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editor@bccondos.ca
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 Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 4:24 pm Post subject: Commonhold ownership now in England and Wales |
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Legislative initiatives in the UK:
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002
Here is a recent consultation paper from the Lord Chancellor's Office on what looks to us at first blush like a condo ownership scheme for England and Wales: click here for the link.
We'll see if we can find any feedback on these proposed regulations, which may be law by now. Please check back soon for updates. In the meantime, here's a quick overview from Explanatory Notes:
| Quote: | 8. Each separate property in the commonhold development will be called a unit. It might be a flat, or a house, a shop or a light industrial unit. The owner will be called a unit-holder. The body which will own and manage the common parts and facilities of the development will be called the commonhold association. The commonhold association will be a private company limited by guarantee, whose membership will be restricted to all the unit-holders within the development. The commonhold association will be registered at Companies House in the usual way and will have a standard set of memorandum and articles of association of the commonhold association which will be prescribed by the Lord Chancellor from time to time. This means that all the unit-holders in a development will have two interests in the property of the commonhold; a direct interest in the unit or units that they own and membership of the commonhold association which owns the common parts.
9. The commonhold association with its common parts and the associated units will be registered at HM Land Registry. In order to register, the developer of the commonhold development or the sponsor of a converting development will be required to present to HM Land Registry the memorandums and articles of association, and the commonhold community statement, which will contain the rules of the particular commonhold. There will need to be a degree of flexibility to allow for unique features of a particular development, for example to provide for the upkeep of a site of special scientific interest, or to make special arrangements for a sheltered housing component in the development. Allowance for this is to be made in the commonhold community statement where in addition to the prescribed matters, those relating to the individual attributes of the commonhold development can be set out. These discretionary elements will be registered and form part of the documentation maintained by HM Land Registry.
10. If it is necessary to obtain the consent of anyone with an interest in the land, those consents must be supplied at this stage and finally, a certificate will be required to confirm that the memorandum and articles of association and the commonhold community statement comply with the relevant Regulations. Once the required documents have been processed by HM Land Registry, the commonhold will be registered.
11. It will be possible for a unit to consist of two or more separate areas of land, for instance a flat with a garage in a detached block, or perhaps a shop with a separate storage unit. Units may be divided from each other vertically, as are terraced houses, horizontally, as are flats in a block, or may be free standing, as are detached houses or, often, light industrial units. However, where the divisions are horizontal, no part of the commonhold may be over any part of a building which is not part of the same or an associated commonhold development. |
Our e-mail to the contact list provided in the consultation paper:
| Quote: | From: editor [SMTP:editor@bccondos.ca]
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 2:58 PM
To: ‘commonhold_consultation@lcdhq.gsi.gov.uk’
Cc: ‘editor@bccondos.ca’
Subject: Commonhold ownership and other deep sorrows
Dear Emma Jordan,
We’re a consumer advocacy website from Vancouver, Canada at www.bccondos.ca devoted to condominium construction and governance issues, and we were fascinated to read online the 2002 consulatation paper on the proposed commonhold real property interest for Britain and Wales.
What prompted this paper and how is the notion progressing? How is new construction going in the U.K. generally?
You can see from our website that there are many problems throughout the world both with housing construction and collective ownership generally. For whatever reason, managing the commons is not going well in North America or Australia, it seems, although New Zealand seems to be on top of its leaky building crisis, at least from our faraway perspective.
We hope it’s not too late for your countries to benefit from our lesson.
Have a look at our site and judge for yourselves.
In the meantime, can you recommend any URLs that might help explain housing ownership and its attendant dispute resolution in the U.K.? We are in earnest to learn from our more mature European neighbors.
Thank you for your kind attention.
We look forward to hearing from you. You may reply to editor@bccondos.ca or directly to our Worldwide Condos online discussion forum.
