Response from Symposium on
Sustainability – Oxford
SoS –Oxford is a group of
people with a deep interest and no little understanding of the principles and
practice of sustainability. It produces
briefing papers and responses to consultations that are intended to assist
those involved in formulating policy and taking decision in areas impacting on
the economy, society and the environment. The purpose of SoS is to analyse a
subject in order to provide ideas and recommendations based on good evidence.
Not all the proposals would be agreed by all participants of the symposium and papers
might not be fully consistent or comprehensive.
1 Comments on the Draft Strategy
There is no evidence in this document that the Council has any or
sufficient recognition that the normal ways of delivering houses will do
anything but perpetuate the existing problems of scarcity, unaffordability and unsocial housing.
Oxford will not meet its claim or aspiration to be a ‘World class city’ for
‘everyone’, if it does not follow the many international (and few
domestic) examples of forms of housing
that can be seen to be more sustainable in terms of affordability (in provision
and operation), sociability and environmental impact.
In the ‘Foreword‘ to the Strategy
there is nothing new to address the existing imbalance of the size of
households and houses which is a major cause of unsustainable levels of under-occupancy. The ‘housing offer’ described in the Strategy
aims to attract households as part of the ‘delivery of innovation-led growth’,
but includes no equivalent innovation in terms of housing delivery.
There is no substance behind the priority to ‘support sustainable
communities’.
Extra Care Homes are regarded as the necessary response to the perceived
need to increase housing for the elderly.
The Council should be looking to build housing ‘suitable’ for the
elderly but not specifically for them.
Care has to be carried out in the community – a cliché, but one with a
substantial truth[1]
that housing has to be designed to facilitate care, as the formal systems will
be generally unaffordable. This is
reflected in the current problems being experienced in hospitals being unable
to discharge (mostly) elderly patients into a caring home environment.
Discussion with health providers should have identified the important
role that co-housing could play in wellbeing - one form of housing suitable for but not
exclusive to the elderly.
‘Increase housing choice for households on
average incomes’, should have identified the areas which are under-provided eg
self-building and co-housing that could be relatively affordable. Many councils are keeping registers of
potential self-builders that could sensibly include potential co-housers.
2 What are the factors that influence the sustainability of
housing?
Issues
Shortage - not enough
units or space to meet demand
Under-occupation - 75% of
dwellings have one and more often two or more spare bedrooms.
Energy efficiency – housing
accounts for about 20% of existing GHG emissions and will have to get to zero or
below by 2050.
Affordability – measures
should address the price of land for housing and both prices to sale (currently
about twelve times average salaries) and rent levels (that are unaffordable at
60% or 80% of current open market levels) should also be brought down. Affordability includes running costs as well
as purchase price and/rent.
Anti-social Housing - housing has
been designed to pander to privacy and has made neighbourly contact
unnecessarily difficult.
Accessibility - housing
should be well connected to work and facilities/services without depending on the
car
3 Recommendations
Although this is a consultation on ‘Housing’, as has happened in
Westminster, the planning and housing briefs have been combined because there
is no sensible separation of responsibilities when looking for ways of making
the new and existing housing stock more sustainable.
Shortage & under-occupation - make better
use of existing housing stock by encouraging right-sizing within Lifetime
Neighbourhoods, and explore potential for sub-division of over-large houses. Lifetime Neighbourhoods are designed to
provide a mix of dwelling sizes and types within an area so that choice is no longer
a constraint on being able to move a short distance within an area to maintain
economic ands social links. This
principle should be given precedence over Lifetime Homes that are designed to
encourage aging in a dwelling that might be larger than required to meet
housing need.
Empty homes (300 to 400 in the City) and second homes (>1000) are
another form of under-occupation that should be addressed. If these levels can’t be reduced then tax
measures should be considered so that local areas do not suffer from the
reduction in available housing and the lack of demand for local services. The
shortage of housing of the right type and size is so critical in the City that
the potential of compulsory purchase powers should be evaluated and used or
threatened where the public objective would be to provide more sustainable
housing.
Down-sizing – To enable this specific part of right-sizing
applicable to older smaller households in large dwellings, new housing should
be predominantly small units, but with scope to share space and have some with
generous gardens. Some older households
would be more willing to down-size if there was space to keep and possibly
share books, tools, furniture, guest accommodation etc as in co-housing. This process is so fundamental to achieving a
better and more sustainable balance between the sizes of household and housing,
that it could prove a good investment to appoint a facilitator or enabler looking
at the physical conditions and availability of smaller and larger houses, their
locations, investment issues (what to do with any equity released?), family
circumstances, health issues, the particular issues surrounding flats, parking
and gardens etc
New building -
Self-building and/or finishing could increase supply with Government wanting
this to exceed historic levels of about 10%.
This form of housing conflates supply and demand and provides
opportunities for building skills and communities. It can also result in relatively affordable
housing which could be acknowledged in
planning policy and quotas of affordable housing. Involvement in self-building could include
some of those least able to house themselves in the conventional ways. There
might be partners in the City able to assemble groups of people with, or
prepared to learn, the necessary energy and/or skills.
The Council is concerned about the number of 2 bedroomed flats being
built and the small number of 3 and even 4 bedroomed houses. However, this might not be a problem if moves
to the 2 bedroomed flats are releasing larger dwellings? This would be more
likely if the Council addressed all the issues implied by downsizing and the
small dwellings were designed accordingly.
The Council should continue to press the neighboring districts to
cooperate in the supply of housing land (inc possibility of Green Belt land and
potential urban extensions). At the
same time the Council could take note of the initiatives being taken by
Cherwell DC in respect of self-building and community land trusts.
