Plans for 29 new homes on eight sites in the Luss area beside Loch Lomond look set to win approval.
The separate planning applications by landowner Luss Estates are all grouped together in an unusual ‘overarching’ report by Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority officials.
There have been ‘significant’ levels of objections to the three sites in the Muirlands area, but planners say that in combination the ‘address some strategic development objectives for the West Loch Lomondside area’.
The park authority’s planning board will consider all eight plans separately at its meeting on October 28, but the overarching report recommends approval of them all.
The officials’ report admits that the plans fall below the benchmark of 50% affordable homes, with 23 market houses and six serviced plots for affordable housing development.
But it adds: “Over the course of the last three years the applicant has worked with officers to progress the applications through a number of positive design and layout iterations in response to statutory consultee and community feedback.
“Although the balance of housing falls short of the 50% affordable housing, a robust viability case has been presented by the applicant which justifies the overall balance proposed taking reasonable account of the land and finance already expended and equivalent provision ‘in lieu’.
“The finalised package of proposals, linked by a Section 75 (legal) agreement, would collectively help address the need for new family and affordable housing in the area in accordance with the delivery strategy and would also secure a new village green for Luss.”
Luss and Arden Community Council objected to the three applications in Muirlands because of road safety risks on the B832, and there were more than 100 representations for each of the three Muirlands sites.
But the planning officials warn that refusing any of the individual applications overall would put at risk ‘deliverability of the package of proposals’.
The report adds: “The applicant’s supporting statement explains that it is not commercially viable to meet the full 50% and a detailed confidential financial appraisal of the overall project accompanies their submission.
“This proposal would directly address the lack of family-sized homes within the West Loch Lomondside area by seeking to make available 23 new, three-bedroomed homes for open market sale.
“These would be large enough for families but in the ‘mid-market’ rather than ‘executive’ category so as to remain accessible to working families on median incomes.”
Objectors also questioned whether the new houses would be bought as second or holiday homes, rather than by not by local families working in the area.
But the report says there is no planning policy reason to restrict the development on that basis.
Five serviced plots for affordable homes north of the Lomond Arms Hotel would be handed over to Link Housing Group for £1.
And Luss Estates say that providing and maintaining the new village green in Luss, at an estimated cost of £137,500, would be equivalent to another five affordable houses at £27,500 per unit.
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