Two Green councillors have lodged a formal objection to the planned 300-bed six storey co-living development on the site of the former Mary Arches car park in Exeter City centre. They say the accommodation will not provide the long term affordable long term homes the City needs. They also accuse the Labour-run administration of ignoring the council’s own housing needs assessment when they wrote the brief for the redevelopment, and of having ‘an obsession with co-living’.
Councillor, Diana Moore, one of the Green Party councillors representing St David’s, the ward in which the development is proposed, said:
“Greens strongly support brownfield developments – and there is a real need for council and truly affordable homes in the city centre. However, Labour’s endless obsession with co-living is creating a city full of bland developments containing hundreds of unaffordable rooms that fail to meet nationally set minimum space requirements.
“Labour wrote the brief for this dire development completely ignoring the Council’s own housing needs research which sees little role for co-living housing [1]. So there is no proper evidence of demand in Exeter for this over-priced accommodation. Few single workers in Exeter can afford the eye-wateringly high rents.
Councillor Tess Read, another Green councillor in St David’s, added:
“The proposed landscaping for this development is totally inadequate and there are with no plans to improve local amenities in the area, such as nearby St Bartholomew’s Cemetery. Indeed, the proposals would significantly reduce the green infrastructure in the city centre by removing 10 trees and there are no serious plans for replanting trees elsewhere.
“Housing plans in the city centre must incorporate and increase biodiversity, recognise the local presence of protected species and be adaptable to climate change.
“We also want to see proposals to make it safer for walking and cycling. The area close to the proposed development has one of the highest collision records in the city centre [2].”
Notes
[1] Exeter Local Needs Housing Assessment 2024 (LHNA) sets out forecasts to 2041 says: Co-living – Exeter is projected to see a very small increase in single young person households. The household projections therefore envisage little role for co-living housing and this is reflected in the LHNA’s modelled size and tenure mix. However, as a policy led response to the increasing lack of housing for younger people in Exeter, the co-living offers greater opportunities for groups such as recent graduates looking to establish themselves in the city as an alternative to living in HMOs.” and “Given that Exeter is projected to see a very small increase in single young person households, then the household projections would envisage little role for this type of dwelling, and this is reflected in our modelled size and tenure mix” https://exeter.gov.uk/media/rmxblobz/2024-exeter-local-housing-needs-assessment.pdf page 15
[2] Public Map