The Council should, and encourage others, to be transparent in terms of
land ownership and opportunities to build, so that access is increased to
people and organisations currently being excluded from the systems of housing
and land supply. This transparency should be extended, through open-book accounting
to all building projects to ensure that all new schemes are providing the
necessary affordable housing and sustainable infrastructure.
The Council should actively consider building more houses, but only
along sustainable lines (see these SoS recommendations).
Anti-social housing – for too long
traditional housing models have pandered to privacy (and resulting loneliness). New housing should be predominantly terraced
to facilitate informal neighbourly inter-action. While other forms of housing
(eg flats) might be similarly thermally efficient, terraced houses might have
the greatest potential to engender neighbourliness. Purpose-built co-housing would be
intentionally neighbourly and designed to be companionable. The Council might see that, in Oxford, there
are models of congenial collegiate housing/living around courts or quadrangles
that could be extended into housing outside the academic community.
There does not seem to be any place for detached (or even semi-detached)
housing in the supply of new social and sustainable housing.
Energy efficiency - all new
residential development must be zero carbon or preferably carbon negative. This
implies predominantly but not exclusively south facing terraced housing (to
reduce the proportion of external walls) with the main emphasis on the
fabric/airtightness that will not be amenable to upgrading at a later date, and
with the potential to be equipped with the most efficient PV and solar thermal
panels. If Oxford wants to be an exemplar, it should be noted that there are already
Passivhaus regions (standards 3x higher than the proposed UK zero carbon
standard for 2016) with an estimate of minimal extra cost over traditional
build. Energy efficiency has been
embraced by many co-housing groups as a shared ethic and could be more energy
efficient in construction and use.
The existing housing stock will be the greatest challenge in terms of energy
efficiency and the Council should explore methods of deep green retrofits for
its own housing and have effective policies in its development plans to ensure
upgrading of existing properties when applications are received for alterations
and extensions (eg see Merton Rule or potential of upgrading existing buildings as an ‘allowable
solution’ for zero carbon houses).
Water – covered by the
Code for Sustainable Homes (being wound down), but not adequately by the
Building Regulations, is very important in a city where flooding is becoming an
increasingly heavy cost to residents and businesses. All new developments should be maximizing
the on-site drainage to minimse the scale and speed of any run-off.
Affordability – The Strategy
should challenge current market forces.
Land for housing should be purchased at existing use values with a small
uplift (see Lyons Review). Genuine affordability requires this to be
provided as ‘affordable’ based on local wage levels without public subsidies
that are not material planning matters being outside planning control (eg
housing benefit - currently
£23.8billion/annum, grant to RPs, Help to Buy, 20% Starter Home exception etc). Self- building and/or finishing would
contribute to affordability. By making
efficient use of buildings and land (and by keeping exclusive use to a minimum)
co-housing would be more economic to
build and, more importantly, in occupation.
To concentrate on ‘affordable living’ as opposed to ‘affordable housing’
would underline the importance of running costs (eg water and energy) as
fundamental to affordability.
Right to Buy – wherever
possible OCC should seek to remove or limit this right from its housing stock
or when involved with other RPs. This is
a fundamental aspect of community land trusts that could be partnered for this,
and other purposes,
Rental sector - Affordable rents would be
related and tied (ie 35%) to average earnings and not fixed as a percentage (ie
60%) of private rents. The Shelter (or
even Labour Party manifesto) proposals for affordable rents should be
considered. Is there a role for the
Council in addressing the growth of buy-to-let?
Innovation – The starting point for change must be an
acknowledgement that the current system is not working and that systemic and
innovative changes are necessary. The
Council should be assisting in the setting up of housing coops and community
land trusts (where Right to Buy is excluded) and, possibly, an Oxford Community
Housing Fund? The Council might have to
look abroad and/or to the social innovators within the area for ideas that
could make the difference rather than perpetuate failed models.
Accessibility – the location
and type of housing has a significant influence over car ownership and use. Both could be substantially reduced by insisting
on developer funded to a car clubs for all new development and made accessible
to neighbouring areas. Oxford already
has a low carbon car club(s) and this should be a requirement of all new
examples. This would be a good fit with
co-housing where car dependency and use are reduced through the mix of uses on
the site.
4 Conclusions
The essential components of sustainable housing listed and discussed
above indicate that there is an urgent need for systemic change in the
provision of housing. There cannot be a 2.5% annual growth of housing (ie the
SHMA projection) at the same time as a 6% (Committee on Climate Change estimate)
or 10% (Tyndall Institute estimate) annual reductions in carbon emissions
unless the housing sector (new and existing stock) becomes much more energy
efficient
The Housing Strategy and related development plans/SPD should include policies
that would support both self-building and co-housing. Housing and planning strategies without the
necessary enabling policies would be inadequate and unsound, as housing needs
would be increased rather than be met, and the Strategy would not be
contributing to the achievement of sustainable development.
Housing (especially for the elderly) has become a fundamental aspect of
social and health care – and implicated in the severe problems being faced in
discharging patients from hospitals. This should be one of the main drivers in
prioritizing and providing housing which is more companionable. There should be more attention paid on
Lifetime Neighbourhoods than providing a greater proportion of Lifetime Homes.
The Building Regulations cannot be relied on to ensure that new and
retrofitted housing will be sustainable. The Council should ensure that the
form of housing (eg there is no place for detached housing that is
intrinsically thermally inefficient and makes social interaction unnecessarily
difficult) lends itself to sustainable construction and living.
Affordability is a major factor in the City (this should be considered
as affordable living rather than simply the cost of purchase or rent). This requires a concerted attempt to
establish the real costs of provision and ensuring that the profit from the
land does not erode the sustainability (inc community benefits and provision of
affordable housing) without clear justification.
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