Direct planning revolution

A campaign to better empower community preferences in local plans and decisions in London. We encourage actions to;

  • Better inform planning officials in boroughs and the GLA about what the public like and will actively support and embed this in local strategies, development control decisions and public sector tenders;
  • More effectively empower local people actively to influence what gets built, how it is arranged and what it looks like rather than the purely binary NIMBY ‘no’;
  • Spearhead a very active programme of popular and genuinely community-influenced house-building on public land throughout London (including estate regeneration); and
  • Change national, London and borough rules and strategies to make it easier to build the types of home people prefer (or at the least give local communities the right to over-rule them).

Specific steps that the mayor of London could take include:

  1. Building a richer understanding what people like and want targeted at available public sector land. In conjunction with the London Land Commission which will report for 2016 immediately commissioning a full study of what housing would be possible and popular at street-based densities and typologies on publicly-owned land identified by the Commission;
  2. Using the Mayor’s powers of call in to
    1. Build fewer towers (unless they are popular). Making it clear within the first two weeks of the mayoralty via a clear public statement that super-density developments or residential tower-blocks that are not able to demonstrate very convincing evidence of local support are highly likely to be called in and rejected by the Mayor (particularly beyond zone 1 and perhaps in 4 or 5 other areas);
    2. Encourage popular design-code and street-based approaches. Making it clear within the first two weeks of the mayoralty via a clear public statement that design-code led approaches with demonstrable support from local people and which permit the type of medium to high density developments correlated in most data with better long term outcomes are the least likely to be called in by the Mayor and the most likely to attract any GLA financial support;
    3. Encourage a much tighter upper and lower limit to possible densities.
  3. Rewriting first the London Housing Strategy and then the London Plan to;
    1. be far shorter, clearer and more consistent with fewer but far more clearly defined and consistent rules and principles
    2. Place a far greater emphasis on evidence of what people want and like in the built environment;
    3. Abolish current density targets which no longer serve much purpose and which are used to justify a range of tower blocks and large multi-storey blocks wherever transport links are tolerably decent. Replace them with unbreakable upper (and lower) density caps;
    4. Abolish or relax the rules in the Housing Supplementary Planning Guidance which create perverse incentives against the most popular forms of housing or at the very least give local people the right to override such rules. Examples would include access codes and open space rules;
    5. Identify and prioritise for co-design development a wide range of publicly-owned strategic sites for comprehensive development (see below);
    6. Demand improved quality and democratic control of estate regeneration via (i) co-design with a community and obligatory neighbourhood plan style referendums, (ii) presumption for design-code approach in estate regeneration, (iii) setting out clearly that social tenants will not be required to move more than once or to see changes to their tenancies as a result of redevelopment (iv) encouraging long term strategic investment partners rather than standard short term development model;
    7. As far as possible within UK legislation require neighbourhood plans, co-design or robust evidence of popular support in order to avoid Mayoral call in for any sensitive sites or sites which require Environmental Impact Assessment;
  4. Spearhead a city-wide programme of popular, nearly always street-based, home-building on brown field sites and post-war estates in conjunction with long term investors;
    1. Identify and prioritise for co-design development two dozen publicly-owned strategic brownfield sites for comprehensive development. Certainty should be granted by pre-approving a certain high density medium rise built form as far as legally possibly in advance and in conjunction with national government’s proposed brownfield zoning rules;
    2. Demand improved quality and democratic control of estate regeneration via (i) co-design with a community and obligatory neighbourhood plan style referendums, (ii) presumption for design-code approach in estate regeneration, (iii) setting out clearly that social tenants will not be required to move more than once or to see changes to their tenancies as a result of redevelopment (iv) encouraging long term strategic investment partners rather than standard short term development model;
    3. As far as possible within UK legislation require neighbourhood plans, co-design or robust evidence of popular support in order to avoid Mayoral call in for any sensitive sites or sites which require Environmental Impact Assessment;
  5. Creating a GLA team with expertise not just in strategic planning but also in community-led planning to spearhead and enable a London-wide programme of popular and (normally) street-based development on public land (including but not limited to estate-regeneration). This team should lead a revolution in the provision of publicly-owned land in London for high density-housing in London. Core elements of this programme should include;
    1. Co-design with the local community often (though not necessarily always) leading to locally-supported design codes;
    2. Simpler, clearer rules on urban framework and appearance; and
    3. As wide a range of firms as possible with a focus on long-term value not short term value;
  6. Using guidance and rules underpinning Housing Zones, Development Corporations and the Mayor’s Affordable Homes Programme to encourage the same model of popular development. Specifically the residential high-rise approach being taken by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation needs to be dramatically reconsidered.
  7. Set up a feed-in group to central government to;
    1. argue for more GLA powers of land assembly for public sector owned land;
    2. ensure that specific requests for further liberalisation of Housing and Building Codes are made to DCLG;
    3. lobby for a shift to a zone-based planning system but one which is very firmly anchored in clear evidence on what people like and support in the built environment;
    4. continue to argue for raised borrowing caps by London boroughs secured against housing;
  8. Putting boroughs under pressure to;
    1. end anti-street policies often embedded in borough strategies via parking, highway, street width and light policies (any GLA support to boroughs might be contingent of this);
    2. improve estate regeneration via (i) co-design with a community and obligatory neighbourhood plan style referendums, (ii) presumption for design-code approach in estate regeneration, (iii) setting out clearly that social tenants will not be required to move more than once or to see changes to their tenancies as a result of redevelopment (iv) encouraging long term strategic investment partners rather than standard short term development model;
    3. better interpret the Best Value test with an understanding of long term value not just short term cash flow;
    4. make Viability Assessments public documents required as part of the planning application process and end the practice of accepting ‘price paid’ for land or ‘land valuation’ as an allowable development cost.
  9. Creating from existing GLA funds a range of revolving-funds to support the creation of design codes for estate regeneration and neighbourhood plans and to encourage long-term investment models; and
  10. Opening up the GLA developers’ panel to much larger number of providers and focus all development funding partnerships and support on long term investors not the short term development model.

