Basingstoke planning chiefs have agreed to slash the number of houses built in the borough each year by more than a third.
The council’s planning and infrastructure committee set a target of 594 homes a year until 2027.
And the committee instructed town planners to look at further reducing the number closer to 400.
The target was set following the Government's decision to scrap the South East Plan, which forced the council to build at least 945 homes each year.
Now in charge of masterminding housing policy, the borough council is drawing up a local development framework.
The document will outline how many houses will be built and where they will go.
The radical cut in house-building follows a three-month consultation with 3,300 responses from residents. Sixty-five per cent believed the current building rate was too high, while just four per cent thought too few homes were being built.
Borough council planning chief Rob Golding said: “Residents said they wanted to see fewer new homes in the future.”
Councillors considered targets, of 722 and 594 homes a year arrived at from population data such as the number of people moving into and out of the borough.
Council officers calculated the number of houses needed each year using two equations – Zero Net Migration (ZNM) and Hybrid Zero Net Migration (HZNM).
But some councillors were sceptical about the HZNM calculation used to arrive at the 594 homes target.
Liberal Democrat Keith Watts said: “Planning for future housing provision should be based on the nationally recognised method of predicting zero net migration, not a unique hybrid formula invented locally.”
He argued that the hybrid calculation could force the Government’s planning inspector to block the housing plan and urged councillors to support the 722 figure.
And Liberal Democrat colleague Gavin James said: “If you do not have a robust number that’s been signed off, ticked and approved, your trousers are down. Developers are in control.”
Cllr Martin Biermann said more houses were needed for economic growth.
“We will be admonishing our social responsibility for dealing with housing need, housing desire and housing affordability,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think we are going to need more houses if we are going to have economic growth.
“Let’s be realistic and accept the fact that central government are going to jump of us if we don’t build more than just a few houses.”
But Winklebury councillor, Robert Donnell said that planning goals should be determined by residents.
He said: “I believe what the majority of the people in the consultation believe. We should have something that actually came from the residents. It came back that they wanted a lower housing rate.”
The committee’s recommendation will be passed to Cllr Golding, who will pass on the final figure to the planning inspector later this year.