Editor@bccondos.ca |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 10:28 am Post subject: |
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Britain proposes tough consumer protection measures for property sales:
Devon Life
Magazine Subscription
Home Information Packs
Robert Paice, Partner at Hooper & Wollen,
looks at the thorny question of Home Information Packs
May, 2005
| Quote: | I think I may have referred to the proposed introduction of Home Information Packs in a previous article written in Devon Life, but the Housing Act 2004 introduces Home Information Packs from 1st January 2007. From this date, estate agents and others marketing homes for sale will be required to have a Home Information Pack and to provide copies to potential buyers on request...
The legal and estate agents professions have been waiting with baited breath for regulations, due to be published during the course of April this year, which the Home Information Packs will have to comply with. It is anticipated that these regulations will stipulate what the Home Information Packs must contain. At present, it is thought they will be in two parts. The first part of the Home Information Pack will contain the Home Condition Report which will be prepared by accredited home inspectors and will be produced in a prescribed form ... The regulations, the publication of which is awaited, should set out the certification scheme for home inspectors and the electronic register of Home Condition Reports. Those regulations hould also set out a scheme for approving an estate agent's redress formula. (From the back page of the May, 2005 issue) |
Our view:
| Quote: | | The electronic register of Home Condition Reports - truly a stroke of genius, in our view. And look at this - a public office under the auspices of the Deputy Prime Minister, no less, which is listed with helpful links and full contact information. Should we offer praise? Should we tell B.C. Billies how the professionals deal with property legislation in these days of substandard construction? Let's do! |
More criticism of new Home Information Packs:
COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Country View
How many houses are enough?
Existing housing stock can give first-time buyers
a piece of the property pie
By John Martin Robinson
May 11/06
| Quote: | | David Cameron recently addressed the perceived problem of inequality between those who own houses and those who find it difficult to get on the property ladder. He pointed to high levels of Stamp Duty, Gordon Brown's proposed development tax (which will add 6,000 pounds to the price of every new house) and the useless compulsory Home Information Packs costing 1,000 pounds each. (emphasis added) (-- p. 93) |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=707#707
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 10:44 am Post subject: |
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Our e-mail to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister:
| Quote: | From: editor@bccondos.ca
To: homeinfopacks@odpm.gov.uk
Cc: editor@bccondos.ca
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 11:46 AM
Subject: We love your Home Information Packs!!!! - Bravo, Deputy PM!!!
Hello excellent housing legislation drafters,
Heigh-ho and cups up to the forward thinkers who dreamed up the fabulous Home Information Pack in your new housing legislation. We can't say enough about it, though we do try here. (See above). While we're quick to point a finger at errant officialdom (like ours in British Columbia, Canada), who trade consumer protection for the fleeting illusion of a strong construction-based economy, we do our best to say so when government does something right, and HIPs seem very, very right.
We would nevertheless like to express concern about the tremendous risk of housing failure you may be facing if in the course of new construction you import any North American materials, designs or technologies with respect to multi-unit housing. As you can see from our Worldwide Condos forum, leaky housing, including highrises, has reached pandemic levels. The latest international durability conference is scheduled this month in Japan because of a crisis recently identified there, similar to ours here in B.C., throughout the U.S., New Zealand and various parts of Australia, including New South Wales, which we see you studied while researching the new legislation. A large Australian law firm suggested to us not long ago that the government is in denial about the problem there but that it is real, and there is some evidence online as well here. And those are just the areas we've had time to study.
Please, please learn from these disasters by planning for the worst. Consider legislating the durability guidelines (top left corner of our homepage) developed by the Canadian Standards Association in accordance with ISO recommendations so that these are not mere guidelines but express requirements with the force of law. Include mandatory provision of a technical building audit on title for all new construction. This is an architectural road map that clearly sets out durability and maintenance expectations while at the same time providing contact business information for each contractor who worked at the site. Without this, your home inspections will be nothing more than a crap shoot. How could inspectors possibly verify their findings? How would lawyers ever be able to locate those responsible in a negligence action? For multi-unit buildings, technical audits and follow-up assessments should be conducted on a regular basis as should performance reviews by the building's designer. The latter should occur as a matter of professional pride. And finally, multi-unit housing construction should not be allowed to proceed under any circumstances unless UK professional associations of architects, engineers and tradespeople are able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of an independent public body full and proper disciplinary measures to deal with members whose work fails to meet requisite standards - much the way various law societies deal with public complaints and errant advocates.
