Our ambition is to ensure that the people of Gwynedd can access a suitable home of a high standard, that is affordable and improves their quality of life. We will try to achieve this by setting an ambition to:
- Ensure that no-one is homeless in Gwynedd
- Help the residents of Gwynedd to own an affordable home in their community
- Ensure that houses in Gwynedd are environmentally friendly
- Ensure that houses in Gwynedd have a positive influence on the health and well-being of the county's residents.
A Homely Gwynedd Projects
We will fulfil the projects that are part of our Housing Action Plan to increase the opportunities for Gwynedd residents to be able to secure a suitable home. Amongst the 33 individual projects that are part of the Housing Action Plan, we will:
- Collaborate with local housing associations to build more social housing by accelerating the building programme aiming to construct 500 new houses.
- Build our own houses in sites across the county. They will be available to local residents at intermediate rent or to buy through shared equity schemes. We aim to build 100 houses of this type.
- Buy private houses in order to let them out at an affordable rent to local people. We will target empty houses initially, but we will also look at houses on the open market. We aim to buy 100 affordable houses over the Plan's lifespan.
- Provide assistance in the form of shared equity schemes so that first time local buyers can compete in the housing market.
- Provide grants to assist first-time buyers to renovate empty houses to an acceptable living standard. This will bring empty houses back into use and will assist young people and first-time buyers to live in a house. We aim to bring 250 empty houses back into use.
- Purchase building land for the future.
In order to ensure that homeless people do not have to spend a long time in temporary accommodation, we will:
- Develop our own 'supported housing' units, namely accommodation where support is provided for homeless individuals by specialist staff to allow them to learn and develop life skills to improve their ability to maintain a future tenancy.
- Refurbish and upgrade the former NatWest and GISDA building in Caernarfon to provide five flats for homeless youths and extend the current café to create employment for the homeless, as well as create a permanent home for GISDA and create a multi-agency space to support homeless youths.
- Put a support package together to encourage private landlords to offer permanent accommodation for the homeless, instead of letting their accommodation for short-term periods or as holiday accommodation. We will aim to have 100 permanent accommodation units over the Plan's lifespan.
- Work to prevent homelessness by increasing our capacity to assist and support vulnerable individuals to remain in their homes.
- Attempt to move homeless people to fixed accommodation as soon as possible, rather than them having to stay in temporary accommodation for long periods.
The substantial number of houses in Gwynedd that are being used as second homes and short-term holiday accommodation is having a detrimental impact on the ability of the people of Gwynedd to have access to homes in their communities. The Council has presented detailed research to the Government which highlights the need to act in the areas of planning, taxation and licensing in order to gain better control of the situation. Following recent announcements from the Government, including the establishment of the Dwyfor Pilot, which commits to introduce steps to tackle problems in the field, the Council is preparing to implement legislative changes as soon as possible. We will also set a Council tax premium for second homes and empty homes every year at an appropriate rate to respond to the situation at the time.