Accelerating home building in Scotland: a consultation on incentives and penalties to speed up housing delivery

3 Consultation Questions

Option 1: Introduce fiscal measures to tackle inactivity or slow build-out.

1) Could fiscal incentives offering relief to other charges help to accelerate build-out rates? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

a) Which charges / taxes / levies could the incentives be applied to? Please explain your answer.

b) Should relief be in the form of full exemptions or variable rates? Full exemptions / variable rates. Please explain your answer.

c) Could a tax impact differently on different types of land owners? Please explain your answer.

d) Please provide any evidence of how fiscal measures linked to other charges would impact development finance to influence built out rates.

2) Should we introduce a tax on sites which have been allocated for residential development and/or have permission for homes, but are not being built out as expected, as set out in option 1? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

a) Should this apply to allocated sites, sites with permission, or both? Allocated sites/Sites with permission/Both. Please explain your answer.

b) How should the tax be calculated? Please explain your answer.

c) Who should be required to pay the tax? Please explain your answer.

d) Should the tax operate as a local or a national tax? Local tax/national tax. Please explain your answer.

e) How should any income be used? Please explain your answer.

f) Please provide any evidence of how a tax connected to sites allocated or permitted not being built out would influence build-out rates.

Option 2: Monitor build-out rates and intervene where these are unreasonably slow.

3) Should we bring forward powers for reporting on development progress and powers to intervene where it is considered to be unreasonably slow, as set out in option 2? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

a) Should this include creating a legal framework for reporting on development progress? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

b) Should there be a power for planning permission to be revoked, without compensation being payable, where reporting demonstrates that progress is unreasonably slow? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

c) How would the pace of development be set and agreed – for example how would reasonable-ness be measured? Please explain your answer.

d) Please provide any evidence of how reporting on development progress would influence build-out rates.

Option 3: Reduce procedural time and costs for SME developers.

4) Should we bring forward legislation to amend the development hierarchy, to enable us to introduce more streamlined planning processes on planning applications for smaller sites, as outlined in option 3? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

a) How many categories should be defined by the development hierarchy, and what size of development should these cover? For example, four categories, that define major, medium, small and very small developments.

b) What are your views on, and do you have any evidence relevant to whether creating more categories in the development hierarchy might have an overall effect of speeding up or slowing down build-out of housing?

c) What are your views on whether we should review and rationalise policy requirements in NPF4 for smaller housing sites, or introduce a new rules based policy for smaller housing sites?

d) Do you think that further advice on planning application information requirements would support faster delivery of housing on smaller sites? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

e) Do you think there are any further options that creating more categories in the development hierarchy might open up, further to those outlined in option 3? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

f) Do you think that this measure would have any particular benefits for SME housebuilders? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

Option 4: Diversify the output from deliverable land.

5) Do you think that encouraging more diverse housing outputs across the pipeline of deliverable housing land would increase the pace of build-out? Yes / No / Unsure. Please explain your answer.

a) Should we use legislation to require a diversity of housing types and tenures on sites above a certain threshold? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

b) Do you think that this measure would have any particular benefits for SME housebuilders? Yes/No/Unsure. Please explain your answer.

c) Please provide any evidence of how increasing diversity would influence build-out rates.

Further options

6) Do you have any other suggestions for measures which could use levers available, or which could be put in place through the planning system, to deliver more homes at pace?

a) Please provide any evidence of how these potential measures would influence build-out rates.