A council finance boss has admitted that new ‘affordable’ homes in his area are set to cost more than £500,000 each because of the ‘significant costs’ associated with meeting stringent environmental standards.
Jamie Robertson, chief finance officer of East Dunbartonshire Council in Scotland, says the requirements for new-build homes to have electric vehicle chargers and industry standard energy efficiency is pushing costs up to ‘unsustainable’ levels.
The SNP-led council says it is trying to build the houses to ‘silver’ building standards as set by the Scottish Government – which includes a mandatory home office work space requirement and an area for storing recyclable waste.
But this has been criticised by one MSP who has asked whether authorities are trying too hard to do ‘everything gold plated, absolutely perfect’ – after Mr Robertson admitted the costs would ‘ultimately (be) repaid by tenants’.
The 15 homes, in the former mining village of Twechar around 10 miles north-east of Glasgow, will cost more than £8million to build all-in, The Times reported.
Mr Mason asked Mr Robertson whether it would be better to buy four times the number of propertied to get them ‘off the shelf’ and thus ‘families off the streets’.
However, Mr Robertson said the Council frequently buys homes on the open market, but reiterated that the ‘cost of retrofitting’ these kind of purchases for net zero is ‘obviously quite significant as well’.
The Council’s report states that homes are being built to maximise energy efficiency in order to keep heating bills down which requires an ‘extra level of construction quality assurance’.
The Twechar homes need to meet the ‘Passivhaus standards’ — a set of rigorous guidelines that reduce energy expenditure.
The homes, which were approved by the Council in February, consist of various types and sizes up to four bedrooms including two which are specifically designed for wheelchair users.
Based between a canal and a Roman Antonine wall, Mr Robertson said the Twechar site was particularly challenging and that it is an example of the pressures faced by councils with ‘reduced recourse to packages of land to develop houses’.
Scottish councils face a £780million black hole by 2026/2027, according to Cllr Katie Hagmann, resources spokesperson for Scottish council umbrella body Cosla.
She explained the ‘effect of years of real-terms cuts to core budgets’ combined with ‘additional policy commitments’ and ‘less flexibility’ in how budgets are allocated, has put councils in an ‘impossible’ situation when making local decisions.
Councillor Hagmann said: ‘We must seek a sustainable solution to these long-term issues in order to protect the essential front-line service of our communities before it is too late.’
Developers have previously warned they will turn away from Scotland because of conditions created at Holyrood, which they labelled as ‘anti-landlord legislation’.
On Tuesday, housing minister announced £22 million of government funding to build more than 150 new homes.
It came as figures last week showed that the number of homelessness cases in Scotland had reached its highest level on record, with 31,870 applications ongoing in March.
The number of households in temporary accommodation — and the number of children— also reached record highs.
The Scottish government previously announced a housing emergency along with at least a dozen councils.