Affordable housing must work for local people.
Too many families and young workers have been priced out while delivery has stalled. Housing policy must ensure that homes are built at prices local residents can afford, supporting stable communities and a strong Island economy.
The CHANGE position
Housing policy should be judged by one simple test: does it deliver suitable, affordable homes for the people who live and work on our Island?
Locals-First Housing Priority
Housing built with public support should benefit the people and communities already established here.
CHANGE standard
- First-time-buyer schemes and new affordable developments will prioritise qualifying Isle of Man residents.
- A clear local-connection test will apply before subsidised housing or housing assistance can be accessed.
- Rules will be transparent, consistent and based on genuine local housing need.
Public support should serve local families, workers and communities first.
Accelerated Building of Affordable Homes
Years of delay have left too many young people unable to afford a suitable home.
Government should
- Fast-track suitable modular, prefabricated and structural insulated panel housing.
- Identify suitable vacant or underused government-owned land for affordable-housing sites.
- Replace rigid rules with delivery-focused requirements that produce completed homes.
- Establish a Young Worker Housing Scheme providing practical starter homes at controlled rents.
Where the land is suitable and the design complies with clear standards, delivery should be fast.
Reverse Planning
Suitable housing should not be trapped indefinitely in a system built around delay.
How reverse planning would work
- Developments must comply with zoning, access, drainage, infrastructure and safety requirements.
- Standard, modular and prefabricated designs can receive advance technical approval.
- Planning officers must identify clear, site-specific harm when seeking to prevent a compliant development.
The burden should not remain indefinitely on applicants to prove that an already compliant housing development deserves to proceed.
Affordable Housing Must Mean Homes — Not Payments
Affordable-housing obligations exist to deliver homes, not paperwork.
Too often, affordable-housing obligations are discharged through financial payments while developments proceed and the promised homes never appear. That approach has failed.
The CHANGE alternative
- Retain meaningful affordable-housing obligations.
- Require homes to be delivered on the development wherever reasonably possible.
- Where on-site provision is genuinely impractical, require developers to build the equivalent homes on suitable government-owned land.
- Government provides the land where appropriate; developers provide completed homes.
Housing Policy Based on Local Need
The supply of publicly supported housing must be planned around genuine Island need.
CHANGE standard
- No automatic entitlement to public housing or housing assistance solely because a person has recently arrived on the Island.
- Clear residence, contribution and local-connection requirements will apply.
- Immigration, infrastructure and housing policy must be planned together rather than treated as separate issues.
- Government must publish the effect of population policy on housing demand, rents and waiting lists.
Housing policy must protect local access, affordability and community stability.
Help us make housing work for local people.
CHANGE is developing practical policies that prioritise delivery, accountability and the long-term interests of the Island.
CHANGE is a civic movement. We expect those in power to deliver what the public is entitled to, and we will hold them to account when they fail.