The Ethiopian Youth Entrepreneurs Association (EYEA) is founded to address significant challenges many young entrepreneurs are facing in Ethiopia, including a lack of access to capital, limited business networks, and a lack of business education.
It is a local Non-Governmental Organization founded on December 3, 2020 under the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Organizations of Civil Societies Proclamation No. 1113/2019. Currently, EYEA is headquartered in Addis Ababa and will open its branch offices across Ethiopia.
The organization is focused on promoting business growth and strengthening the start-up community in Ethiopia by providing guidance, education, mentorship, and access to networks, capital, and other resources for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs. EYEA is dedicated to provide resources and support to young entrepreneurs in Ethiopia they need to succeed by partnering with relevant stakeholders in the government, business, and educational sectors to develop and provide engaging and relevant content for its members. Additionally, the organization will seek to foster collaboration between its members by linking them with each other, offering access to networking or exposure opportunities, and developing marketing campaigns to increase recognition and visibility of young entrepreneurs in Ethiopia.
EYEA takes the step by creating the youth entrepreneur’s ecosystem through supporting the start-ups, to involve and take action on the socio-economic and entrepreneur activities of their country in order to be able to realize the obstacles that they have not been able to achieve due to various situations. Entrepreneurs in EYEA context are; agents of change, who make available creative and ground-breaking ideas and they are people who can help businesses grow and develop into profitability. EYEA primarily targets youth aged between18-35, who have interest in starting, managing, and growing a business in Ethiopia. The EYEA places an emphasis on youth entrepreneurs throughout the country, and particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds. EYEA is dedicated to creating an impact in the lives of young people from disadvantaged and/or marginalized backgrounds. Thus, the association organizes career development seminars, capacity building programs, mentorship opportunities, and workshops to provide business skills and knowledge to young entrepreneurs. The association believes in the power of youth entrepreneurs to effect positive change in their local economies and build sustainable businesses. The EYEA helps to advocate for, empower, and nurture young people from all backgrounds to become successful entrepreneurs in Ethiopia.
Mission: EYEA strives to create a safe space to provide resources, mentoring, and networking opportunities for young entrepreneurs which will be functional, borderless, collaborative, inclusive, innovative and profitable startup economies for Ethiopian youth entrepreneurs to achieve their potential and advanc
3. What is PAS?
PAS is a DCLG grant-funded programme but part
of the Local Government Association
•Governed by a ‘sector led’ board
•10 staff – commissioners, generalists, support
“PAS exists to provide support to local
planning authorities to provide efficient and
effective planning services, to drive
improvement in those services and to respond
to and deliver changes in the planning system”
4. Organisation of the day
• Housekeeping- Phones off
• Presentations and activities
• Feedback forms and follow up survey
• Lunch and breaks
5. Learning and sharing
• Different levels of knowledge
• Sharing with each other
• Learning from one another
6. Objectives
• to improve your knowledge of:
viability and its relevance in planning and
the viability evidence you require to fulfil your
planning role
• For procurement – to improve the procurement
outcome for your authority?
• Make you more confident discussing, and
negotiating upon, viability related to
development and planning
7.
8. ‘‘ ‘Why straw?’ you’re thinking. Let me tell you
… We at Wolf Construction are committed to
building affordable homes for first-time
buyers, using local materials wherever
possible”
9. “Maybe it was some kind of sustainable eco-
house. Anyway one puff and down it went”
10. Learning Objectives
To ensure that the Council is a ‘highly
informed client’ with the ability to:
• undertake simple viability assessments
• to appraise viability assessments
submitted by developers
• utilise viability testing in formulating policy
• to know when to bring in outside
consultants
• fully engage with consultants
11. Session 1: An Introduction to
viability (including definitions
and terminology)
12. What is viability?
An individual development can be said to be
viable if, after taking account of all costs, including
central and local government policy and
regulatory costs and the costs and availability of
development finance, the scheme provides a
competitive return to the developer to ensure that
development takes place and generates a land
value sufficient to persuade a land owner to sell
the land for the development proposed. If these
conditions are not met, a scheme will not be
delivered.
Local Housing Delivery Group. Viability Testing in Local Plans –
Advice for planning practitioners. (LGA/HBF – Sir John Harman) June
13. What is viability?
An objective financial viability test of the
ability of a development project to meet its
costs including the cost of planning
obligations, while ensuring an appropriate
Site Value for the landowner and a market
risk adjusted return to the developer in
delivering that project. (Where viability is
being used to test and inform planning
policy it will be necessary to substitute “a
development project” into the wider
context)
14. When is viability evidence
required?
