Affordable housing (AH)

Housing provided for people whose income levels mean they cannot access suitable market properties to rent or buy locally to meet their housing needs. It includes social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing.

Affordable housing should:

• meet the needs of eligible households including availability at a cost low enough for them to afford, determined with regard to local incomes and local house prices; and
• include provision for the home to remain at an affordable price for future eligible households or, if these restrictions are lifted, for the subsidy to be recycled for alternative affordable housing provision.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Affordable rented housing

Rented housing provided by local authorities and private registered providers of social housing to households that are eligible for social rented housing. Affordable rent is subject to rent controls that require a rent of no more than 80 per cent of the local market rent (including service charges, where applicable).

From April 2012, most new homes funded by government grant have to be offered at affordable rents, to generate funding for further new affordable housing. Some existing social rent homes may also be converted to affordable rents in agreement with the Homes and Communities Agency.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Aparthotels and serviced apartments

Aparthotels and serviced apartments offer a higher level of service than normal rented apartments, such as cleaning, laundry, food hampers, toiletries and the provision of towels. The letting is normally on a daily short-term basis, although some might require a minimum 2–3 night stay. There are also reception facilities and a hotel-style booking system.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

BCIS

The Building Cost Information Service, known as BCIS, is a leading provider of cost and price information for the UK construction industry. It is a part of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

CIL

Community Infrastructure Levy

Code for Sustainable Homes

Developed to enable a change in sustainable building practice. It is intended as a single national standard to guide industry in the design and construction of sustainable homes. There are six levels of the Code, with Level 6 equating to a zero carbon home. At each level, there are minimum energy efficiency/carbon emissions and water efficiency standards.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Cooperative

A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled enterprise. Cooperatives are based on the values of responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. Co-operative housing has been shown to deliver enhanced outcomes in terms of community cohesion, reductions in crime (and fear of crime) and antisocial behaviour, and health benefits.

Cooperative Housing

Co-operatively managed housing is an acceptable form of affordable housing provision, and can be used to deliver housing for both the social rented sector and the intermediate market. The housing may take a number of forms, including tenant managed schemes, ownership housing co-operatives, co-housing schemes (privately-funded developments organised on cooperative lines), and mutual home ownership developments.

Key points of Co-operative schemes:

• Run by its members, i.e. tenants
• Helping to create sustainable, mixed communities
• Flexibility of tenure (i.e. members can move from one tenure (e.g. rented) to another, and vice-versa
• Intermediate in the sense of allowing members to take an equity investment, depending on income, in the mutual society that owns their homes, not in a property per-se
• Land may be separated from the property e.g. via a Community Land Trust designed to be held in perpetuity to eliminate transfer to the open market

Cluster

Concentrations of companies in related activities, recognisable suppliers, service providers and institutions, which are cooperating, competing and collaborating to build competitive advantage, often across traditional sector boundaries. Such concentrations often depend on access to specialist skills and infrastructure within a specific area.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Dixon Searle Partnership (DSP)

Housing and development consultants

Employment related housing

Employment related housing is to aid employers with the recruitment and retention of staff. Whilst not officially affordable housing in terms of the NPPF definition of affordable housing, this type of housing would assist in accommodating people who cannot afford homes on the open market.

Gross Development Value (GDV)

The total value achieved on sale of the completed development. It is shown before the deduction of any costs or allowances and is simply the total of funds realised on the sale of the completed development.

Intermediate housing

Homes for sale and rent provided at a cost above social rent, but below market levels, and which meet the criteria for affordable housing (above). These can include shared equity (shared ownership and equity loans), other low-cost homes for sale and intermediate rent, but not affordable rented housing.

Local plan

Sets out policies to guide the future development of Cambridge. It also sets out where future development will take place, and identifies land for new housing, community facilities, shops and employment. In addition, the local plan identifies land to be protected from development, such as the Green Belt and open space. It is the key document used to determine planning applications for new development in the city.

Market housing

Housing for those households who can afford to pay the full market price to buy or rent their home, i.e. occupied on the basis of price alone.

Market Value (MV)

The value of market housing.

Mixed use developments

Development comprising two or more uses as part of the same scheme (e.g. shops on the ground floor and residential flats above). This could apply at a variety of scales from individual buildings, to a street, to a new neighbourhood or urban extension.

Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Proposed Submission , Glossary of terms

National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF or The Framework)

This document sets out national planning policies for England and the Government’s requirements for the Planning System. The policies in the NPPF must be taken into account when preparing Local Plans.

Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Proposed Submission , Glossary of terms

Nominations agreement

A contract under which the council has a right to place those in housing need into homes owned by registered providers (previously known as housing associations/registered landlords) as they become available.

Overage provision

A provision included in a Section 106 agreement, which ensures that if the actual return to the developer when units are sold exceeds the level included in the submitted viability assessment, a proportionate additional contribution is made to affordable housing in the city.

Registered Provider (RP)

Registered providers (RP) are landlords who provide affordable accommodation for rent and/or sale. The way they operate is governed by a government body called the Homes and Communities Agency.

Residual Land Value (RLV)

Land value and referred to as a residual because it is the amount remaining after a calculation that deducts from the GDV (as above) the various costs of development (e.g. usually comprising of costs including build costs and contingencies, professional fees, site purchase costs, finance costs, developer’s profit, marketing and sales expenses). The amount left over (hence ‘residual’) indicates the land price that can be justified by the calculation and the assumptions used within it.

Section 106 (S.106)

A binding legal agreement requiring a developer or landowner to provide or contribute towards facilities, infrastructure or other measures, in order for planning permission to be granted. Planning obligations are normally secured under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Serviced apartments

Aparthotels and serviced apartments offer a higher level of service than normal rented apartments, such as cleaning, laundry, food hampers, toiletries and the provision of towels. The letting is normally on a daily short-term basis, although some might require a minimum 2–3 night stay. There are also reception facilities and a hotel-style booking system.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Shared ownership

A form of intermediate tenure low cost home ownership housing. Homes in which the occupier owns a share of the equity and pays rent on the remaining share.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA)

This document for the Cambridge sub-region draws on a number of data sources and has been developed with a range of partners. It assesses the housing needs of the sub-region as well as each district and helps to inform the scale and mix of housing and the range of tenures that are required to meet the need.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Social housing

Housing let at lower than market rents to people in housing need. It includes social rent, affordable rent and intermediate housing tenures and is usually provided by not-for profit organisations including housing associations and councils.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Social rented

Rented housing owned by local authorities and private registered providers, for which guideline target rents are determined through the national rent regime. It may also be owned by other persons and provided under equivalent rental arrangements to the above, as agreed with the local authority or with the Homes and Communities Agency.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Specialist housing

Developed with particular groups of people in mind such as older people (including the frail elderly and those with dementia), people with physical and sensory disabilities, those with learning difficulties or acquired brain injury, young people at risk, people with alcohol or drug dependency, and those requiring refuge from harassment and violence, and others who may, for a variety of reasons, be excluded from the local community. Examples may range from a small scheme of cluster flats with additional facilities for support staff, to much larger extra care schemes enabling older people to live in their own self-contained accommodation but with care and support on-site.

This definition also includes the provision of housing that may be designed in a particular way or has staff office or staff night-time facilities when staff are needed to support the people who are living in the housing.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Use classes order

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 (as amended) puts uses of land and buildings into various categories known as use classes. More detail on what types of uses fall within each use class is set out below.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Use class C3

Dwelling houses

Use as a dwelling house (whether or not a main residence). Split into three sub-categories:

1. houses occupied by a single person or by people regarded as forming a single household;
2. houses occupied by not more than six residents living together as a single household where care is provided for residents; and
3. houses occupied by not more than six residents living together as a single household where no care is provided to residents (other than use within class C4)

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Use class C4

Houses in multiple occupation

Houses occupied by between three and six unrelated individuals as their only or main residence.

N.B. Large HMOs (more than six people) are unclassified, therefore sui generis.

Taken from the Cambridge Local Plan 2014: Submission, Glossary of terms

Value Level (VL)

Describes points within the overall range of market sales values (GDV) that are relevant in the Council’s area and various localities within that. Usually expressed as a ‘£ /sq. m.’ (£ per square metre) or ‘£/sq. ft.’ (£ per square foot) indication that can be applied to varied dwelling floor areas and provides a more consistent and useful comparison basis for considering sales values (GDVs) and the viability impacts of those varying alongside other viability factors.