A Housing Policy F.I.T for the Big Society
Co-producing a believable policy story
International Cooperative Alliance, London October 2010
Stephen Hill, Director, C2O futureplanners
“They are not normal”
The Big Picture Story…
The Big Society and
Open Source Planning
“Too much has been imposed from above,
when experience shows that success depends
on communities themselves having the power
and taking the responsibility.
It’s no good officials in Whitehall or even the
Town Hall telling people what is needed in their
street.”
…. everyone has a stake based
on equal rights and where they
pay their dues by exercising
responsibility in return, and
where local communities shape
their own futures.
Letter to the Editor
Prescott’s ‘growth areas’ pull plans for thousands of homes
Building Magazine 6/08/10
“Dear Sir,
The ‘big society’ is working
well, then. Up and down the
land, local communities
have overwhelmingly
agreed they don’t want any
new neighbours.
Yours etc”
MP for Tunbridge Wells
(Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells? )
“It’s a very miserable
view of human
nature, that people
who are not told what
to do, default to
something that is
short term,
individually selfish,
and unenlightened.”
Greg Clark, Minister for Planning and
Decentralisation,
Guardian Interview 15/9/10
600 home scheme in Tonbridge Wells
turned down to protect the dormice
Housing Policy
for a Big Society
We need a shared
vision of what
housing is for in
the life of the
country
…but what
housing
policy?
Purpose & Process of co-production
• “We will be hosting public meetings to engage
with individuals, those active in civil society and
social entrepreneurs on all aspects of the big
society, but in particular how the network can
best support individuals to come together in
groups at local level.”
Big Society Network invitation [Network staff=6 civil servants]
• “If we can answer this, then it is possible to
genuinely allow communities to have more
involvement.”
Greg Clark interview
The story of community housing…
as told by the normal people
• More expensive than…?
• More risky than…?
• More complicated than…?
• Difficult people…?
• Difficult schemes…?
Quite probably, because
they want to do more than….
NORMAL
Some not normal schemes:
Models for bottom up housing
and open source planning
“At last, it’s not Vauban”
Smiley West, Karlsruhe
A grown up politics of design
…secure by living together
“Managing our co-existence in shared space”
Prof. Patsy Healey – Definition of Spatial Planning
“The innovation
in German
urbanism in
the last decade”
Coop Mika, Karlsruhe
Diversity and maturity in mainstream
politics and housing markets - Germany
Tübingen Südstadt
Hamburg, Leipzig….
Project Vauban, Freiberg
The Tübingen way…
Co-production of shared space
The English way…space as commodity
Trust…
in the design
code…
At Vauban…this is
all there is …and
co-production
through dialogue
How many pages does
your Design Code have?
Alternative public practice
• Pelham Grove Coop N17
• The Game>>Planning for
Real
• Brief: “not look like a
council house”
40 years onSanford Coop,
Railway Cuttings,
Lewisham…
60% cut in CO2
Argyle Street Coop
Cambridge
Half Moon Crescent TMC
LB Islington
Wesley Square Co-ownership,
North Kensington
Community and Private Self-build
The Diggers, Brighton
• “ a microcosm of what could be
achieved on other sites all over the
country by harnessing the
imagination and skills of ordinary
people.”
• “that indefinable quality which marks
out the outstanding from the excellent
DETR Housing Design Award citation 1998
Sussex Road, London N19 1999
Old people look after
themselves… HAPPIer
and cheaper than the
council
Tenant Management
Coop
355 Queensbridge Rd
Springhill
Co-housing
Stroud, UK
“Weirdy…they are not normal.”
Ward Councillor (from the Big Society Party)
at Planning Committee
Threshold
Centre, Dorset
First HCA grant funded mixed tenure
co-housing
Shared facilities include:
• The stone farmhouse for visiting
guests, and shared meals
• 1 acre community market garden
• Laundry
• Car pool
Commitments for all residents:
• 4 hours per week of unpaid time to
help look after the shared
facilities, and do cooking
• 1 car and 1 pet per household
• Paying share of the running costs
of shared facilities
• Before taking up residence,
spending up to 4 nights here, for
the new resident and community
to get to know each other.
Hearthstone
Cohousing
N. Denver,
Colorado
33 leasehold houses and
flats with a 4,800 sq. ft.
common house on a 1.6
acre site.