Plan-making
– Strategic Housing Land Availability
Assessment
– Affordable housing viability assessment
– Whole local plan testing
– Community Infrastructure Levy
Development Management
– Site specific viability testing for planning
applications
– Masterplan/major application viability testing,
incorporating phasing etc.
17. Regulatory Requirements – why is
viability important?
• NPPF 173 / 174 - the cumulative impact of
the council’s ‘wish list’ (CIL/s106, CfSH etc.)
• NPPF 178 – 181 duty to cooperate, work
collaboratively, a continuous process
• CIL Regulation 14 The effect of CIL on
viability
• SHLAA Are the sites deliverable, 5 year
supply
• S106 / Individual, site specific In relation
to planning applications, enabling
18. Context: Blyth Valley
Lord Justice Keene - Conclusion:
• [the inspector] failed to reflect the requirement
of PPS3 as to the need for an informed
economic viability study as part of the
process leading to a policy requiring a
particular percentage of affordable
housing…His approach was also vitiated by his
perhaps understandable but erroneous
application of a presumption of soundness, and
his finding that there was no evidence that sites
would not come forward if a 30 per cent
requirement were imposed is incomprehensible.
19. Context: SHLAA Guidance
40. A site is considered achievable for development
where there is a reasonable prospect that housing
will be developed on the site …It will be affected by:
market factors (such as locality), cost factors (e.g.
site preparation costs); and delivery factors (e.g.
developer’s own phasing)
41. There are a number of residual valuation models
available to help determine whether housing is an
economically viable prospect for a particular site. In
addition, the views of housebuilders and local
property agents for example will also be useful
where a more scientific approach is not considered
necessary.
20. There is no statutory
guidance…yet!
NPPF says:
‘Evidence supporting the assessment should be
proportionate, using only appropriate available
evidence’.
The CIL guidance says
‘The legislation (section 212 (4) (b)) requires a
charging authority to use 'appropriate available
evidence' to inform their draft charging schedule. It
is recognised that the available data is unlikely to
be fully comprehensive or exhaustive. Charging
authorities need to demonstrate that their proposed
CIL rate or rates are informed by ‘appropriate
available’ evidence and consistent with that
evidence across their area as a whole’.
21. Proportionate available evidence
Adjourned GNDP Joint Core Strategy. The
Inspector has requested that GNDP provide:
“..financial viability testing using the Harman
guidance, bearing in mind NPPF 173 and
onwards. This should be strategic and
proportionate, but should use any detailed
information now available as result of the Local
Investment Plan and Programme and AAP work.
Key, critical infrastructure projects and the costs of
these to the proposed developments should be
identified. The Inspector has asked that this
paper be kept as short and simple as
22. Context: CIL
• NPPF recommends plans are drawn up
alongside CIL charging schedules "where
practical"
• Avoids repetition and helps prioritise policies
• A balance between securing additional
investment for infrastructure and the potential
economic effect of imposing CIL upon
development across their area
• It is for charging authorities to decide on the
appropriate balance and ‘how much’ potential
development they are willing to put at risk
through the imposition of CIL
23. OLD (March 2010) CIL Guidance
10. The examiner should not use the CIL
examination to question a charging
authority’s choice in terms of 'the
appropriate balance', unless the evidence
available to the examination shows that the
proposed rate (or rates) will put the overall
development of the area at serious risk. The
examiner should be ready to modify or reject
the draft charging schedule if it puts at
serious risk the overall development of the
area.
24. OLD (March 2010) CIL Guidance
10. …In considering whether the overall
development of the area has been put at serious
risk, the examiner will want to consider the
implications for the priorities that the authority has
identified in its Development Plan…In considering
whether the Development Plan and its targets
have been put at serious risk, the examiner should
only be concerned with whether the proposed CIL
rate will make a material or significant difference to
the level of that risk. It may be that the
Development Plan and its targets would be at
serious risk in the absence of CIL.
25. New (December 2012) CIL
Guidance
9. The independent examiner should
establish:
• the proposed rate or rates are informed by and
consistent with, the evidence on economic
viability across the charging authority's area; and
• evidence has been provided that shows the
proposed rate (or rates) would not threaten
delivery of the relevant Plan as a whole.
10. The examiner should be ready to
recommend modification or rejection of the
draft charging schedule if it threatens
26. NPPF 173
“…Plans should be deliverable. Therefore, the sites
and the scale of development identified in the plan
should not be subject to such a scale of obligations
and policy burdens that their ability to be developed
viably is threatened. To ensure viability, the costs of
any requirements likely to be applied to
development, such as requirements for affordable
housing, standards, infrastructure contributions or
other requirements should, when taking account of
the normal cost of development and mitigation,
provide competitive returns to a willing land owner
and willing developer to enable the development to
be deliverable.”
