NIMBY to YIMBY: How to Win Votes by Building More Homes Part One: the Questions Less Asked
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From NIMBY to YIMBY: How to win votes by building more homes Part one: the questions less asked Nicholas Boys Smith Kieran Toms © CREATEstreets in 2018 Printed by Copyprint UK Ltd. Contents Summary .......................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1 – is Britain worse than others at building enough homes? ....................................... 8 Chapter 2 – How British planning is so odd and why it matters ............................................. 30 Chapter 3 – Why are people NIMBYs? ................................................................................ 59 Chapter 4 – A case study: Creating Streets in Cornwall with consent ...................................... 77 Chapter 5 – where and how to break the circle: a menu of options ....................................... 104 Conclusion – building homes, winning votes...................................................................... 119 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 120 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 121 The authors .................................................................................................................... 126 ‘Any citizen, who tries to defend their home and their neighbourhood from plans which would destroy the view, pollute the environment, overload the transport network, upset the ecosystem and knock £50,000 off the value of their house. When it comes to our own back yard, we are all NIMBYs, every NIMBY deserves respect for standing up to corporate and government giants.’ Anthony Jay, Not in Our Backyard (2005) * ‘I hate Nimbys... but I hate the new lean-to on my neighbour’s patio even more!’ Tom Utley, Daily Mail (2013) * ‘I was a Nimby once, and my entire family were.’ Nick Boles MP, former Minister for Planning (2013) * NIMBY – Not in My Back Yard YIMBY – Yes in My Back Yard BIMBY – Beauty in My Back Yard CAVE – Citizens against Virtually Everything BANANA - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone * ‘Laws may be unjust…as when burdens are imposed unequally on the community, although with a view to the common good. The like are acts of violence rather than laws’ Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ 1 Summary Chapter 1 – Is Britain worse than others at building enough homes? Britain is demonstrably less good at building a sufficient number of homes than most other countries: - Since 1980, Britain has managed consistently below average increases in housing stock. Since 1990, Britain’s house stock growth has been 40 per cent below the European average; - Britain has a below average number of homes per resident (one for every 2.3 people, versus a European average of every 2 people) and an even lower number of homes per household (0.99 versus a European average of 1.12); - Britain builds some of the smallest new homes in Europe (an average size of 91 square metres versus a European average of 101 square metres); - Long term real house price rises in the UK are the highest in Europe. Prices have increased by 378 per cent since 1970, as opposed to an OECD average of 94 per cent. It is land, not building costs, which is driving this; - The house price to income ratio has doubled since 1997. It is also the worst in Europe, particularly in London and the South East; and - The UK housing market is not responsive to price rises. Price elasticity of supply is 0.39, meaning that for every ten per cent price increase nearly four per cent additional new homes are built. There is some good news. Some commentary exaggerates the problem and the challenge is largely in London and the South East: - High prices and low affordability are not yet feeding through into the highest over- burden rates (a measure of the proportion of households having to spend more than 40 per cent of their incomes on housing). This is presumably because many homeowners bought their homes long ago and due to lower prices outside the South East; - Nor is overcrowding an issue at the national level, though this is changing in London; - Finally, elasticity of supply, though poor, is not an outlier. The British housing market is less responsive than most other markets, but the French, Belgian and Dutch markets are all similarly unresponsive, or worse (price elasticities of 0.36, 0.31 and 0.19 respectively). Many of the elements of Britain’s situation, which are frequently criticised, are comparable to the situation in many other countries, or better: - Britain has the lowest (and falling) proportion of empty homes in Europe, with vacancy rates less than a third of the European average; - British property is not comparably under-taxed. Comparison are hard but Britain’s level of property-linked taxation is actually above the simple European average (1.0 per cent as opposed to 0.9 per cent); and - Eight per cent of British homes are council housing and ten per cent are rented from Housing Associations. The simple European average is about 12 per cent. Economies 2 with much less house price pressure such as Germany and Belgium have 12 and 6 per cent. However, it is far lower than some: the Netherlands has 35 per cent. Britain is, however, a comparatively crowded island. Its population density (269 people per square kilometre) is below Holland’s and Belgium’s but above the rest of Europe. The South East’s population density is 453 people per square kilometre. This is second only to the Netherlands. Although many have pointed out how little of the UK is actually ‘concreted over’, this pressure must make the politics and economics of housing in the UK more intense. Chapter 2 – How is British planning so odd and why does it matter? Many of the elements of Britain’s planning system, which are frequently criticised, are also more comparable to the planning approach in other countries than is normally realised: - Britain’s planning system is not more centralised than most nations, according to EU analysis; - Nearly all planning systems have some controls on city growth, though the UK’s (green belts) are more extensive and have been less flexible (though this is starting to change); and - Some systems do seem to be better at pooling risk and sharing upside from development than in the UK, but others are not, and CIL, S106 and Enterprise Zones have their equivalents. This is not to say that these, or other elements of the British planning system, should not be improved, or that the state should not build more homes (though this does come with risks of poor quality). But it does highlight the need for caution in trying to blame Britain’s housing supply woes on just the green belt or just the lack of council house building. However, one key element of Britain’s planning and building control system does stand out as unique, when compared to every other system we have examined. It is a feature which has been oddly overlooked, in nearly all analysis, and which strongly influences how we build new homes and who builds them: - Unlike every other prosperous planning system (including those based on common law), the British system nationally is not rules-based, but instead takes a case by case approach. It is more discretionary, with much lower levels of clarity about what is and is not acceptable1; - This is probably due to an unintentional alliance between planners (wishing to preserve professional discretion) and supporters of free markets (sceptical of all planning regulation); - Controversy and political debate therefore tends to be at the level of each individual decision, rather than when setting the local spatial and building plan; - This is different from most other countries and has been almost completely overlooked in the debate about meeting Britain’s housing needs; 1 There are cities and regions (particularly in the US) which have ended up with very discretionary approaches, but nowhere appears to have done so nationally. 3 - This leads to more uncertainty about what is and is not acceptable, on a given site; - This increases planning risk, pushes up land prices, when planning is secured, acts as a major barrier to entry (above all for self-build and small developers) and lowers public support for new building, by increasing risk over what will be built (which is crucial in understanding why people oppose new homes). It is no coincidence that the UK market is one of the most concentrated, with one of the lowest proportion of self- builders; and - Perversely, much of the detailed policy (and planning practice) we do have actively de-links what we build from the best ways of delivering liveable, street-based high- density cities.2 The right to develop in the UK has been nationalised, with uncertainty of what will be permissible. Instead, we need a system where the right to develop is clearly regulated, with greater clarity about what is and is not permissible. Chapter 3 – Why are people NIMBYs? Research shows that opposition to new housing delays and reduces house-building. It is therefore surprising how little robust research there has been into why people oppose housing. NIMBYism is best understood as a rational response to the risk of uncontrollable change to one’s neighbourhood, which can have both economic and emotional consequences: - This might be an economic impact on the value of one’s property (for home owners), or (for renters) one’s ability to continue to afford to live in a neighbourhood; - It might