Please take anything at our website that might be useful to you. Our material is all fully attributed and we provide full contact information throughout as much as possible in an effort to encourage information sharing.
We hope against hope that you will not have the same problems as we and others have experienced but - especially in the wake of gloablism and so much shared technology in the area of construction - we can't help feeling the odds are against you. Please let us know if there is anything we might do to help you prevent a leaky housing disaster. In the meantime, we will send links to your excellent Housing Act and HIPs to our representatives for reference - not that they are taking much advice from our old common law role model these days. They seem to think there is more wisdom to be found among our less experienced, shall we say, neighbors to the south - tchah!
Best of luck and, again, congratulations on a job well done,
Editor@bccondos.ca
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking leaky condos worldwide because those responsible won't. |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=708#708
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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Our e-mail to B.C.'s newly refurbished housing policy office:
| Quote: | From: editor@bccondos.ca
To: HSGPOLBR@gov.bc.ca
Cc: editor@bccondos.ca
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 12:15 PM
Subject: Excellent new conveyancing laws in the UK offering consumer protection
Hello Housing Policy,
Yaddah, yaddah - it's us again, still screaming about the ever-increasing portion of B.C. housing stock that leaks and the failure on the part of legislators to address the problem in a meaningful way. Please have a look at the excellent new coveyancing initiatives in the UK to take effect in January, 2007. Please consider implementing the same features here with a few adjustments as set out in our message to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in London this morning. (See above posts).
We've certainly seen the province's housing portfolio shuffled about the last few years. Here's hoping this is the team that will lead us at long last to some improved condo legislation.
Regards as ever,
Editor@bccondos.ca
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking leaky housing worldwide because those responsible won't. |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=709#709
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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House and Garden
British Edition
Magazine Subscription
Creature comforts
By Mary Killen
March, 2006
| Quote: | So she took on the chair of the Affordable Housing Commission, thinking would be a pleasantly relaxing way of being productive in the countryside. But as we glide towards Dorset ..., she admits that 'there is no less stress in this job. Trying to find out about rural housing from a standing start within just a few months is almost as bad as the days when I used to be rushing around the country, driving far faster than I was comfortable with, looking for a feed point with a minute to spare before broadcast.
'The right to buy reduced the stock of social housing in the countryside, but the problem is also demographic. People want to move to the country but they don't want their open view spoilt. The shocking postwar housing stock that was put up makes people think that all new building will be hideous but there are wonderful new projects everywhere - in West Dene in Sussex and West Meon in Hampshire, for example.
'It is in the interest of everyone in the countryside that people with lower incomes should be able to live there, too - otherwise carers and shop workers will be in the ridiculous position of having to commute back from towns.'
Researching for her report on affordable rural housing, she has been driving 300 miles per week, looking round to see what projects have been successful so the good practice and lessons learnt can be put into her report and implemented elsewhere. (-- p. 224, the back page) |
| Quote: | | Elinor Goodman's report is one we'll be anxious to review when it's released later this month. In the meantime, we sent our usual warning against leaky, inaccessible rabbit-hutch housing to the Commission for Rural Housing, where visitors should be able to review our comments shortly. |
Our e-mail to Elinor Goodman:
| Quote: | From: editor
To: enquiries.arhc@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Cc: editor@bccondos.ca
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 11:54 AM
Subject: Don't get stuck on the build/repair treadmill of substandard multi-unit housing
Hello Chairman Goodman,
We read with interest your rural housing initiative set out briefly on the back page of House and Garden (see our link above), which was strangely focused on your admittedly excellent car, and as fellow frozen shoulder sufferers, we concede our envy.
Our purpose today is to alert you to the type of multi-unit, low- and highrise housing that has been failing at an unprecedented rate not just here on the Left Coast of Canada but in the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Japan and maybe soon in China, where a British Columbia agency is curently flogging the stuff in an effort to take advantage of rural China's some say forced migration to the city.
