The Council's CIL DCS has been revised following consultation on its Preliminary Draft Charging Schedule (PDCS) and now includes proposals to charge a nil rate per square metre for all commercial development rather than the previously-proposed £10 per sq m.
Following consultation on its PDCS the Council has also reduced the proposed charge for retail and residential development. Retail development is now planned to be levied at £43 per sq m rather than £90 per sq m and residential development is planned to be levied at £90 per sq m, reduced from the previous £105 per sq m in the PDCS.
All development, other than retail and residential, would be subject to a nil rate levy per sq m, in the Council's DCS (5-pages / 43KB PDF). The changes reflect comments made during the Council's consultation on its PDCS.
"Some respondents raised concern with the evidence base, and in particular the viability assessment that underpins the proposed charge rates," the statement of consultation said. (25-pages / 125KB PDF). "This led to a number of respondents requesting that further work is undertaken to enable further variance in the charges proposed."
"The main issue raised in representations received on behalf of Developers is that the viability assessment does not investigate different geographical areas and does not therefore provide evidence for an appropriate CIL charge," the statement said.
Developer Hammerson highlighted the fact that if the CIL Charging Schedule were applied to the currently permitted WWQ scheme, it would have resulted in an additional developer contribution of about £5.1 million.
In response to the concerns raised in the consultation the Council said that "the viability evidence base has been updated and assumptions have been tested and are considered robust. We have agreed with many of the concerns such as the £10 charge and this has now been reduced to £0 for commercial development.
The Council published an addendum to its Viability Assessment (41-pages / 845KB PDF), which aimed to update and expand the previous study, most notably to reflect the current state of the economy and secondly to respond to specific representations made within the consultation period.
"The result of this update will conclude upon confirming or altering the previous recommended CIL levels that would not put at “serious risk” the overall development of the area," the Council said.
The Viability Assessment addendum found that no change to the proposed retail rates was necessary, due to "underlying investment demand". However, commercial development was considered to have "sustained poor performance in this market" and so was reduced to a nil rate levy per sq m.
The consultation will be open for comments until 15 October.
