THE introduction of a new housing and planning policy for the Isle of Man is high on the agenda for the Liberal Vannin Party for the new year.
The party has announced a series of measures which it believes will alleviate some of the problems in the local housing market. The four main ideas include a party equity mortgage scheme, the introduction of a new protected sector for first time buyers, the controlled release of more land for planning and the introduction of a landlords’ registration scheme requiring private rental accommodation to meet approved standards.
“These four measures will go a long way in correcting the imbalance in the residential and rental housing market,” the party said today is a media statement.
The statement added, “The Liberal Vannin Party believes that housing should be accessible, affordable and sustainable and we will be accelerating its four distinct, but integrated, housing policies to achieve these aims in the New Year.”
The first is a Party Equity mortgage scheme. LVP said, “This would be initially available to tenants in social housing whose income has risen to a level where they can afford the mortgage repayments but have insufficient working years left to be eligible for a standard mortgage.
“Under the scheme, they could apply for the lesser of 50% of the value of the property that they wished to purchase or £100,000. Government would then be a co-owner of the property and a house would be vacated for someone on the social housing waiting list.
“With social houses costing an average of over £160,000 without the cost of the land, this is a very cost effective way of reducing waiting lists for housing and encouraging a property owning democracy.
“This scheme could also be rolled out in other circumstances such as when a marriage or partnership breaks down and each of the people involved are left with a reasonable amount of capital to invest in a property, but again do not have the working years left to be able to obtain a mortgage. Without this assistance, these people often end up on a local authority housing list long term.”
The LVP’s second policy is the creation of a new sector in the housing market which it calls the Protected Sector. “Special planning conditions would form part of the planning process and would apply to all new first time buyer properties built with government funding and in other circumstances where the planning committee felt it appropriate.
“These conditions would ensure that the purchaser had the necessary residential qualifications but in addition, there would be restrictions on the property whereby it could only be sold to another buyer with the same residential qualifications, it had to be owner occupied and could not be rented to a
third party and it could not be owned by someone who already owned a residential property in the Isle of Man.”
LVP’s third policy is to raise the funding for the Part Equity Scheme and the Protected Sector Scheme. “This policy will enable the release of parcels of land across the Island to be used for the construction of large houses through a process of a planning order for the whole Island which will be open, transparent and accessible to all land owners. If successful, the uplift in the value of the land would be shared with government.
“This will stimulate the construction industry (now more than 70% dependent on the public purse) and provide accommodation of the standard required to attract the high net worth individuals that the Council of Ministers wishes to encourage.
“This will provide an economic stimulus for this important employment sector and help to reduce further unemployment. Should this land form part of a farm, planning restrictions would be placed on the rest of the farm land to prevent it from being used for construction for a given period. Any construction on the land would be subject to the normal planning procedures and a further charge by way of a special planning tax dependent on the square footage.”
The party’s fourth policy would be the introduction of a landlords’ registration scheme requiring private rental accommodation to meet approved standards.
“Only registered landlords would then be considered eligible for any government grant/benefit support. This would improve the standards in the private rental sector and prevent any unregistered landlord benefiting from housing benefit paid to those who are unemployed or on low incomes.”