Beware, too, of the legislative scheme attached to commonhold/condominium ownership, in which elected inexpert co-owners become the building managers with no public authority available for advice or dispute resolution. This recipe for disaster has left many owners here with no recourse but the bankruptcy court.
We are very concerned that international trade agreements may force the EC to accept these horrible 'new building technologies,' which represent cash cows to developers and building/repair contractors. Don't allow your economy to be driven by a fraudulent boom in leaky, moldy housing construction that destroys the environment and leaves children wheezing with asthma and worse.
Please review the materials at our website, which we have submitted to various levels of your government already ito warn them. (See our Worldwide Condos forum). Please learn from our mistakes, which are now 30 years in the making and so deeply entrenched, they are almost impossible to correct. Ask us anything. We're happy to oblige. Use any information we have collected from publicly available sources in any way you wish.
In solidarity,
Editor@bccondos.ca
http://www.bccondos.ca
Tracking multi-storey, multi-unit housing failures worldwide becuase those responsible won't. |
We will publish any replies we receive at this forum. Please check back soon for updates.
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=790#790
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:05 am Post subject: |
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What do UK experts say about building maintenance and inspections?
Building Maintenance & Preservation
A Guide to Design and Management
Second Edition
Hardcover
Edited by British genius Edward D. Mills
| Quote: | Much has changed in the world of building since the first edition of this book in 1980, but the relationship of Design to Building Maintenance is as important today as it was in the past. The efficiency, convenience, life span, economic viability and appearance of any building can be affected by decisions taken and actions performed at any time in the history of a building oproject, from its initial conception to its final demolition. Designers should involved in all these decisions, and their relationships with other participants is of vital importance.
...All buildings start to deteriorate from the moment they are completed and from that time begin to need maintenance in order to keep them in good condition.
...This process of gradual deterioration is inevitable, but the speed at which it proceeds can be regulated and the ultimate failure of the building, in whole or in part, can be avoided or acceldedrated according to the way in which it is maintained. This, in turn, is to a large degree conditioned by the amount, of maintenance required and the ease with which the essential work can be carried out. The problems of building maintenance concern client, architect and builder alike, and each can play an important role in minimizing the maintenance needed in a completed building.
...Maintenance planning should start at the design stage of any building project and should continue throughout the life of that building. In this the building owner, and or user, must play an active part. Chapter 2, 'The economics of maintenance', discusses the balance to be struck at the design stage between first costs and maintenance costs.
.. When a building is handed over to the user - the client - those who have designed and built it are often forgotten, unless something goes wrong.
... This lack of continuity is unfortunate, for much useful information can be obtained if a proper feedback system can be devised. The tragedy is that many building are destroyed not by outside forces, such as wind and weather, but by their owners, through bad housekeeping, inadequate maintenance, and even outright neglect. A recent school inspection produced complaints of water penetration through a wall, resulting in damaged decorations. A quick investigation and the removal of two tennis balls, a soft drinks can and a large quantity of leaves from a gutter cured the problem instantly. An insignificant example, but typical of the sort of minor problem which can grow into a major one through neglect, and which can be multiplied a thousandfold in many buildings.
All new buildings, as a matter of course, should be provided with a maintenance manual, so that a building owner can look after and service a building in use just like a car. The Building Centre maintenance manual and its use is discussed in Chapter 18. A proper maintenance routine should be established and followed so that repairs and replacements are carried out in proper sequence and before they develop into the building structure the means of access and other facilities needed to make redecoration, repair and replacement as simple and economical as possible. In many instances a 'replacement bank' of spare parts (Chapter 17) for essential equipment should be established when a building is completed to avoid delays and cost increases at later dates.
