Should suburban densification be part of the solution to the housing shortage?

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

The proposed plot sizes and profitability are all in the report I linked, I assume they have done their research.

Having looked at the report I think they are wet behind the ears*

If you look at their sums on page 33 they are buying/valuing a semi detached with a large garden for £550,000 yet they are selling their duplex flats which are smaller and a flat with service charges and less desirable than a house for £665,000
I think they worked backwards, they decided the profit of £200,000 and then made up numbers for costs to meet that £200,000 profit target

A lot of it sounds like lefty hog wash

'Set up a drone delivery company to deliver the myriad of small packages coming from online shopping. Reduce the daily traffic in the suburbs substantially and improve air quality at the same time.'

'Set up local fleet companies to hire out electric only vehicles and e-bikes on a large scale. Encourage homeowners to ditch owning their cars and use the fleet cars and bikes instead. Offer them an allotment outside their home where their car-parking space used to be'

* Amazingly it seems it was written by an actual company. A profitable company at that which makes me question my views. Clearly they are wrong about the actual scope both in the possible plots and on the potential uptake that can be proven by simple facts. I am less confident now saying their designs are !!!!. In the places I have applied for PP they always wanted a car to be able to go into and out of the plot facing forward so there needed to be enough space in the garden to turn a car which none of their designs seem to offer. If the councils got rid of the criteria for having a car parking spot or getting a car in and out that would make the designs possibly viable. The problem there is that lots of buyers want to be able to drive right upto their homes and would be unwilling to buy a house where you needed to park 5 minutes away the local residents would also be !!!!ed off if there is already a parking problem.

GreatApe

I do not mind increasing the number of homes in the suburbs or making them more dense.
I just do not see it as a realistic option that can scale or be economic like the proposed ideas in the pdf. It works for some plots in some areas and some houses are and will continue to be built like that just not as many as the paper suggests

If the outer boroughs want to get more dense the only realistic option is to compulsory purchase whole streets/blocks and knock down those semis and rebuild as flats. My parents house in London is on a street with semis and its an ideal area where this would make sense. 16 pairs of semis that could potentially be knocked down and 150 flats built in their place. There is easily space for 150 cars in front too. It is just a perfect plot for additional homes. It will !!!! off about 30-40 households that live nearby including my parents but since new development seems to always !!!! off someone its best to have a ratio of 150 homes to 30-40 !!!!ed off rather than 1 home to 5 !!!!ed off as in most the proposals in the pdf would generate.

Enterprise_1701C

No. Any development /redevelopment will ruin the character and lead to overcrowding

I have not looked at the links.

We cannot lose any more greenfield sites.

There is plenty of brownfield sites, old factories etc.

The simple fact is we have too many people in this country and we cannot fit them in without ruining the country for everyone. We need to stop immigration for a year, find out how many people we have, chuck out those that should not be here, and restart on a points basis. Anything else is just guesswork. Apparently there was "a lot of unregistered people" in Grenfell, so there is a good chance that that is repeated across London.

How are we meant to provide housing for everyone when we don't even know how many people we have in the country? If you want to blame anyone blame Blair for simply opening the doors to everyone when he did not have to.

kabayiri

Build the highways and the housing will follow IMO.

Take the East Cheshire relief road. Ultimately it will connect Manchester airport with the East Yorkshire ports through the Peak.

The homes will fan out in clusters along this route I have no doubt, until it becomes congested.

But, if you want to expand the population, you have to accept the consequences.

stator

No. Any development /redevelopment will ruin the character and lead to overcrowding

We already have some of the smallest houses in europe.
Councils have already started knocking down decent houses and replacing them with twice as many matchbox houses with matchbox gardens and I think it's disgusting.
The answer is to build big houses in new estates. There is plenty of space to build, it's just politicians and middle class/rich folk stopping development.

Loanranger

In all this discussion no-one has yet mentioned the elephant in the room that every year the population of this country is growing by 500,000, 2016 figures according to the ONS.
So we do need to urgently provide housing units for these extra people many of whom are new borns.
I suspect that the original suggestion is a get rich quick scheme rather than a serious suggestion. After all, who would want to live in those nasty little bungalows with shared drives and no privacy from the two storey houses all around them?
But, the one thing we can all do is stop having so many children. This is an unpopular, almost taboo, subject because we have been brainwashed into believing that procreating is a human right. It is certainly a basic instinct but no more than that. It is irresponsible to have more than one child per couple, in my opinion.
In time this will help to reduce the strain on the earth's natural resources.

michaels

Bungalows in back gardens are OK but the street scene should be preserved

Hence the question in the OP.