The community was first
phase of a ‘new urbanist’
redevelopment in the
historic North Denver
neighbourhood.
Commercial and
political good sense
• Attracting a particular kind of
resident, where the market
may be weak, but opportunity
is rare
• Reducing risk through presales and pre-allocations
• Preserving affordability in
perpetuity
• Living marketing - new
residents actively occupying
early phases
• Stewardship committed to
the long term success of the
place
• Increasing and retaining
value within neighbourhood
for the benefit of residents
and investors.
Wick Village TMC, Hackney
Spatial Planning
&Placeshaping
Outcomes
• Community membership
and ownership
• All incomes and tenures
• Medium and high density
• Value for money
• Long term stewardship
• Life in the space between
the buildings
• Social Capital for the care of
the place and people
• Resident satisfaction and
wellbeing
• Sustainable living and
resilience through social
organisation
…social cohesion???
Ye Olde Placeshapynge and
Spatial Plannyng…
“The exceptional urban
and environmental
qualities we esteem in
many of our older cities
were achieved with a
very modest input of
resources, and by a
careful and evolving
response to the needs
of their inhabitants.”
Ralph Erskine,
Architect
Social Housing Provider of the Year 2004
Public Interest
Design Code
143 pages
“It’s like Beirut…”
Germaine Greer in the Guardian, September 2009
“…uniformly depressing”
Another developer
A Prize-winning street?
What are these
spaces for?
Who will be
responsible?
Maintenance?
Workmanship?
Design?
Who will
decide?
A. “The Resident Management Company”
Coproduction needs
new ideas about…
• Skills and Competence
• Control and
Accountability
• Scale
• Self-help
• Commercial
• Social Enterprise
• Mixed economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjrIVjSK6oA
SPAN Housing – Blackheath
The Ralph Erskine Test of time, and skills and
ideas we have lost
The Hall and Hallgate, Blackheath 1957
The trouble with planners is…
The Architect in Society, Keith Godwin
SPAN Housing at Corner Green…
…50 years on
“My particular interest
was the formation of
the courtyard which I
thought was a dead
space. [It] is not a
dead space. It is
actually circulation”
Eric Lyons
“Resident-controlled management companies may
sound dully utilitarian, but have been crucial to their
success.”
Tony Aldous, former resident and architectural writer
Failure of top-down planning and
housing
• Impoverished design and
quality of place
• Unrealistic expectations
of house builders as
placeshapers
• Planning as
remote…control‘Too big,
too dense
and too near me…
not for us or with us’
• Affordability permanently
lost
• Central housing targets are
not spatial planning
• Democratic deficit
Key planning and housing policies
for the Localism Bill
Community Rights to:
• Build… rural first, and extend to urban
• Buy… public first, maybe private assets
• Plan… CRtBs X 2 & Neighbourhood Plans
• Bid… for public sector functions
The Minister’s Story…
“We will become a nation of homebuilders”
•
A rural housing revolution…
Local Housing Trusts will give
people the power to expand their
villages up to 10% over 10 years.
- Accommodation for the old
- Affordable homes for the young
- Shops, schools, GP surgeries
•
People at last really shaping their
own communities
•
Power to bypass planning
committees
•
But I don’t want the principles of
Local Housing Trusts just to be a
countryside thing. Our towns and
inner-cities must benefit too.
“We’ve been through the highs and lows
together” Charlie Hibbert, CLT Member
“I am really impressed by the foresight
and tenacity of local people in driving this
scheme forward. Seeing these houses
here, built to high standards by the
owners, with the support of professionals
is most impressive.”
Grant Shapps, Shadow Minister 2008
The model for
Local Housing Trusts…
Cornwall CLT Programme 2007
17 villages – 120+ homes
Unique partnerships…
enabling district councils, their
communities, Carnegie UK Trust,
and an RSL
Blisland CLT
on Bodmin Moor
St. Minver CLT
Average house price
Market value
Cost including land
12 houses 12 months
On time – On budget
£650,000
£350,000
£120,000
A social movement
or more effective
PPS 3 compliance
for affordability in
perpetuity ???
