OWNERS of dilapidated properties could be forced to bring them back into use to ease the housing crisis, according to the Housing Minister.
Deputy David Warr said he was preparing a range of options to get more empty properties lived in, and would present his ideas to States Members at the end of next month.
Addressing the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel during a quarterly hearing yesterday, the minister revealed that one of those options would be serving a ‘land condition notice’, issued under the Planning law, which obliges owners to make their property safe.
The 2002 Planning and Building Law gives officers various powers, including enforcing the repair or removal of dilapidated buildings and the ‘proper maintenance’ of land. Article 84 of the law states: ‘If it appears to the chief officer that a building is in a ruinous or dilapidated condition, the chief officer may serve a notice requiring that the building or a specified part of it be demolished, repaired, decorated or otherwise improved and that any resulting rubbish be removed.’
Deputy Warr said another option to help fill disused homes might be to use notices similar to ‘Empty Dwelling Management Orders’ that exist in the UK.
There, local authorities can take over the management of certain houses that have been empty for at least two years by seeking an EDMO. A tax on empty properties has previously been suggested as another option by one backbencher.
The latest census revealed that there were 4,027 vacant homes in Jersey in March last year – meaning that almost one-in-ten private dwellings were empty. This prompted Deputy Montford Tadier to lodge a proposal to force the government to present options on how empty properties could be brought back into use.
The Deputy won the subsequent debate, with virtually all Members supporting his call for ministers to come back to the Assembly with a plan.
Conceding that the new government’s response was a month behind schedule, Deputy Warr said proposals would be presented next month.
He also accepted that the options would lead to intervention in the private-housing market, but added that it was a moral issue.
‘Should we be building on green fields when houses are lying empty?’ he asked. ‘I think we have the public on our side but with the expectation that we recoup any money spent.’
Deputy Warr also raised the possibility of introducing a loans scheme to help the owners of vacant homes to make their properties habitable again.