...Most architects regard the building they design as part of themselves, and many are horrified by the way buildings are treated by careless or thoughtless owners, who certainly treat their cars with greater respect. If a pattern could be established where the building design team was involved with the lifetime health of a building - like a family doctor - perhaps more buildings would enjoy a longer trouble-free life and give greater service to the owner and the community. Architecture is concerned with buildings that are practical, economical and beautiful for the whole of their life span, and modern economic conditions require this to be as long as possible. (emphasis added) (From Chapter 1, Design and building maintenance, by Edward D. Mills, pgs. 1- 15) |
What are a few of the most important maintenance considerations?
| Quote: | There are three basic ways of maintaining buildings:
1. Day-to-day work caused by unforeseen breakdowns or damage.
2. Cyclic work undertaken to prevent failure (e.g. exterior repainting to protect jointery).
3. Planned repairs to restore elements or services to an acceptable standard.
The second and third categories should be able to be planned in a scheduled manner with least incovenience ot the building user. Wise designers present their clients with a repair manual that stipulates the time scale for cyclical inspection, and section 8.7 describes the contractual implications.
Breakdown repairs or vandalism need special provision and urgency where safety is concerned (see paragraph 8.2.6).
Cyclic inspection should be made of building components with moving parts such as taps, ball valves, door springs, locks, etc. since replacement of a failing washer or a missing screw to a lock can save extensive repairs in the event of a flood or break-in. The aim should be to maintain each building regularly to a standard which will carry it through from one repair cycle to the next.
Materials for Building
Hardcover
By Lyall Addleson
...The best reference sources are the BRE Digests relating to Building Defects and Maintenance. There are also useful textbooks from the recent past which set down theory with illustrated details such as Materials for Building by Lyall Addleson (Iliffe Books, 1972) and Structural Failure in Residential Buildings by Schild, Oswald, Rogier and Schweikert (Granada, 1979).
Structural Failure in Residential Buildings
Hardcover
By Eric Schild
The tools of the trade are a working moisture meter and a camera to record evidence (the Polaroid type having the advantage that immediate photos are available and the evidence is recorded in a satisfactory form). Binoculars are invaluable for studying inaccessible parts of the exterior or roofscape. Photometry has advanced to the stage that survey drawings are no longer required, the photometric prints being invaluable for elevational and air views. Drawn key plans or outline elevational sketches are still useful for reference purposes to grid lines or locations.
A maintenance manual is an essential tool in the professional management of property. It should be prepared by the design team and updated by the maintenance staff and building owner. The record should contain the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the building team and those of sub-contractors an suppliers. The preparation of the manual is a useful discipline for designers and aids 'feedback' as the maintenance sequence unfolds. Chapter 18 refers to other aspects of this 'tool'. Clearly, the investigation of defects will be made easier by referring to a manual that has been conscientiously followed. There is protection for the designer, since lack of regard to regular inspection and repair can be placed as the building owner's responsibility.
Regular inspections are a vital part of the procedure for buildig maintenance. A systematic approach employing a manual as guidance will help in planning the time scale and scope of inspections. It is common to divide the task into exterior and interior. There are various pro-formas that are useful sources if the building owner has not previously arranged matters on a rational basis. Hotel groups and hospital management boards have standard schedules. Another valuable reference are the studies produced by the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association for quinquennial reviews. The (Land &) Property Services Agency is another well-known authority. (From Chapter 8, Maintenance of the Building Structure and Fabric by Alan Blanc, pgs. 88-91) |
Our view:
| Quote: | | Consumers would benefit enormously if B.C. 'BILLY builders - building designers, developers, planners and legislators - committed the lessons of this book both to memory and law. Chapter 18 By Jacob Blacker even includes a series of detailed checklists to assist in the production of a manual. The quality of the maintenance/inspection plan, especially whether it includes full contact information for the design team, should form the basis of the selling price, especially for condos because of their peculiar fraud-friendly, laisse-faire rules of governance. |
| Quote: | | Note that this is the second edition of the book, which has been widely available to architects since 1980 and again since 1994. We found our copy in the stacks at UBC's Irving Barber Learning Centre. |
Link to this entry
http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=908#908
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editor
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| Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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COUNTRY LIFE
Weekly Magazine Subscription
The Dangers of Development
COVENTRY LIFE
'How much more evidence does the Goverment need
that we cannot keep hammering our environment?'