These actions would, we believe, be the first steps in a London-led Direct Planning revolution to solve, systemically and for a generation, the housing crisis in parts of the UK. It would do so not by forcing hated high rise or ‘could be anywhere’ developments on reluctant communities but by unleashing the power of popular support for beautiful places.

The plan-led, supply-constrained, short term capital model of development has failed in this country. It was initially propped up by state-building but, too often, the state built places most people sought to avoid when they could afford to. Subsequently the system has just failed to build enough homes. It is time for a Direct Planning revolution to bring the system back under democratic control and to empower a long term understanding of value rather than a short term bet on obtaining planning permission. It is time to stop asking ‘how do we build more homes?’ and to start asking ‘how do we make new homes more popular?’ Only that way can we create the streets, homes and walkable neighbourhoods in which most of us actually want to live and work.

Notes

A form-based design code was defined in the 2006 Planning Policy Statement 3 as ‘a set of illustrated design rules and requirements which instruct and may advise on the physical development of a site or area. The graphic and written components of the code are detailed and precise, and build upon a design vision such as a masterplan or other design and development framework for a site or area.’ Codes primarily regulates what a place looks like rather than the development control process. Although design codes were the de facto approach used in much of the UK in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, design codes have not sat easily with the post 1947 UK Planning system. In consequence, design codes are now far more common abroad. Today, design codes in various forms are used internationally, for example in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States, as a means to focus on the delivery of high quality with popular support.

By co-design we mean true and ongoing engagement between neighbourhood and design team rather than post hoc, often superficial, consultation. These often (but not always or necessarily) use methodologies such as charrettes. After taking part in one, the Director of the East London Community Land Trust, Dave Smith, wrote: ‘the Charrette enabled us to cast aside the pessimism and low-expectations that accompany most tawdry ”consultations” and the masterplan now truly reflects our community’ stated aims.’ Civic Voice (2015), Collaborative Planning for All.

A true “residual” valuation would deduct from the value of the completed development a reasonable profit, then the cost of construction, fees and finance, leaving a land value. However, if developers are allowed to include either the price paid for land, or an assessment of its value based on comparable evidence, and this results in the total cost of development, including land being higher. Planners then allow a reduction in the provision of affordable homes to increase the end value of the development, rather than insisting on policy compliant provision. The incentive therefore is for developers to overpay for land in the hope of negotiating a reduced provision of affordable homes. The result is land prices higher than what a true “residual” approach would produce, effectively being supported by an under-provision of affordable homes.

More detail on how some of these ideas might work can be found in the Direct Planning (Pilot) Bill introduced into the House of Lords in 2015.