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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
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Politics: Green belt VS Back gardens VS Nowt

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorSimonH
    • CommentTimeJan 23rd 2009
     
    The gov reckons we need loads of more houses. Up by me it’s 4,000.

    Why? Are there 2,000 people living on the streets of Lichfield? Nope.

    So currently we hear talk of a new “Sustainable” housing development of 1,600 houses. To me, sustainable means you can keep doing it as many times as you like and not use up a valuable resource - like land.

    The real problem to me seems the expectation that we should meet the demand for housing. Demand that we can all live in 4 bed houses from the time we’re 30, till the time we’re carried out in a box. People in their 60’s are living in 4 bed houses on their own, because after a life time of working they can afford it (and the spare rooms are useful at Christmas). People in their 20’s & 30’s are still living with their parent’s because they can’t afford a flat.

    How do we reuse the existing housing stock in a way that meets people’s needs?

    If I can answer that – I might be able to stop another 1,600 houses getting built. Possibly 4,000.

    Then we can spend the money on improving the existing ones.

    PS The thread title relates to the fact if you don’t build on green belt, because of NIMBYism, then you need to re-use existing land (which NIMBY’s don’t like either), so we need a plan C. Do we just shoot all the older NIMBY’s and give their houses to 20 somethings?

    What can a local council influence that central gov will take too long to implement. No council tax discount for 2nd homes or single occupancy. Bring back rates on m2?

    Buy up all the Victorian houses and knock them down / rebuild as BedZeds?

    Clean up and allocate more derelict land for self builders, knowing they’ll build better more flexible houses than developers do? I.e. design for a life time – not fashion.

    How can we create flexible ownership? Live in a 2 bed house and have cheap storage? With spare rooms in the travel lodge? Make a decent loft floor and stairs as pre-requiste (instead of another run of mirrored wardrobes in bed 4).

    So what realistic options do we have for reducing demand for housing, and how can you argue that demand isn't there with the planning inspectorate?

    Simon
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeJan 23rd 2009
     
    Posted By: SimonHThe gov reckons we need loads of more houses. Up by me it’s 4,000.


    I'll bet it's not the government building them despite what Gordon says. Sure to be a developer and they don't build anything unless they are 100% sure there is a demand.

    Try "How to Stop and Influence Planning Permission" by Roy Speer and others.

    As I see it the the planning rules make it very hard to build houses. This this causes a shortage and pushes up house prices. Eventually the government steps in and tells local authorities they "must" allow 4000 houses to be built somewhere in their area. There is no way the planners can deal with 4000 small builders making 4000 individual planning applications so they go with the one or two big developers who are more than pleased to get PP for the lot on one site. All the neighbours are unhappy.

    Personally I feel emphasis should be placed on smaller scale development in and around villages that otherwise struggling. We complain all the time about village post offices and pubs closing but they simply don't have the customers. I'd like to see villages allowed to expand in a sympathetic way - I definetly don't mean by building mini estate of high density housing tacked on the edge. I mean one house at a time built for the eventual owner. How you ensure that happens I'm not certain of - perhaps some sort of tax break/penalty for people who build their own house and live in it for a minimium period. I'm sure that would lead to better quality greener houses being built.

    I'm not suggesting building all over the countryside either. We do need more incentives to regenerate brownfield sites as well.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJan 23rd 2009
     
    Posted By: SimonHTo me, sustainable means you can keep doing it as many times as you like and not use up a valuable resource
    Exactly - but the world's got a long, diluted, way away from that plain-English use of the word, which actually still says exactly what 'sustainable' should mean, no less.
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    So the good old credit crunch and spiralling energy prices might be a good thing after all. Stops all that speculative building and means that there might (just might) be enough pressure from consumers concerned about fuel costs to create a demand for more fuel-efficient housing. See, every cloud has a silver lining.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    Posted By: Joinercredit crunch and spiralling energy prices
    Trouble is, the crunch has reversed the spiral, so any vestigal birth of consumer concern about fuel costs is forgotten. All temporary, we hope.
  6.  
    One of the better ways would be to ban divorce and force couples with children to live together. A largish amount of the housing demand is created by 2 seperated parents both needing a big house "for when the kids stay".

    Harsh but fair:devil:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    and so character-forming for the children
    • CommentAuthorken davis
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    Because most of our building stock is from a time when there was no effective planning system our urban areas still have huge amounts of inefficiently used land, a great deal of it actually still in public and quasi public ownership such as hospitals, housing associations and highway authorities. All those little parcels of land for 1-10 houses could comfortably deal with the apparent demand for new homes without any further expenditure on infrastucture. This sort of small scale intervention is resisted by local politicians who fear NIMBY backlash and the government who want jobs and profit for the national builders. Planning permission within existing built up areas is actually much easier to obtain than many people think because a) they go about it the wrong way and b) they do not press on beyond refusal to appeal. Especially in this time of recession anyone with a large rear or side garden and within an urban area that has highway access should try for outline permission and submit several indicative designs (plans only). It is nearly always possible to argue a good case for development because policies to resist such development are in my experience very weak.
    Needless to say all owners of under-used public land should be made to put it up for sale if they do not have a justifiable use for it. It is also a complete absurdity to continue allowing single storey (or even two or three storey) buildings such as supermarkets and hospitals and then, for example, build low cost housing or nurses/students accomodation alongside. etc, etc.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    Posted By: ken davisall owners of under-used public land should be made to put it up for sale if they do not have a justifiable use for it
    Mrs T again - now schools have no playing fields and play no sports.
    • CommentAuthorShepherd
    • CommentTimeJan 24th 2009
     
    Then there are all the rows upon rows of empty houses in areas where people don't want to live. Did you see the "Norfolk and Holmes" programme about that?