Sept. 27/07
| Quote: | Although south-east England is already one of the most densely populated areas in Europe, the Government seems intent to concrete over even more of it, as the recent publication of the Panel Review of the draft South East Plan has confirmed. Not surprisingly, this has dismayed The Wildlife Trusts in the South East, as the review has taken little account of the environmental impact of the proposed scale of development.
The Review does acknowledge the need to protect and enhance the region's biodiversity, but one is left wondering how it can possibly do so when proposing that even more houses than were planned at first (an additional 62,000 in the South-East on top of the original 580,000) should be built. It does this with no clear strategy of how to offset the inevitable loss of habitat and increased ecological footprint that will inevitably result.
Of course, building more than half a million new homes will only account for a fraction of the development, for with them will have to come more roads, more schools, more hospitals, more supermarkets: the list is endless.
... Memories are short in Whitehall, and most seem to have forgotten the prolonged drought that gripped southern England last summer. Finding sufficient water to service so many new houses will be a huge challenge, and one that will be impossible without either building extensive new reservoirs or channelling water by pipeline from northern England to the south, a proposal that would be hugely expensive, if not totally impractical.
Although July's flooding had little effect on the South-East, it was a sharp reminder of the devastating impact of sudden extremes of weather. It was only five years ago that Sussex suffered severe flooding. Remarkably, one-third of these new developments will be on floodplains. Here, it is not just the wildlife trusts that are worried. The Association of British Insurers has warned that thousands of the new homes planned for the area face an unacceptable risk of flooding and will be uninsurable unless greater measures are taken to minimise risk. (emphasis added) (-- p. 107) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:50 am Post subject: |
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COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Country View
How many houses are enough?
Existing housing stock can give first-time buyers
a piece of the property pie
By John Martin Robinson
May 11/06
| Quote: | ... England has a free market in property and an above-average ratio of houses to population, compared with other developed countries. The past century has seen massive new building, and the majority of English houses date from after the First World War, many conforming to the 'suburban ideal,' as Mr. (Charles, Spectator journalist) calls it. English towns build new houses each year to meet actual need, so the claim of an embargo on house building is a myth.
New-built houses are expensive for a number of reasons that have little to do with (relatively liberal) planning controls. And for the same reasons, new houses will always be expensive here. That is why building them has not helped 'first-rungers' and will not. Land is valuable because of a geographically limited supply on a small island; the prices of skilled labour and good building materials are also very high in a competitive modern economy; and infrastructure - roads, drains, power and water supplies - has always been substantial. Infrastructure is not provided by public authorities, it has to be paid for by the developer. And to these basic costs things such as professional fees, interest rates, building regulations, a fair profit, taxes and extras such as landscaping, and it becomes very difficult to achieve affordable, well-designed houses.
The obvious supply of cheap houses for first-time buyers lies in the existing housing stock, and political effort should be expended in making that accessible. Even in the South-East, there are plenty of affordable houses: attractive 18th- and 19th-century ones in Ramsgate, Margate, Hastings and Portsmouth: 20th-century ones in Luton, Gravesend, Thamesmead and peripheral towns and suburbs; plus 100,000 empty units in London itself.
Beyond the pull of the South-East, it is not necessary to go to Hull or Workington to find relatively cheap houses. In the Mdlands or West, 1930s or 1950s houses and bungalows are affordable, and better built than new ones. Listed Georgian houses are surprisingly underpriced in provincial towns, and Victorian terraces more or less given away in the North.
The demand for houses is not caused by a rising population as it was in earlier centuries. The birth rate is shrinking and the population has been static for years. Any net increase is the result of immigration. There is no evidence, however, that immigrants want to live in the 'green suburban ideal' either. (emphasis added)
The 'housing problem,' if there is one, is the result of a proliferation of households, especially singletons and the independent young who often have sophisticated tastes. Many would rather die than live in the average suburban box - especially if they are escaping from one. (-- p. 93) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:16 am Post subject: |
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COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Country Crusader
Why Labour's planning paper defies belief
Agromenes
May 31/07
| Quote: | ... This (Planning White Paper) is a Treasury-driven reform. Despite the huge upset only recently, caused by the new Planning Act, the whole system is yet again to be redefined.
