Developer Contributions Supplementary Guidance

38. Car sharing schemes (‘car clubs’) have operated in Edinburgh since 1999, with many vehicles (part) funded and delivered by developer contributions. They are an integral part of the City’s mobility offering giving residents an alternative to private car ownership. The scheme supports the City Plan outcome for a city where you don’t need to own a car to move around. City Plan’s Place Based Policies provide clear instruction for these sites to only provide for accessible parking, or for very limited private parking spaces on-site. This approach to parking is supported by measures to improve safe active travel infrastructure, directing development to where there is high accessibility to public transport and requiring access to shared transport, including car club provision on-site. The outcome of this approach will be development layouts with a service/delivery vehicle access and accessible and car club spaces provided for residents, with only limited, if any, private car parking.  

Policy Context - Car sharing schemes (‘Car Clubs’) 

39. City Plan Policy Inf 7 Private Car Parking criterion e) uses the availability of shared mobility services, including car club spaces, to determine the appropriate level of private car parking, where some private car parking is proposed. Paragraph 3.220 states that where shared mobility services are necessary to mitigate the impact of development, but is not practical to deliver on site, contributions to off-site delivery will be sought. 

40. City Plan Policy Inf 3 Infrastructure Delivery and Developer Contributions requires proposals to deliver or contribute towards infrastructure provision where relevant and necessary to mitigate any negative impact and to ensure the proposal can meet the Council’s sustainable transport targets (mode share targets) and where commensurate to the scale of the proposed development. Therefore, contributions towards delivering the car sharing scheme either on-site or off-site will be required to mitigate against demand and requirement for higher levels of car parking spaces. 

41. Costs are calculated based on size of housing development and the appropriate level of shared cars based on the most recent parking standards and circumstances of the development in terms of meeting Policy Inf 7. 

42. Contributions are based on individual applications, and contribution zones are not proposed for this type of infrastructure. 

43. It is expected that car sharing infrastructure will be delivered within development on to-be adopted roads, or in the vicinity of the development. The costs include the cost of providing new vehicles and the administrative costs to the Council associated with providing car sharing bays. 

Mobility Hubs 

44. NPF4 Policy 13 Sustainable Transport supports proposals to improve, enhance or provide active travel infrastructure or multi-modal hubs. 

45. City Plan 2030 identifies a number of mobility hubs (see Part 4, Table 4 and 8) to support the sustainable growth of the city and mitigate against impact of development by facilitating sustainable transport through the development of mobility hubs. Policy Inf 7 Private Car Parking criterion f) requires all major development to provide shared mobility services potentially in a mobility hub. 

46. The Council’s 20 Minute Neighbourhood team commissioned three feasibility studies for different areas of the city. This has helped to inform what key components we expect to be included in a mobility hub and has provided capital cost estimates. 

47. Proportional contributions are on a per unit basis. Expected housing output numbers (as published in the Plan Part 4, Table 2) for each site in the contribution zone is calculated. All existing housing units within the zone is calculated using the GIS Corporate Property Database. The proportion of new units as a percentage of all potential users in the zone (existing and new units) is calculated. This percentage is applied to the infrastructure cost to work out a per unit cost. All detailed cost calculations are set out in Appendix 5. 

48. There will be on-going revenue costs for their implementation, but only capital costs will be sought through planning obligations and/or where delivered directly as part of development. 

49. Proposals for mobility hubs to support the sustainable travel for a single development site: 

• For example, in major developments or where identified in the Place Based Policy principles, these should be appropriate to scale and impacts of development and include the required components (see below). It is expected this will be delivered directly by the development. 

50. City Plan identifies indicative locations for mobility hubs with their final location to be determined with the site’s layout design and optimal placing for the mobility hub’s requirements. In addition, flexibility to expand the services on offer should be taken into account when siting the mobility hubs. 

51. Detailed guidance on mobility hubs for new development is likely to be included in updates to the Edinburgh Design Guidance. For this SG, the following key components will be required for any proposed mobility hub: 

52. Mobility hubs that serve more than one development: Where a mobility hub mitigates the impact of more than one development (for example, a cluster of developments, or a strategic site that is likely to be developed in phases), a new contribution zone is proposed. They apply an approximate ten-minute walk distance from the indicative hub location. This distance is consistent with that used in the three feasibility studies:NPF4 Local Living and Edinburgh’s 20-minute neighbourhood approach to living well locally, and Edinburgh’s interpretation of a 20-minute round trip is where people’s daily needs can be met within 10 minutes walk/wheel of their house, as explained in the City Mobility Plan. A ten-minute isochrone (800m walking distance) has been created using a geographic information system (GIS) network analysis tool which traces all possible walking routes along the network of footpaths on a digital map. 

53. Proposed mobility hubs proposals in Granton and West Edinburgh are included in their transport contribution zone alongside the wider package of transport interventions.  

54. New proposed contribution zones for mobility hubs: 

• Bonnington mobility hub 

• Fettes Avenue mobility hub 

APPENDIX 5 

ADDENDUM 5