    I know someone who worked in Holland for a number of years. He said that town planning in Holland was much less free market than in the UK. Big company like Phillips comes along and wants to build one mega factory at town A, the government says no, too big, you can have three factories, one at town A and how do you fancy B and C? So down the years they enforced spreading out employment across Holland and a VARIETY of employment.

    So there is far less of the deserted streets of houses in Newcastle as everybody has got on their bikes and gone to the Thames Valley.

    Teleworking should even that out a bit.

    Also heard the comment that in this country we became addicted to suburbia - so great sprawls around our cities and that other countries have built far more blocks of flats keeping cities more compact.

    New government housing targets are also insensitive regarding real local needs. Down here in Cornwall, there is a need for tucking a few houses for grown up kids onto existing villages - but all the designated development areas are solely in Bodmin, Launceston and other large towns where the kids don't want to go because it is ten or twenty miles from home. Some of this is caused by people owning second homes - highly desirable seaside places are particularly hit by that. There are also quite a lot of rented holiday cottages - but tourism is a big employer down here and those do contribute a lot more to the local economy than a second home that is unoccupied more often than not.


    As an aside, in NZ, the planning system works differently. Where my aunt lives, a few years ago the council wanted people to build - so they laid out all these plots, put in the services, the roads etc, each plot having a stub with services attached. You could buy the plot, build your house and connect up the services. However not a lot of interest plus local furious at their small community being overwhelmed so managed to get the council to take it all back out.
    • CommentAuthorken davis
    • CommentTimeJan 28th 2009
     
    fostertom, i obviously do not mean green spaces that are actually used and needed!
    having worked for a regional health authority and several local authorities i am ware that there are still huge amounts of under used land available much of it however is in small lots that estates departments of public bodies can't be bothered to dispose of because they do not show up on a balance sheet as either an asset or a liability.
    • CommentAuthorSimonH
    • CommentTimeJan 28th 2009
     
    I should say thanks for the ideas so far, I've been including them in my consultation response.

    I recall an article in home building an rennovating where the contributor mentioned an experience he'd had. (Might have been Grenbuilding Mag actually!). Last time his council did a consultation he and a colleague put in a suggestion that "plots were made available for self builders". Low and behold it was included in the final development policy and eventaully real plots were made availalbe. So democracy is alive and well.

    So I proposed that 10% of all new development should have serviced plots made available. On the grounds that self builders are likely to build:
    better (aka greener),
    cheaper(aka affordably)
    and with more lifetime flexibilty planned in (meeting the needs of residents)

    Even if self builders were to get the "worst plots" they can probably come up with some interesting designs.

    I've suggested infill plots and "reusing existing properties" is put ahead of green field. Even though I hate the idea of knocking big old houses down and fitting 5 executive houses on the same plot sometimes its the least worse option.

    I've also suggested they challenge the figures for "new" homes and suggested they look for "carrot and stick" policies to increase occupancy of the existing ones.

    All that said - I thinkg they can satify less than 1000 homes this way. Another 6-7000 are needed - so told them to go with option 4 : a new settlement to the north using an old airfield rather than option 2 : currntly productive arable fields - and it would be better used as an urban wood with a carbon capture CHP plant ;-)

    Simon.
    •  
      CommentAuthorecoworrier
    • CommentTimeJan 28th 2009
     
    IMHO the whole notion of the "housing crisis" is wrong.
    The figures are based on the future growth of household's in the UK, 70% of which are single person occupancy.
    The question should be ,is this desirable or sustainable?
    The answer is no.

    The housing crisis in the UK is the existing inefficient stock.In an ideal world we would knock down the worst and build new, but we don't have the time if we are to tackle climate change and reduce our CO2 emissions.
    We should concentrate on making our existing stock more energy efficient and making better use of it,
    incentives for people to move out of large homes, sell/rent holiday homes and then proper training for everyone involved in housing on how to build sustainable homes for living in.:devil:

    Rant over.
    :bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorken davis
    • CommentTimeFeb 1st 2009
     
    simon, you might want to get hold of a report commissioned by Friends of The Earth about 10-12 years ago on using underused garage and communal parking courts for housing. Many former Council estates were built with such areas built generally behind the houses but because of theft and vandalism (and convenience) most residents prefer to park at the front of their houses where the car can be seen. I did an audit of such areas at one local authority I worked for and found that literally hundreds of houses could be built on such wasted backland. Nothing happened because the politicians thought it was too sensitive an issue i.e they would lose votes!
    • CommentAuthormikeb
    • CommentTimeFeb 1st 2009
     
    Years ago I read an idea put forward by a Professor Summat or Other... his idea was to lift ALL planning restrictions and have a free-for-all. Build what you like wherever you want -subject only to saftey restrictions and decent building practice. According to his model house prices would fall and within two years there would be an excess of homes.
    Food for discussion maybe..

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