The changes will centralise decision-making, introduce a new, unelected national quango, and remove powers from district councils. As so often, the justification for the need for change is not entirely unreasonable. It is surely ridiculous that every application for a nuclear power station has to rehearse the same arguments about safety, waste, and need, when these overall issues ought to be decided in principle by Parliament.
... There will be no local inquiry at all. Instead, this national planning quango will take its cue from Ministers and implement general Government policy. When it comes to a particular planning application, it will decide how, when, and if it will gather local views, and then it will announce its decision. There is no role for the elected local council, no code to protect local rights, and no statutory process to ensure that local opinion is fully tested.
For country people, this will spell disaster. An urban minister, in an urban dominated department, will make the decision in principle, subject to Parliamentary scrutiny. Then a board of scientists and experts will evaluate a particular site in whatever way they think fit, and hey presto! there'll be an advanced coal-generating station on a greenfield site near you. Huge cooling towers will go up, and pipes conveying the CO2 to the injection site will be strung across the countryside. That may well be the best solution, but no one will believe it.
... Nor will it end there. The White Paper proposals are also designed to make it easier for supermarkets to get planning permission for further out-of-town development. Although the success of PPG3 in supporting the High Street and protecting small market towns has been recognised throughout the world, the Government now wants to sweep all that protection away and provide greater opportunity for retailers to build beyond the High Street. Again, it's the countryside that will suffer. Our green fields will be covered with concrete and our high streets irretrievably undermined. (emphasis added) (-- 128) |
Link to this entry
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editor
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Joined: 01 Dec 2003
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| Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Property Comment
Buyers' guides: canny rental investments
By Phil Spencer
Nov. 5/08
| Quote: | City-centre mistakes
I strongly question whether there was ever, in fact, a 'demand' or a 'shortage' of, for instance, two-bedroom flats in central Leeds. So, when all these similar properties were being marketed, mainly to investors, the demand for them was perceived - rather than genuine - and the prices were hugely inflated. The planning and development procedure can take years for a large scheme, and even then, it's not until there's an established price history for a particular product and area that the market itself dictates what the properties are genuinely worth (rather than what the developer says they're worth). Of course, by the time there's a track record of deals and an established 'open market value,' the developers will have sold all the units and moved on to other projects. Why should they care? They're in business to win planning permission, build and sell in the quickest time possible. Garrington Home Finders ... (-- p. 84) |
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http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1478#1478 |
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editor
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Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Posts: 878
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| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:36 am Post subject: |
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COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Help the postmistress's daughter find a home
May 6/09
| Quote: | ... Take second homes out of the equation and local workers could still not afford to buy houses. Although prices have fallen, it is no easier for this group to access the market than it was before. Mortgages have got tighter, deposit requirements bigger. Job losses are as bad in rural areas as anywhere.
Yet villages need a diversity of population. Without full-time residents, without gardeners, shopkeepers, garage attendants, waiters and tradesmen of all kinds, they would cease to function. What is needed is targeted housing that families on local incomes can afford. This is hardly an original insight. The need has been recognised, and growing, for years. Looking back, the desperate of village housing was a theme of the 20th century. In the 1920s, many cottages after nearly half a century of agricultural depression, were rotten, perishingly cold and leaking. The building of council houses ushered in a new Jerusalem, but many of them were sold in the 1980s. Also, the assumption grew up that anyone who was not on his or her way to buying a property was losing out on the great bull-market bonanza, in which home was also an appreciating capital asset. It is now commonplace for affordable housing to be created as a result of iniquitous 'planning gain' - a kind of blackmail on developers (councils won't give planning permission unless a social element is provided), which inevitably means that the provision of low-cost homes makes all the others more expensive. Generally, villages do not want these large-scale developments, however much planning gain is attached. (-- p. 43) |
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