27. NPPF 174
“Local planning authorities…should assess the
likely cumulative impacts on development in their
area of all existing and proposed local standards,
supplementary planning documents and policies
that support the development plan, when added to
nationally required standards. In order to be
appropriate, the cumulative impact of these
standards and policies should not put
implementation of the plan at serious risk, and
should facilitate development throughout the
economic cycle. Evidence supporting the
assessment should be proportionate, using only
appropriate available evidence.”
29. PPS3 to NPPF to CIL Regs
Will plan put the overall development of the
area at serious risk
vs.
threaten delivery of the relevant Plan as a
whole
… charging authorities should show and
explain how their proposed levy rate (or
rates) will contribute towards the
implementation of their relevant Plan and
30. Examination – NPPF 182
The inspector will examine if plan is in accordance
with the Duty to Cooperate, legal requirements, and
whether it is “sound”:
• Positively prepared – the plan should be
prepared based on a strategy which seeks to meet
objectively assessed requirements
• Justified
• Effective – the plan should be deliverable over its
period and based on effective joint working on
cross-boundary strategic priorities
• Consistent with national policy
32. Non – Statutory Guidance
• Viability Testing in Local Plans – Advice for
planning practitioners (June 2012). LHDG – Sir
John Harman
• Financial Viability in Planning (August 2012).
RICS
• HCA good practice manual ‘Investment and
Planning Obligations: Responding to the
Downturn’ (2009)
• Research by Chris Hill of Turner Morum on
behalf of CLG entitled ‘Cumulative impacts of
regulations on house builders and landowners’
(2011)
34. S106 guidance (April 2013)
• The G&I Act introduced a new application and appeal
procedure for the review of planning obligations on
planning permissions which relate to the provision of
affordable housing. New Section 106BA, BB and BC into
the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act.
• Does not replace existing powers to renegotiate Section
106 agreements on a voluntary basis.
• New procedure will assess the viability of affordable
housing requirements only. It will not reopen any other
planning policy considerations.
• Sites granted in accordance with a Rural Exceptions Site
policy are exempt from this procedure.
35. S106 guidance (April 2013)
• S106BA – application can be made to LPA with viability
evidence. LPA can produce their own viability evidence or
provide commentary on applicants evidence.
• S106BC – where there is disagreement or LPA does not
determine the application an applicant can appeal to the
SoS. LPA can submit own evidence.
• Evidence – must show that affordable housing obligation
as currently agreed makes the scheme unviable in current
market conditions.
• Form of evidence – prepared in same form using
methodology as close as reasonably possible to previous
evidence
• Delivery – valid for 3 years to incentivise delivery
• Annex A/B – Summary of key variables/Procedural note
37. What does the NPPF expect on
viability?
Understanding Local Plan viability is critical to the
overall assessment of deliverability. Local Plans
should present visions for an area in the context of
an understanding of local economic conditions and
market realities. This should not undermine
ambition for high quality design and wider social
and environmental benefit but such ambition
should be tested against the realistic likelihood of
delivery.
38. What does the NPPF expect on
viability?
NPPF policy on viability applies to decision-taking.
Decision-taking on individual schemes does not
normally require an assessment…However,
viability can be important where planning
obligations or other costs are being introduced. In
these cases decisions must be underpinned by
an understanding of viability, ensuring realistic
decisions are made to support development
and promote economic growth. Where the
viability of a development is in question, LPAs
should look to be flexible in applying policy
requirements wherever possible.
39. What are the underlying principles
for understanding viability in
planning? 1
• Evidence based judgement: assessing viability
requires judgements which are informed by the
relevant available facts. It requires a realistic
understanding of the costs and the value of
development in the local area and an
understanding of the operation of the market.
Understanding past performance, such as in
relation to build rates and the scale of historic
planning obligations can be a useful start.
Direct engagement with the development sector
may be helpful in accessing evidence.
40. What are the underlying principles
for understanding viability in
planning? 2
• Collaboration: a collaborative approach
involving the local planning authority, business
community, developers and landowners will
improve understanding of deliverability and
viability. Transparency of evidence is
encouraged wherever possible. Where
communities are preparing a neighbourhood
plan (or Neighbourhood Development Order),
local planning authorities are encouraged to
share evidence to ensure that local viability
assumptions are clearly understood.
