Housing Crisis: Design Feature or Flaw?
- Open House Meeting 27.11.18 With speakers: Danny Dorling, Ella Hancock & Sarah Ernst
Last Tuesday I went along to an interesting talk / conversation around the issue of the housing crisis and more specifically looking at the context of Oxford. I found the panel's views very interesting, and learnt a lot about certain aspects of Oxford's history and social housing that I hadn't considered previously.
Danny Speaking on the context of Oxford:
First was Danny Dorling, who spoke about how the market works well generally with small to medium size purchases, but it has a lot fo flaws when it comes to one-off large purchases, such as housing. He believes that housing generally works well when the state is in charge of over 50% of the stock of housing, which I found quite a high percentage but I also don't find it hard to believe. He also stated that Oxford cannot currently house everyone who is needed here with the existing housing stock, citing the expansion of villages on the perimeter of Oxford as a main issue. In contrast, London actually does have enough existing housing and bedrooms to be able to house all those needed. This is largely due to the fact that the existing housing stock hasn't expanded with the recent population growth's of the city. As manufacturing arose, housing stock also increased, up until about 1970. Prior to this, factories employed approximately 40,000 men, and with them also were spouses and families. However, the current state of factory employment is that around 3,000 people are employed in the industry and many of them are young single men - not requiring as much housing. This decrease came coincidentally at the same time as the expansion of both universities, hence why there was not a housing crisis in particular 20-30 years ago. However, the urban footprint of Oxford has not expanded largely since 1970 except from the Greater Leys expansion in the 1990s, and a few smaller projects in Barton and other areas. New developments that are currently under construction include Barton Park and Oxford's Northern Gateway, although the majority of housing in both projects are not affordable housing, although some of it will be.
Oxford has been restricted because of the Oxford Greenbelt, which controls the urban growth and also ensures a certain amount of rural landscape within Oxford's city boundaries. The tight green belt is due to the Oxford Preservation Trust. But, Danny believes that Oxford needs to be expanded somehow, whether its the University giving up some of its estate or some of the greenbelt being encroached. Whichever way further expansion is handled, he believes that it should be expanded by a need and not the market, as in it should not just be private developers seeking opportunities to build just because they can. He believes a large reason why they can get away with it right now is that Oxford itself does not necessarily have a 'plan' for its city and a vision for its future. If it was secure in dealing with that, they could turn down such developments.
Ella speaking on social housing in Netherlands, Sweden & US:
Ella first began by pointing out structural issues which are causing a housing crisis in the UK:
Gross under supply of affordable housing
Welfare reform, now frozen until 2020 at the 30th Percentile
Shared accommodation
Universal credit
Rough sleeping has increased in the UK by 169%, almost 160,000 houses are experiencing some form of homelessness or housing insecurity. Ella then began to expand on how shared housing brings many advantages for young people, but it can also be isolating in some aspects.
She believes that co-housing and affordable housing are the keys to tackling some of the UK's housing crisis issues. She defines co-housing as:
Intentional communities, a number of houses or 'dwellings' with shared spaces
Co-housing can take place in various formats, such as owner-occupied, social or housing projects. She spoke of an example of social housing in Stockholm which has 180 houses, with 43 of them rented out to elderly and autistic residents. All of the shared spaces can be accessed internally, without the need to go outside, for ease of access, especially during the Swedish winter months. There are plenty of facilities and each household pays the equivalent of £15 per year for use of the facilities. She also spoke of another project in Amsterdam which is run by a housing association in Stockholm, which paid for 50% of the housing in exchange for amenities for the community. They also house people with learning disabilities.
However, co-housing can be tricky logistically. In San Francisco, there is a co housing project which has not been successful with its original intentions. It has a good architectural design but it has not worked as a co-housing project as people are just desperate to find a place and don't engage in the communal aspect of living in the area.
Sarah speaking on RUSS (Rural Urban Synthesis Housing):
Sarah first spoke of the archetype of Walter Segal's process of self-build and pointed towards a book on his works entitled 'Walter's Way & Segal Close'. She spoke of RUSS being a member-led community land trust which acts as long term stewards of housing in Lewish, to promote affordability. It was interesting to hear about the projects that they are getting up to and how they will be tacking on a challenge site to develop 33 houses in the Church Grove Project, and how they are also engaging in a community project right now.
She spoke of how people were chosen to act on behalf of the community, and that they were selected by public ballot with requirements of living and working within the area / community. She also spoke of how they are reaching these types of rental markets: social rent, affordable housing and shared ownership. There were different types of tenure and mixed residency. A festival of ideas was run for locals to understand the process of design. Overall, the design of their scheme had the resident's input as well. There was a customisation process of 1 to 4 bed housing. To balance having input but also executing the project on time they offered meaningful choices but could not offer individual consultancies for all 33 houses. The whole scheme has no structural internal walls. Columns were used to allow for more flexibility for later adaptations.
However, some limitations included the fact that planners wanted to know where the bathrooms were etc. And there were issues with getting the scheme to look similar and not having issues of invasiveness and privacy problems related to windows. With the self-build scheme residents are building as much as they can - cutting their costs by up to 15% but, given the scale of the scheme, they cannot build it all on their own, but they will be contracted to work together. They used passive-haus principles within the design so that it would be sustainable environmentally, socially and economically. She highlighted how right now there is the community housing fund which is £163 million for people looking to start a housing scheme offered by the local government.
Q&A and further thoughts:
I asked a question along the lines of "How can we guarantee that co-housing schemes would be successful in Oxford? Considering the climate here may be similar to that in San Francisco, with a high-cost of living / housing, and also a lack of affordability. Are these key factors which may lead to an unsuccessful co-housing project in this context in contrast to the Stockholm & Amsterdam culture and rental markets?"
I was also intrigued when someone was questioning about whether we need to change the rhetoric of home ownership in the UK, and they were speaking of how we need to have a higher value on having a rented property, but with that we also need added security and remove some of the powers that private landlords can have over tenants, and the insecurity that can come with that. But also, there needs to be a realising that not everyone can own a home, especially a detached home.
Comments