is a tool to be reviewed yearly, based on an inflation index standard. Calculations will be made on the basis of occupancy levels generated per relevant house or residential unit. The Council will ensure that contributions will be applied fairly across the board to all sizes and scale of development. The contribution is either a once-only payment linked to the planning permission with inflation indexing,( the amount payable to the Council is fixed at the time of the agreement) or phased payments relating to each stage of a development as it becomes occupied.

4.6 A tariff approach to developments under 10 residential units is proposed.

4.7 In providing open space by way of a developer contribution and/or commuted payment, applicants have two options:

1. Entering into a planning obligation in the form of a Section 106 Agreement with the Council, which will control the development, maintenance and transfer of ownership of the land to the Council. The developer will need to appoint a solicitor to act for him and he will also have to make a contribution to the council’s legal costs.
2. Completing a Unilateral Undertaking available from Legal Services at the Council. This is the usual method of payment for small developments, under 10 units, where the open space is not being provided on-site. It is simple, quick and avoids the additional cost of drafting a Section 106 Agreement.

4.8 Contributions will be secured by unilateral undertaking or by way of a planning obligation, which will itemise amongst other things that:

• Payments will normally be required no later than the first occupation of the new dwellings, but may in certain circumstances, such as on larger sites, be delayed or phased by agreement with the Council;
• The money will be held in a ring-fenced expenditure code created for the purpose of providing infrastructure necessary to meet open space capital requirements and will not be spent on revenue budget.

4.9 The Council will provide developers with pre-application advice for major developments through the Development Team on the open space requirements that their proposals entail. The operation of the policy is broken into two stages:

Stage 1. Does the housing development create a need for new open space sport and recreation facilities?

4.10 For each of the types of open space, sport and recreation facilities, the Council will firstly assess whether a new facility needs to be provided as a result of the proposed housing development. This will be done by following these Steps:

Step A. Estimate the number of residents living in the proposed development. This will be calculated by reference to the following assumed occupation rates for different sizes of dwellings:

When an outline application is received  and the number and type of dwellings are unknown, the open space requirement will be estimated by applying a minimum density standard of 30 dwellings per hectare gross housing development and an average household size of 2.36. This is intended to provide an initial guide to the likely open space requirement. The initial figure will in all circumstances be updated by a detailed calculation based on the number of bedrooms, once a reserved matters application is submitted.

Step C Assess whether the developer is required to provide for a new open space, sport and recreation facility. A new open space, sport and recreation facility will normally be required if the existing open space, sport and recreation facilities are insufficient to cater for the needs of the total population or cannot be upgraded.

This assessment will be carried out for each type of open space, sport and recreation facility. For each type, a requirement to provide a new facility will normally only be waived if it is found that the relevant accessibility or quantity standard is met or exceeded or if the quality of an existing facility cannot be upgraded.

Stage 2: Does development create a need to enhance existing provision in the local area?

It may be the case that, when assessed against the relevant quantity or accessibility standards, there are enough facilities in the local area to meet the needs of the population. If this is the case, the Council may instead expect a developer contribution to enhance the quality of existing facilities in the area.

Where are the open spaces to be provided?

4.11 In many circumstances it will not be possible to provide any or all of the types of open space that are required on-site. In assessing how to provide open space it is necessary to have regard to the guidelines on minimum size standards for each type. To ensure the provision of usable areas of open space which can be easily and economically maintained, open space should not normally be provided on-site if the levels required fall below the following minimum size standards indicated in the accessibility section of  Table 4.1

4.12 Individual developments will be assessed to determine on or off-site provision based on:

• size of the development
• existing provision in the locality
• standards of provision.

However detailed guidance on each scheme will be worked out at the planning application stage

4.13 The definition of open space, in PPG17, includes a number of open areas which, themselves, could be specifically designated as being of historic importance (such as People’s Park, Halifax, Shrogg’s Park, and Lister Lane Cemetery, Halifax), which might contribute towards to the character of the Borough’s Conservation Areas, or (in the case of numerous civic spaces) provide a setting for its Listed Buildings. Where there are such open spaces in the vicinity of development sites, particularly where the park itself or its components have been identified as being “at risk”, then instead of requiring the provision of open space on the housing development itself, consideration will be given to the wider public benefit which would result by using commuted sums towards the restoration of those spaces of historic importance.