41. • A consistent approach: LPAs are encouraged to
ensure that their evidence base for housing, economic
and retail policy is fully supported by a comprehensive
and consistent understanding of viability across
their areas. The NPPF requires LPAs to consider
district-wide development costs when Local Plans are
formulated, and where possible to plan for infrastructure
and prepare development policies in parallel. A
masterplan approach can be helpful in creating
sustainable locations, identifying cumulative
infrastructure requirements of development across the
area and assessing the impact on scheme
viability…LPAs should align the preparation of their CIL
What are the underlying principles
for understanding viability in
planning? 3
42. How should viability be
assessed in decision-taking?
• This should be informed by the particular
circumstances of the site in question.
Assessing the viability of a particular site
requires more detailed analysis than at plan
level.
• A site is viable if the value generated by its
development exceeds the costs of developing it
and also provides sufficient incentive for the land
to come forward and the development to be
undertaken.
43. How should changes in values
be treated in decision-taking?
• Viability assessment in decision-taking should
be based on current costs and values.
Planning applications should be considered in
today’s circumstances.
• However, where a scheme requires phased
delivery over the longer term, changes in the
value of development and changes in costs of
delivery may be considered. Forecasts, based
on relevant market data, should be agreed
between the applicant and local planning
authority wherever possible.
44. How should different
development types be treated in
decision-taking?
• Viability of individual development types,
commercial and residential, should be
considered. Relevant factors will vary from one
land use type to another.
• For residential schemes, viability will vary with
housing type e.g. large scale private rented
sector housing that is built for long-term
institutional or RSPs, viability considerations in
decision-taking should take account of the
economics of such schemes, which will differ
from build for sale. This may require a different
approach to planning obligations or an
45. How should different
development types be treated in
decision-taking?
• Similarly, in respect of self build, any viability
assessment should take account of average plot
values and build costs for self build
development. The build route proposed (eg
whether it is contractor-led or a DIY project) and
any non-development costs related to the
project such as project management and
professional fees should be considered.
• For older people’s housing, the scheme format
and projected sales rates may be a factor in
assessing viability.
46. Viability of planning obligations
to be considered in decision-
taking
• LPAs will need to understand the impact of planning
obligations on the proposal. The LPA should be flexible
in seeking planning obligations.
• Affordable housing contributions are often the largest
single item sought on housing developments. These
contributions should not be sought without regard to
individual scheme viability.
• Assessing viability should lead to an understanding of
the scale of planning obligations. However, the NPPF is
clear that where safeguards are necessary to make a
particular development acceptable, and these
safeguards cannot be secured, planning permission
should not be granted.
47. Land Value
Central to the consideration of viability is the assessment of
land or site value. The most appropriate way to assess land
or site value will vary but there are common principles which
should be reflected.
In all cases, estimated land or site value should:
• reflect emerging policy requirements and planning
obligations and, where applicable, any CIL charge;
• provide a competitive return to willing developers and
land owners (including equity resulting from self build
developments); and
• be informed by comparable, market-based evidence
wherever possible. Where transacted bids are
significantly above the market norm, they should not
be used as part of this exercise.
48. Competitive return to developers
and land owners
• This return will vary significantly between projects to
reflect the size and risk profile of the development and
the risks to the project. A rigid approach to assumed
profit levels should be avoided and comparable
schemes or data sources reflected wherever possible.
• A competitive return for the land owner is the price at
which a reasonable land owner would be willing to sell
their land for the development. The price will need to
provide an incentive for the land owner to sell in
comparison with the other options available. Those
options may include the current use value of the land or
its value for a realistic alternative use that complies with
planning policy.
49. The Residual Valuation based
approach
Step 1:
Gross Development Value
(The combined value of the complete development)
LESS
Cost of creating the asset, including a
profit margin
(Construction + fees + finance charges + Developer’s
Profit, CIL, s106, CfSH etc.)
=
RESIDUAL VALUE
Step 2:
Residual Value v Existing Use Value
50. Gross Development Value
All income from a Scheme
Construction
Site Remediation
Abnormals
Etc.
Fees
Design
Engineer
Sales
Etc.
Profit
Developers
Builders
Land
Existing /
Alternative
Use Value
+ premium
(TLV/EUV+
)
Policies/CI
L
CIL,
affordable
housing,
CfSH, open
space etc.
51. The big question
• For a site to be viable, by how much must
the Residual Value exceed the EUV?
• The ‘cushion’?
• What does ‘competitive return’ mean?
You must understand the model, be able to
interrogate the assumptions, be able to
follow the calculation and challenge the
‘test'. The ‘cushion’ is central to developer
behaviour. The Residual Method is very
sensitive to inputs and assumptions.
