Urban Planning

Urban Planning and Regeneration


Visiting Speaker - Duncan Bowie


Duncan Bowie teaches planning on a range of undergraduate and graduate architecture courses at the London Metropolitan University in the Department of Applied Social Studies and Department of Architecture and Spatial Design.


Brief notes from his presentation below:

The vast majority of social rented housing needs to be family sized, Local Authority stock of this was sold under the right to buy leaving a shortage.

New housing in this economic climate needs to be focussed in areas with existing infrastrucuture to keep development costs down.

Intermediate units have been pushed under the guise of creating mix tenure, even though they are not really affordable. Grants to intermediate units are half that to social rent units.

Development is not happening at the moment due to the credit crunch, and S106 developments are less likely to occur.

The green belt rigidity needs to be reviewed.

In London social housing grant per unit is is now 250k +, in sheffield it is likely to be in the region of 30-35k per unit.

Consultation over housing developments is difficult. The people already in housing have a greater say than those who are waiting for the houses to be built. NIMBYism. People often resent having new housing nearby, and worry about affects on their house prices.
We need to look beyond the needs of the current community, and try to incorporate the needs of future residents.

Re-introduce capital gains tax and remove stamp duty. Tax people who are making a profit rather than those who are buying in order to alleviate the difficulty for first time buyers.

There are no internal space standards applied to market housing, only to social housing. With a push to higher density and more 3+ bedroom homes without minimum space standards will lead to a further fall in internal space conditions.

The mandatory external play space standard of 10 sqm per child may only be achieved at the expense of internal space.


External links


http://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/thinkpieces/item.asp?d=539

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