[Durham INC] "How does planning perpetuate generational inequality?"

[David Eklund]

On the topic of the comprehensive plan, Americans aren't the only ones
trying to figure out how best to provide sufficient housing for residents.
>From London comes a perspective from the equivalent of a planning
commission member:

https://redbrickblog.co.uk/2021/02/how-does-planning-perpetuate-generational-inequality/

Full text below:

*In part one of this three part blog contribution we hear from inside the
> tent to what extent our planning system is truly representative and
> democratic. Or whether hyper-local Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) opposition
> perpetuates the generational inequality we should all oppose. *



It was early in the evening when I realised things were not going as I had
> planned. You could cut the tension with a knife. I started to tot-up how I
> thought the votes would go; for, for, against, against, don’t know, I…don’t
> know.
>
> I swivel my chair to turn away from the public gallery. There’s nothing
> worse than catching the eye of someone giving you the stare. ‘These people
> must hate me’, I think to myself, ‘they must think we are faceless droids,
> nodding through applications without a care in the world’.
>
> But tonight we’re not nodding through an application, we’re on the verge
> of blocking 63 new homes.
>
> I am sitting in Lewisham Council’s planning committee. On a usual night, I
> would sit in faint bemusement as colleagues act out a charade — we ask for
> clarification, we look again at that the cross-sections, we offer
> apologetic looks to objectors and we firmly ask our officers to make sure
> all planning conditions are enforced. It is a charade because we know the
> application is policy compliant before the night begins. The material
> grounds for refusal may be as flimsy as renters’ rights, but “we’re
> gathered here tonight” because 5 or more people have complained about an
> application’s impact on their backyard. After the usual impassioned rant on
> immaterial considerations or a pained lament to our hands being tied,
> councillor’s will grant planning permission.
>
> But tonight, is different. This application has not only generated
> considerable opposition, but the application itself has (potentially) solid
> grounds for refusal. I can see my colleagues getting tetchy. Objectors have
> been and gone, and as usual, a scatter-gun approach has been utilised.
> Locked and loaded, we’ve been pummelled with round after round of
> complaints: this area can’t take any more homes (it can), this will
> increase parking pressure (most occupants won’t own a car), this site can’t
> accommodate this many homes (it can). However, two complaints gain
> traction.
>
> The development would replace an underutilized plot of land —
> specifically, a scruffy-looking light industrial estate, and replace it
> with 63 good quality homes, 20 of which are affordable (14 social, 4
> shared-ownership) and a much-needed increase in new business space (an 110%
> uplift). While it was argued that the application would improve
> biodiversity across the site, the redevelopment would mean the felling of
> 38 trees. Moreover, some nearby social housing blocks would experience
> overlooking from the new flats. At the closest pinch point, the buildings
> would be 3.8m away from each other, rising to 7.2m away at its furthest. It
> was acknowledged that for a small number of neighbours, they would no
> longer be looking out onto trees but at a ‘green wall’ on the side of new
> flats.
>
> To me, the choice was clear about the actions we needed to take for the
> greater good. Over the next 20 years, London will need to build a million
> new homes. It is a steep task, and that will only be made possible if
> politicians are brave enough to be straight with the public about our need
> to densify and be able to communicate the trade-offs we all need to make.
>
> It is hard to express in words the pain our housing crisis causes, walk
> down any street in London and you’ll be surrounded by lives touched by it.
> Most councillors have seen the worst cases, the homeless families trapped
> for years in bedsit ‘temporary accommodation’, or the damp-infested,
> unlicensed HMOs we occasionally investigate. But our housing crisis touches
> even those who are from the outside, ‘comfortable’ — families with steady
> employment who know that they’re one Discretionary Housing Payment delay
> away from losing their home; the key workers who can no longer afford to
> live near their place of work, and the young professionals locked out of
> homeownership for life — all are transient, cycling through extortionate
> and insecure properties, priced out of neighbourhoods they briefly called
> home, simply existing, in a private rented sector not fit for purpose.
>
> The site of this application was an urban setting, and if London is to
> densify as needed, we will need to accept properties overlooking each
> other. While a few flats would have their amenity impacted, were we really
> going to act for the few and not the many? If we were to block this, how
> long would site stay underutilised, undeveloped and unviable? Years at
> least.
>
> And while we heard from the developer who told us about the quality of the
