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More hope has been given that fields can be protected from development after an update to how many homes are needed.
The new calculations also put the microscope on the Development & Planning Authority’s initial sums when it was working on its opening Island Development Plan proposals.
Those proposals attracted so much reaction that the DPA has had to delay the process.
The DPA used the old States Strategic Housing Indicator as its basis for deciding what land needed to be earmarked for housing development in the IDP, but it also added significant buffers to the numbers as a contingency because it said population trends were likely to be higher than the forecast used in that model.
Now Environment & Infrastructure has run the update to the indicator - and it has come out in the opposite direction, with lower numbers.
An additional 815 units of private accommodation are needed over the five-year period to 2028 (down from 844), according to the indicator, while the State-subsidised affordable housing sector needs an additional 673 (down from 721).
Deputy Victoria Oliver, Development & Planning Authority President, said: "The updated States Strategic Housing Indicator is one of several pieces of work that need to be carried out before we can respond to the initial representations received as part of the focused review of the Island Development Plan.
"These updated figures will certainly be important when considering how much land will be allocated for housing and give us more certainty for moving forward.
"We would expect these updated figures to mean that less land will be required, however, the type of land proposed for housing allocations depends on several other factors as well."
Pictured: Posters went up when the DPA launched its review of the IDP.
In its original IDP proposals, the DPA added 25% to the affordable housing indicator, taking it from 721 to 901, which led to it having to earmark a field adjacent to the current L'Aumone centre and another at Ville Amphrey outside the St Martins centre for building.
If it stuck by that 901 number, it would now be 33% more than the SSHI says is needed.
It had also added 15% to what the old indicator said was needed in the private sector, so worked its plan up to cater for 970 houses here.
The new numbers now leave the draft IDP overshooting the indicator by 19%.
Deputy Steve Falla has been a vocal critic of the draft IDP.
"These new SSHI figures are to be welcomed if, alongside the delayed IDP review, they mean that we can pull back on proposed housing developments on green fields and also look at how we can review the rules that prevent putting houses on redundant glasshouse sites," he said.
After DPA put the IDP out for comment, 276 submissions were received, containing more than 500 individual representations by States committees, businesses, industry and third sector groups and parishioners.
It led to it asking the planning inspector for more time to respond to what had been said which at times were contradictory.
Respondents had asked it to both increase and decrease the applied buffers in the States Strategic Housing Indicator.
The IDP review should have been completed before the end of this term.
Finger in the air calculation will see fields lost to development forever if action not taken
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