How London can solve the housing shortage

princeofpounds

One of my consistent frustrations in the housing debate is that so much of it comes down to emotive talk about building on the lush green fields of Albion (when in reality most of those lush green fields are jemima's pony paddock, golf courses and scrapyards masquerading as farms).


But I have often thought that so much could be done simply by permitting improved density in urban and semi-urban areas. I am no particular fan of the tower block, but having spent lots of time in European cities I know that many have spacious low and mid-rise apartment blocks which seem to result in a good quality of life.


It was interesting therefore to read this article, which talks about building density in Paris.


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/01/paris-london-skyscrapers-homes-triangle-tower


I was staggered at how much more dense Paris is than London, even leaving aside the banlieu. It is hardly an unpleasant city despite that density.


To be ultra conservative, let's take the article's figure of the highest density region in London: Islington at 13.9k per sqkm. Compare this to the average density in Paris: 21.5k.


Let us also assume we can only get half-way in terms of density increase. That is 3.9k per sqkm.


Inner London alone is 319 sqkm according to google.


We could house, on this basis, an extra 1.25 million homes quite easily, not even approaching Paris' level of density.


My proposal would be this; to permit increased levels of density, on the condition that the housing is of high architectural and functional quality.


The high house prices mean that the investment required to maintain these standards would not be prohibitive - the profit incentive would still be huge. You would get a boom in building, delivering quality homes, and make a huge dent in the housing crisis. You would not need to touch a single green field.


In my opinion, the planning requirement that causes so much damage is one that requires all development to be 'in keeping' with neighbouring properties. Whilst I can understand not wanting people to build bizarre towers, we have to end this obsession with fixing rooflines in aspic.

padington

Houses aren't built to accommodate normal people, they're built to accommodate the establishment.

Give yourself half a chance and don't play the game like a normal punter, its fixed.

Research Edward Bernaise.

mwpt

princeofpounds wrote: »

But I have often thought that so much could be done simply by permitting improved density in urban and semi-urban areas. I am no particular fan of the tower block, but having spent lots of time in European cities I know that many have spacious low and mid-rise apartment blocks which seem to result in a good quality of life.

Very much agree. I lived in Germany (Aachen) for nearly a year. It's quite typical for the streets to run with low rise, fairly decent looking buildings. Spacious too. As a place to live as a younger working person, it was ideal.

My proposal would be this; to permit increased levels of density, on the condition that the housing is of high architectural and functional quality.
...
In my opinion, the planning requirement that causes so much damage is one that requires all development to be 'in keeping' with neighbouring properties. Whilst I can understand not wanting people to build bizarre towers, we have to end this obsession with fixing rooflines in aspic.

Again, agree.

kabayiri

I still find the lack of innovation in housing surprising. Why are we seemingly so enamoured by good old brick n mortar dwellings?

purch

The planning system in this country does nothing for our quality of life.

mwpt

purch wrote: »

The planning system in this country does nothing for our quality of life.

I'm curious about the people who aspire to be a planning officer.

kabayiri

There must be hundreds of thousands of office desks in London, each with a perfectly serviceable sleeping space underneath.

Even with the shorter commute to my seat I'd probably still be late though

princeofpounds

I still find the lack of innovation in housing surprising. Why are we seemingly so enamoured by good old brick n mortar dwellings?

I always did too, so I did some research into it. A few factors come into the mix:


Financing - hard to get a mortgage on non-standard construction


Building Regs - largely based on existing building techniques, constraining innovation


Planning permission - again this requirement to copy existing buildings in certain respects


Lack of sector R&D investment - building companies have little incentive to change how they build. They make much of their money from planning uplift anyway, not building.


Technological longevity - it turns out it is very hard to predict the long-term behaviour of materials. Many innovations (cavity wall insulation, certain plastics, asbestos etc.) work perfectly well initially but succumb to problems much further down the line. I think we are better at this than we used to be, but it's a less cynical factor than the previous ones.

The planning system in this country does nothing for our quality of life.

I think you nail it there.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I lived in Warsaw for a while where it's quite normal for families to live in flats. Although the Stalinist blocks were fearsomely ugly on the outside, they were surprisingly spacious and pleasant inside. It's a shame well-designed apartment blocks for average families are so rare in this country.

I live on a 1930s council estate, which has huge amounts of green space and is filled with mature trees. If they built it again no doubt the houses would be pokier with tinier gardens and much more concrete for parking. It would be a bleaker place without the grassy spaces, which also soak up excessive rain, give off oxygen and are just nicer generally. It shouldn't all be about cramming as many people in as possible.

princeofpounds

It shouldn't all be about cramming as many people in as possible.

I agree - but the point of my original post is that the only reason we are cramming in as many as possible is because the sites permitted to develop are very few in numbers. We cram where we build precisely because we restrict slight increases of density across the vast majority of cities with an almost religious fervour.

cells

Its an ok idea to say build more dense but in reality it is very hard because land in London is owned by so many different individuals.

Say you want to buy 1km2 of land currently it has say 3000 homes on it and you plan to knock them down and build 10,000 homes in its place. Well first you have to buy 3000 London homes from 3000 families who want at least the £1.5 billion market price. But your probably going to have to offer them more money as they think their house is worth 20% more than it is and your going to have to compensate them for the move = £2 billion. But even then paying them more than the house is worrh and compensating them for the move you will have some people who simply say no and fight you maybe even in the courts and drag things out for years. You will also have business owners to compensate etc. Your probably at a £3Bil cost to effectively buy just 1km2 of land (a cool £12 million an acre)

its nearly an impossible task. Also the 10,000 flats you build some 50% you need to give to the council for around £100k a piece (while it cost you ~400k a piece to build). That means the remaining 5,000 flats you have to sell need to fetch close to £1m each to be viable which for even London is a stretch

But it is being done in some inner London council estates. Knock down 1000 flats and rebuild 2500 in its place. Thats possible as the freeholder is just one entity the council and they also have compulsory purchase powers. But even then there is a lot of anger and push back