9:20am Saturday 14th August 2010
By Mike Laycock
PLANS to help fund York’s new community stadium by selling off Bootham Crescent for re-development could be scuppered by housing policies, leading industry figures have claimed.
Architect Matthew Laverack and quantity surveyor Paul Cordock say they have calculated that the stadium land might fetch only about £750,000 if new City of York Council affordable housing rules, along with other new building restrictions, are applied.
The Press reported in 2008 that council officials had valued the site at £3.7 million.
Mr Laverack, a strong critic of the affordable policies, said: “Just under three quarters of a million pounds would be a nice tidy sum for one person to win on the lottery, but it is not very much for a football club with debts to pay off and hoping to make a significant contribution to a new stadium which will cost many millions to design and build.
“Unless the council are going to ‘bend the rules’ in favour of the football club and reduce its normal planning demands upon them, the money they may realize from their asset at Bootham Crescent is clearly inadequate to make any significant contribution to a new stadium.”
Mr Laverack said the Bootham Crescent site was 4.2 acres, and viability studies by Fordhams, consultants employed by the council, which had been put forward by the authority to justify its latest affordable housing policies, set out land prices for brownfield sites which varied typically between £140,000 and £205,000 per acre.
“Those are the sort of prices at which York Council say landowners must be prepared to sell their sites in order that 25 per cent of the homes built may be ‘affordable’ social housing.
“Applying those land values to Bootham Cresent the football ground is worth only £588,000 to £861,000. An average would be £724,000.”
Hr and Mr Cordock claim there were other costs pressures driving down the value of the land, including the need for stadium demolition, land contamination and archaeological investigations, the code for Sustainable homes to be followed, and the provision of public open space or payment of substantial sums in lieu to the council.
YORK council leader Andrew Waller sought to dismiss the critics’ claims.
He said the sale of Bootham Crescent was still up to three years away and it was impossible to forecast prevailing market conditions at that time.
He claimed a coalition Government decision to abolish housing targets meant that in York, development was likely to be concentrated on brownfield sites like Bootham Crescent, and this was likely to enhance the value of such land. He said the authority’s executive would this autumn consider proposals for changes to the percentage of affordable houses required, based on a sliding scale which reflected current market conditions and would be negotiable through the planning process.
Andrew Bowes, managing director for Persimmon Homes Yorkshire, said it had previously raised concerns over affordable housing proposals, claiming basic assumptions underlying the conclusions were made on inaccurate information.
“It will be up to the council to decide how planning policies are applied in the future when planning applications are made in due course for the redevelopment of Bootham Crescent and the new replacement.”
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