If we accept that we will have to build more homes in the SE anyway (and I know many would rather we didn't have to), is it better to:
1) develop new towns in the countryside,
2) develop new streets on the edge of existing towns; or
3) fill in gardens / redevelop existing houses to increase density?

Don't forget that any new green belt development will be at a higher density than the interwar semi streets.

Side note on parking. The report specifically covers only streets within 'half a mile' of a train or tube station which I think is why they think it is reasonable to relax the car parking space constraint.

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

Hence the question in the OP.

If we accept that we will have to build more homes in the SE anyway (and I know many would rather we didn't have to), is it better to:
1) develop new towns in the countryside,
2) develop new streets on the edge of existing towns; or
3) fill in gardens / redevelop existing houses to increase density?
...

What are the opportunities presented by new technology. Not todays; but technology in 5/10/15 years time ?

What about different models to car ownership/ride sharing ; autonomous vehicles ; hybrid tram buses ; extended transport links out of London ; using pricing+subsidy to steer lower income workers into cheaper outlying areas ; a much greater push on telecommuting.

I think people would accept new towns if they felt the priority was quality over cost.

michaels

Bungalows in back gardens are OK but the street scene should be preserved

Loanranger wrote: »

In all this discussion no-one has yet mentioned the elephant in the room that every year the population of this country is growing by 500,000, 2016 figures according to the ONS.
So we do need to urgently provide housing units for these extra people many of whom are new borns.
I suspect that the original suggestion is a get rich quick scheme rather than a serious suggestion. After all, who would want to live in those nasty little bungalows with shared drives and no privacy from the two storey houses all around them?
But, the one thing we can all do is stop having so many children. This is an unpopular, almost taboo, subject because we have been brainwashed into believing that procreating is a human right. It is certainly a basic instinct but no more than that. It is irresponsible to have more than one child per couple, in my opinion.
In time this will help to reduce the strain on the earth's natural resources.

Actually I don't think it is a get rich quick scheme. Vested Interests tend to need moderately large projects to be worth the effort to lobby for. This is about a whole series of micro developments where any profits will go to homeowners and small builders not large listed house-builders. The idea of letting the profit go to the individuals on the ground is to overcome the sort of nibyism that generally prevents any new developments.

For example our Local Authority has to have a development plan that includes a certain number of new homes to meet expected population growth. It has suggested a few brownfield sites, a bit of infill/edge development...and a huge new 'village' (small town) to be built right on the edge of the authority area so that it will basically be a new 'suburb' of the first town in the next authority area and have limited impact on the towns and villages in this authority. Not surprisingly the surrounding authorities are up in arms and the plan has been rejected due to a lack of consultation with the neighbouring authorities.

Given there is no political will to constrain population growth, is it better to infill suburbs or build on new greenfield?

[Deleted User]

I would go for ' 2' in those options.

I read a report somewhere that said more and more unrest and social problems will follow denser housing as we are not designed to live on top of each other and with space at a minimum in new builds there is nowhere for people to escape and let off steam.

In my opinion land clasification needs to be updated. I have a piece of land that is deemed AONB , yet it didnt appear to be a concern when building a socking great motorway by it. Once land has been changed in character out of all recognition the clasifciation is no longer valid IMO.

I think planning approvals need to be far more transparent than it it as too many people are thinking that 'bungs' have more weight than legitimate proposals.

Planning also needs updating especially with the crisis in social care of the elderly becoming and issue. Many people will want to provide additional accomodation at home for their relatives and this should be made easier. In my road huge delevlopments that offer nothing for locals are approved yet we have families living clandestine lives in garages / barns / annexes all under the radar becaue they wont get unnecesary' development in the countryside '.

PS the council has actively reduced the opportunity for affordable housing in my road by agreeing the knocking down of 2 bed agri workers bungalows for massive 5 bed mansions.