How many houses can be built in 0.12 hectares?

Mgman1965

As said, it depends on the layout.

A pub closed in a village near me, it was sold to a developer who (against much opposition) got permission to convert the former pub into a house, and build four large executive houses on the former pub car park and garden.

They are large executive houses with double garages and equally large price tags.

Thing is, they have no gardens as such, the back gardens are wide, as the houses are, but depth wise, your lucky if you have 25ft depth, a couple even less.

zagubov

Mgman1965 wrote: »

Thing is, they have no gardens as such, the back gardens are wide, as the houses are, but depth wise, your lucky if you have 25ft depth, a couple even less.

They sound like status symbol houses, all width and no depth, so a lot of road and pavement space is wasted in front of them. Still at least they're not wasting space on a garden they won't use.
No objection to building upwards. Everywhere else does, so I'm baffled why it shouldn't work here.

moneyistooshorttomention

I'll remember that title - ie "status symbol houses". What I call "executive houses". There's loads of them currently being built in my home city and I'm gobsmacked at how small the gardens are (ie smaller than I'd think reasonable on a "non executive" house).

I've even noticed that some recently-built "status symbol houses" in my current town also have this "large frontage/small garden" thing going on and space certainly isn't at a premium here - so I don't know what that's supposed to be about:cool:

Re buildings going up - it's about the skyline. Picture the difference between walking down a street with bungalows (1 storey) or normal height houses in (ie 2-storey) and feeling "normal" and being able to see the sky clearly. Compare that with the idea of walking down a New York street (skyscrapers and having to crane your neck upwards to see the sky and it's an awful long distance away/feeling hemmed-in/being lucky to see any birds flying around/etc). Huge difference!

Personally - I think buildings shouldn't be higher than 2 storey (very occasional 3-storey for the right period of Period housing). Other buildings shouldn't be higher than 3-storey (possibly very very occasional 4-storey) ever anywhere as they make us feel "hemmed-in and dehumanised".

"Skyscrapering" (term I've invented for making buildings too high) is a prison type environment imo. Shades of "Soylent Green" (that horrible 1970s film) - done to cram too many people in.

Hectors_House

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I'll remember that title - ie "status symbol houses". What I call "executive houses". There's loads of them currently being built in my home city and I'm gobsmacked at how small the gardens are (ie smaller than I'd think reasonable on a "non executive" house).

I've even noticed that some recently-built "status symbol houses" in my current town also have this "large frontage/small garden" thing going on and space certainly isn't at a premium here - so I don't know what that's supposed to be about:cool:

Re buildings going up - it's about the skyline. Picture the difference between walking down a street with bungalows (1 storey) or normal height houses in (ie 2-storey) and feeling "normal" and being able to see the sky clearly. Compare that with the idea of walking down a New York street (skyscrapers and having to crane your neck upwards to see the sky and it's an awful long distance away/feeling hemmed-in/being lucky to see any birds flying around/etc). Huge difference!

Personally - I think buildings shouldn't be higher than 2 storey (very occasional 3-storey for the right period of Period housing). Other buildings shouldn't be higher than 3-storey (possibly very very occasional 4-storey) ever anywhere as they make us feel "hemmed-in and dehumanised".

"Skyscrapering" (term I've invented for making buildings too high) is a prison type environment imo. Shades of "Soylent Green" (that horrible 1970s film) - done to cram too many people in.

I currently work in Caister St Edmund in a old house with large garden.

There are a row of these plots and they were built in the fifties.

At the bottom of the road, off in what was a farmers field is one of these new ‘estates’ (mix of so-called big detached, terraces and semi and detached bungalows).

All of them are more or less fronting straight onto the street. You could open your window and shake hands with anyone walking past.

How did we go from decent sized houses on a good sized plot overlooking fields, to something that resembles Noddy’s Toytown?

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Personally - I think buildings shouldn't be higher than 2 storey (very occasional 3-storey for the right period of Period housing). Other buildings shouldn't be higher than 3-storey (possibly very very occasional 4-storey) ever anywhere as they make us feel "hemmed-in and dehumanised".

In a small country with 60-70 million people, building multi-storey properties is an efficient use of land, preserving unbuilt areas, which is surely a good thing for those who value the natural world?

It's not for you or me to tell others what kind of buildings they should live in or among, and people have choices.

From my perspective, you live in a crowded place. There's less than one person to the acre where I am, but that doesn't me more 'human' than you.

Davesnave

Hectors_House wrote: »

How did we go from decent sized houses on a good sized plot overlooking fields, to something that resembles Noddy’s Toytown?

Land prices driven by demand and restrictions on where houses may be built.

There are too many of us who want a cut of what there is, but there isn't enough for all to have a big slice and nice view of fields etc.

If people with modest incomes want a large garden and that sort of view, they have to pay for it in some other way, such as being distant from services.

Either that, or invent a time machine to go back to the 1950s!

AdrianC

Davesnave wrote: »

In a small country with 60-70 million people, building multi-storey properties is an efficient use of land, preserving unbuilt areas, which is surely a good thing for those who value the natural world?

Don't get "natural" and "not-built-on" confused.


Do you remember seeing this in the media a year ago?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901294

The UK as a whole is <6% built-on, so 94% not-built-on, but only <35% "natural".
England is <9% built-on, so 91% not-built-on, but only 14.5% "natural".


The rest is partially green urban (parks and gardens (2.5% of the country as a whole, <4% of England), but almost all of the rest is farmland (<57% of the country as a whole, 73% of England). Farmland is not "natural" by any stretch of the imagination - it's a factory...

Davesnave

AdrianC wrote: »

Farmland is not "natural" by any stretch of the imagination - it's a factory...

No confusion.

Just speaking loosely.


I farm......naturally, on a small scale. I don't kid myself it's efficient or that all those people can be fed this way.