A LEADING architect today branded council plans to increase affordable homes in York "nave and unrealistic".

Sending more bad news to first-time buyers, Matthew Laverack said the proposed changes would cause a slump in social housing supplies and push sky-high property prices further through the roof.

Mr Laverack, of Laverack Associates, instead outlined a "radical and imaginative" approach to the city's affordable housing crisis.

At the same time, he attacked City of York Council's consultation plans to reduce the threshold for affordable provision from 25 to 15 units, while hiking the percentage of provision from 25 to 50 per cent.

He said these "flawed" terms would deter builders and encourage them to go for developments just under the threshold limit.

Mr Laverack said profits from the social housing element of schemes did not cover construction costs, with losses subsidised by open market sales.

He said: "If requirements for affordable housing are too onerous they will deter housebuilders from proceeding and then sites will not produce any dwellings, either for private sale or for transfer to a registered social landlord.

"In these cases there will be a zero provision of affordable housing - because 50 per cent of nothing is nothing."

He said it was "nave and unrealistic" of the council to claim extra costs incurred would be offset by developers negotiating lower land prices.

"The owners of potential housing land are not going to accept huge reductions in the value of their assets," Mr Laverack said.

"They will be seeking maximum value from their land and will look to other possible development opportunities, or they will seek to break up sites to below the threshold for affordable housing."

Mr Laverack also said the leap from 25 to 50 per cent provision could not be supported by the industry. He said the 25 per cent target had been largely off-set by planners giving the green light to controversial large-scale blocks of flats, already starting to alter the character and scale of ancient York.

As an alternative, he called for the percentage contribution of social housing to rise to 35 per cent, with the threshold cut to 20 units.

Offering this more "realistic" solution" he proposed that the first 14 units of any development should be free of any social contribution, but from 15 and above a contribution of 50 per cent be set.

"It will be in the housebuilders' interest to increase numbers, because for every two units he provides over the first 14 homes, he is allowed one of them for private sale."

Updated: 10:02 Monday, August 02, 2004