Charlie’s Story…
Living Ricardo’s
Law of Economic Rent
Land Development Study 1980-88
From Prof. Peter Ambrose “Urban Process and Power” (Routledge 1994)
M-Way Corridor A v. M-Way Corridor B
• Total No. Homes per 1000 people:
• Affordable Homes:
• Choice of tenure/production:
7.3 v. 6.1
65% v.15%
5 v. 2
38% LA rent- 27%Coop- 43% Owned [50% self-build]
- 2% market rent.
Variations reflect local political preferences
85% Owned [0% self-build] 15% social rent
Tenure determined by central government policy
Affordable dropped to 6% just after study period
• Professional/managerial in ‘social’:
49% v.<2%
E4 Corridor Stockholm-Uppsala v.
M4 Corridor Berkshire
• Building cost increase:
24% v. 47%
Extended period of capitalisation & innovation
in construction efficiency and productivity
• Land price increase:
• Land as % of house price:
<5% v. 436%
+/-10% v. 60%
• Market impacts on supply post-’88: +/- 0% v. -60%
• Land differential/hectare:
£301k/ha v. £1,222k/ha
E4 = M4
4
Why Land Price is the issue
The costs of complying with public
policy and regulation ie. the
essential basic requirements of
Spatial Planning, to create
sustainable places and
communities:
 Dwelling size and quality
 Affordability of all housing
 Climate Change
Adaptation/Resilience
 Progress to Zero CO2
 Hard and Soft Infrastructure
should be internalised and reflected
in land price and valuation…
but aren’t!
The Business Case
• Costs of primary
health care, mental
health, policing,
education lower in
areas of better
quality housing
• Factor difference
5-7 times
• Even if 50% wrong
= big number
• Size difference 25%
Recognised in RICS, BRE, CABE, IDEA
Housing Corporation and EP guides and tools
A Principled
Housing Policy
Sufficient support for…
• 1. Plausibility: The price
of a modern home and
sufficient space will be
within the means of a
family/household with an
average income.
• 2. Neutrality: There
should be similarity of
pricing between equivalent
homes in different forms of
tenure
• 3. Social: The position
of disadvantaged groups
in the housing market
will be strengthened.
• 4. Standards: Housing
consumption for all
should be supported
upto a certain standard.
Consumption beyond
the standard not to be
supported through public
action and funds.
• 5. Parity: Differences of
price between homes of
different ages and
condition will correspond
with differences in their
utility value.
• 6. Speculation: Explicit
action is needed to
counteract the
inflationary transfer of
wealth to property
owners.
Courtesy Prof. Peter Ambrose
Access to land
• Deliver pre-election
Cabinet Office
requirement for small
sites [<50 homes] for
coops and mutuals in
HCA Public Land
Initiative
• Extend to all public land,
and include schemes
<50 homes in larger
public sites, as CNT used
to do
• Extend to all land
through site or locality
specific outcome driven
spatial planning policies
‘Garden grabbing’ SPAN Housing
Corner Green, Blackheath 1956
A welcome route out of market failure?
The ‘Coops and Mutuals’
demand-side self-organising
housing sector body
• Commission for Cooperative and
Mutual Housing
• National Community Land Trust
Board
(CLG Community Empowerment
Fund - Carnegie UK Trust and
National Housing Federation)
• Confederation of Cooperative
Housing
• UK Cohousing Network
• National Self Build Association
• Development Trusts Association
• Cooperatives UK
• Community Gateway Associations
The Coops’ and Mutuals’
self-organising story
The Actions:
• Feeding into CLG policy development on Community Rightto-Buy and Build
• Working with CLG Housing Construction Roundtable on
supply side measures, coordinated by RICS
• Co-producing with the HCA on its community housing advice
initiative
• Developing proposals for Communities Direct and a national
action learning network
The Offer:
• Wellbeing outcomes that will be a material consideration
• Social organisation as a tool for the adoption of sustainable
life choices, particularly mutual support in old age
• Co-operative partners and a role with LSPs and HCA as local
placeshapers
Communities Direct:
Unlocking economic & social capital
• Capital Funding …developing a market: development finance,
mortgage products, guarantees, revolving funds and grant,
capacity to unlock private debt and equity finance,
harmonisation of public and private financial instruments.
• Legal clarity ….model forms of organisation, leasehold and
staircasing rules, model legal agreements, planning
agreements, harmonisation with financial arrangements.
