Charges levied on most new development towards the cost of infrastructure that is needed to mitigate its impact are to change in line with council proposals that discount co-living development to facilitate its delivery.
Community Infrastructure Levy charges are used to pay for community grants, habitat impact mitigation and larger projects like Marsh Barton railway station.
Of the £10.84 million levy charges committed to significant infrastructure in the nine years to January this year the council spent nearly three-quarters on St Sidwell’s Point leisure centre while another £840,000 was used to reconfigure a road junction at Sandy Park.
An independent examination of the new charges proposed by the council, which remained unchanged following a public consultation opened as last year’s Christmas holiday period began, found that they would not threaten local plan delivery and so would provide “an appropriate basis for the collection of the levy in the area”.
The council-commissioned assessment that provided the evidence base for the new charges did not consider residential, retail or any forms of development other than purpose built student accommodation, co-living and flats built for rent and sale.
The new charges provide discounted rates to enable co-living development in Exeter at one third of the purpose built student accommodation rate despite the two forms being essentially indistinguishable and there being no local viability evidence for the latter.
Only one of the two co-living developments that have so far been given planning permission in Exeter is being constructed and is still not complete.
The Gorge co-living development under construction
The scope of the charges examination could not be widened to include other forms of development because of parameters set by the council in advance.
These were the outcome of private consultation with just eight organisations including Exeter City Council, Exeter City Living and Exeter City Futures.
Council leader Phil Bialyk refused to say, when questioned, who decided not to implement the council’s 2019 decision to commission a complete review of the current charging schedule.
He claimed that a partial levy review had been approved, but this is not what council records say.
The new Community Infrastructure Levy charges are expected to come into force in January next year.
