🏠 CHANGE Position­

🔵 1. Locals-First Housing Priority

Housing built on our island should benefit the people who live here.

CHANGE Standard:

• All first-time buyer schemes and new affordable housing developments prioritised for Isle of Man residents

• Introduce a “local connection test” before accessing subsidised housing

Public support should serve local families and workers first.

🧱 2. Accelerated Building of Affordable Homes

Decades of dithering has left too many young people priced out.

Government should:

• Fast-track planning and land use for modular, prefab, and SIP panel homes

• Identify and convert vacant government land into affordable housing sites

• Replace rigid affordable-housing rules with delivery-focused alternatives

• Create a “Young Worker Housing Scheme” to deliver starter units at capped rents

If the land is suitable and the design is approved, delivery should be fast.

🏠 3. Reverse Planning

How Reverse Planning Works

Under a Reverse Planning Consideration model:

• Land zoned for housing is treated as approved in principle
• A library of pre-approved house types (including modular, prefab, and standard designs) is established
• If a development:
  • uses approved designs, and
  • complies with zoning and infrastructure requirements

👉 Planning permission is automatically granted

If planning wishes to object, the burden is on planning officers to demonstrate clear, site-specific harm. If they cannot, development proceeds.

🏗️ 4. Affordable Housing Must Mean Homes — Not Payments

Affordable housing obligations exist to deliver homes — not paperwork.

Too often, obligations are discharged through cash payments while developments proceed and homes never appear. This approach has failed.

CHANGE’s alternative:

• Retain affordable housing obligations
• Where homes cannot be built on-site, require developers to build them on government-owned land instead
• Government provides land; developers deliver the homes

The Government banks the buildings — not the money.

This guarantees delivery and restores public trust.

🏡 5. No Immigration-Driven Pressure on Housing

Housing must serve locals — not imported demand.

CHANGE Standard:

• No automatic access to public housing or housing assistance for new immigrants

• Immigration points system will factor in housing capacity

Housing must serve local need first.

CHANGE is a civic movement. We expect those in power to deliver what the public is entitled to — and we hold them to account if they fail.