• Revenue Funding …seed corn resources for enabling,
capacity building, supporting the growth of the sector,
[historical precedent for the ‘flower pot men’ who grew the
housing association movement after the 1974 recession],
policy development and action learning; better value for
money transaction costs
• Realism …about what can be done effectively on a voluntary
basis and without organisational development of individual
trusts and support bodies.
Look at what the Scots are doing…
The RICS’ story
Advice
• Spatial Planning & Delivery (2009)
Valuation Guidance
• Land for Affordable Housing (6/10)
• Council Assets Less than best (2/11)
• Development Land (2011?)
Research
• Land Value Taxation (12/10)
Policy
• Taylor Report on Rural Housing and
access to land
• Champion for sector in CLG Housing
Construction Roundtable and
Housing Sounding Board
• Thinkpieces to CLG Ministers and
officers on community rights and
strategic planning
• Commission on Community Assets
The Royal Charter 1881
Objects
To maintain and promote the
usefulness of the profession
for the public advantage in the
United Kingdom and in any
other part of the world
…securing the optimal use of
land and its associated
resources to meet social and
economic needs
More than… a rural revolution
The Self-Organisers…
Community Land Trusts, Co-Housing,
Co-ops, self-build, self-commissioned
“Time for a citizens’
housing revolution
…creating
democratic places”
http://www.cabe.org.uk/
publications/who-should-build-our-homes
CABE Community Housing Support Unit
Community led housing design programme to 31/3/11:
• CABE and CLG Housing Supply, collaborating to support
this increasingly important sector and what it can
contribute to placeshaping.
• CABE is working with existing groups and networks to
provide direct support to a small (4) number of schemes.
• CABE is focussing on client support, agreeing a vision,
briefing, appointing consultants, evaluating proposals and
procurement strategies.
• CABE is working with existing networks to share the
learning and best practice emerging from these schemes
Sam McCauley and Dominic O’Neill - Housing Advisors
SMccauley@cabe.org.uk and doneill@cabe.org.uk
The Wise Words
of Sir Bob…
• “Put simply, we want to
make the programmes fit
the place, rather than
adapting places to fit
programmes.”
• “We’re seeking to instigate
a holistic approach to
placemaking that embeds
design, sustainability and
community engagement in
the process of setting
investment priorities and
ambitions.”
Rudi.net online interview 23/2/10 Juliana O’Rourke
Slightly less wise words from Eric
• Council Planning Departments are “the last bastion
of communism and sheer bloody mindedness”
• “In a climate of low or non-existent Whitehall
grants, it would be a very foolish council indeed…
to ignore the opportunity of generating cash from
house building”
• Local authorities would be
able to accumulate significant
sums of money” [25p per
home plus Council Tax for
6 years]…
• "There has been no planning
for 40 years. We just have
development control, not
planning…predicated on
conflict and the mighty
winning."
A new ‘Big Society’?
A true common wealth
• Everyone talks of
freedom, but there are
few that act for freedom,
and the actors for
freedom are oppressed
by the talkers and verbal
professors of freedom: if
thou wouldst what true
freedom is, thou shalt see
it lies in the community
of spirit and the
community in the earlthly
treasury”
Gerrard Winstanley,
Leader of the Diggers 1649.
A new ‘Big Society’?
Private action for social advance
• “(The) abundance of
voluntary action outside
one’s home – individually
and in association with other
citizens – for bettering one’s
own life and that of one’s
fellows are the
distinguishing marks of a
free society. They have been
outstanding features of
British life.”
• “Scratch a pessimist and
you find often a defender of
privilege.”
William Beveridge, Voluntary Action 1948
‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’
Jane Jacobs
“Cities have the
capability of
providing
something for
everybody,
only because
and only when,
they are created
by
EVERYBODY.”
FITS
for Purpose
and Process
• Freedom for the
‘not normal’ people
• Financially
Intelligent
• Inclusive
• Transparent
• Simple
futureplanners
Our principles of public interest practice:
• Share a commitment to help create sustainable
and democratic places
• Come from the traditional professional
institutions and none
• Believe in value driven work for sustainable
development
• Promote ourselves to work with value driven
clients, and
• Share learning and innovation with others
stephenhill@futureplanners.net