> design, the urban greening and green wall. And while officers mentioned our
> housing targets as they authoritatively flicked through their slides. We
> never heard from those for whom those targets aren’t just numbers, but
> chance in life, a future. We never do.
>
> I’ve never once had a homeless family attend a planning committee. I
> sometimes wonder whether any private renter has ever spoken against an
> application at one of my committees? It takes time to get involved in the
> planning system, read papers, submit responses and attend the committee. It
> means we hear from the time-rich.
>
> Our case-by-case discretionary planning system encourages people to get
> involved in the planning process only when a case directly affects them.
> The system encourages decisions to be based on a hyper-localised impact
> assessment, based on feedback from a relatively small number of people
> whose amenity will be negatively impacted. The system allows councillors to
> be swayed by localised concerns in the febrile heat of a civic hall. In
> essence, the system offers the ideal conditions for Not-In-My-Back-Yard
> (NIMBY) voices to be successful.
>
> For, for, against, against, for..I think.. oh no, they’re going to vote
> against!
>
> Several councillors are pushing hard on the loss of trees and objectors
> saw their opportunity. They brought up our climate emergency declaration
> and opined that these majestic trees — not accessible and at the back of an
> industrial estate, were essential oxygen masks for the area. The fact that
> old light industrial units were being replaced by energy-efficient new
> homes and business space was overlooked. More importantly, the fact that
> densification near transport hubs (like this site) is an important mechanic
> in encouraging a model shift to more sustainable transport methods, thus
> improving air quality and lowering carbon emissions long-term, was
> overlooked.
>
> Again, the bigger picture was being missed and this isn’t a failure of
> individual councillors, but something embedded into the design of our
> planning system.
>
> Another colleague rose up and said he’d vote against. Gulp, that’s
> another. For, for, against, against, against. He couldn’t let these homes
> be built due to its impact on the nearby social housing tenants. He’d
> listened to the homeowners who said they were not speaking for themselves,
> but on behalf of others, those less fortunate than themselves and who were
> hit hardest by this development.
>
> 16 new social homes were not going to be built because a few existing
> social tenants would now look at a wall of a block, rather than some trees.
> Again, this is a product of a system that gives councillors selective
> feedback. We only hear from those set to lose from any given scheme and
> never those set to gain.
>
> In the end, I moved to support the officer’s recommendation for approval
> and the application was granted planning permission via a deciding vote by
> the Chair. But I was left reeling from what I saw, and my anger would only
> grow as I read about far larger policy-compliant schemes, being blocked by
> councillors across London.
>
> In writing this piece, I hope to show how and why applications that comply
> with a local plan can be rejected by your local councillors. I hope to give
> people an insight into how our planning system’s much-vaunted democracy,
> tilts the system unfairly towards the well-to-do and perpetuates
> generational inequality. Despite facing huge housing pressure, we face a
> system that provides fertile ground for hyper-local opposition to block
> developments.
>
> When drafting our local plan, comments from my colleagues often take a
> broader view, looking at the needs of our borough as a whole. The need for
> economic growth, densification and regeneration, and the need to tackle
> housing need and combat gentrification by building more is accepted. These
> things are then balanced and traded off against ensuring good design,
> protecting unique heritage, and ensuring manageable density for the area’s
> infrastructure.
>
> Moving away from our ‘one-shot’ approach to planning engagement is good
> for democracy. By ‘front-loading’ or ‘up-streaming’ planning consultations,
> we can help achieve a more representative and democratic planning process.
> Less time-rich demographics can provide feedback at a single point when it
> is necessary. All in all, it will mean that planners and politicians will
> get a more holistic view when drafting their local plans, in an environment
> that offers them the space to see the bigger picture.
>
> Moreover, the proposed move to a rules-based planning system and away from
> a discretion-based system is positive. It will mean evenings like I’ve
> described above, will become a thing of the past.
>
> Defenders of the status quo remind us that almost 9 in 10 residential
> planning applications are granted permission at committee-stage. However,
> this is a form of survivorship bias, ignoring the countless applications
> for new homes that were never submitted because the risks of being rejected
> by planning officer or councillors are too great. The issues in our symptom
> run far deeper than those outlined here. In fact, councillors directly
> blocking new homes is only the tip of the iceberg.
>
>
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