CAPITAL GAINS: A BETTER LAND ASSEMBLY MODEL FOR LONDON 2000 1950 1900 Research commissioned by the Greater London Authority CONTENTS - French ZAC’s EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I - - Introduction Incentivising land assembly - - Methodology German urban development measures - - Why land assembly matters for house Resourcing land assembly - building German municipal independence - - What London can learn from it’s past French transport charge - - What London can learn from elsewhere American development commissions - - Implementing alternative measures Lessons for London - The advantages a better model would bring 4.HOW ALTERNATIVE MEASURES - Land assembly action list COULD BE IMPLEMENTED 51 - Planning for strategic housing - INTRODUCTION 1 Acquiring land - - The brief The impact of a better land assembly - Methodology model - Incentivising land assembly - Resourcing land assembly 1.WHY LAND ASSEMBLY MATTERS FOR HOUSE 5.THE ADVANTAGES OF A BUILDING 5 BETTER MODEL 67 - - Building more affordable homes The test cases FRONT COVER: - - The illustration shows how the Sharing land value uplift Potential impacts - - built-up area of the Capital has Recognising environmental constraints Testing the impacts - - evolved over a century (Source Finding enough suitable sites for new Benefits of the recommendations URBED: City of Villages, GLA, 2002) homes - - The advantages of a better model The realities of land economics - The challenges of land assembly CASE STUDIES - This report has been produced London for the GLA by Dr Nicholas Falk - 2.WHAT LONDON CAN LEARN 15 Croydon 20 (BA, MBA, Hon FRIBA, Hon MRTPI, FRSA) FROM IT’S PAST - - King’s Cross 21 drawing on support from URBED, Development frameworks (19th Century) - Housing Futures Ltd, Dentons, and - London Docklands 22 Piecemeal development (1930s) - Gerald Eve. - International New Towns (1950s-90s) - - Vathorst, Amersfoort 44 Comprehensive development - February 2018 - ZAC Claude Bernard, Paris 45 Public-led partnerships (1980-2008) - - Pearl District, Portland 46 The present situation - - Toronto 47 Contact: Nicholas Falk Lessons from London’s past - Rieselfeld, Freiburg 48 [email protected] 3.WHAT LONDON CAN LEARN APPENDICES FROM ELSEWHERE 25 - - A: Barriers to speedier housing Planning for strategic housing - delivery 78 Dutch VINEX housing policy - URBED (Urbanism Environment and - B: How London evolved 82 German urban development measures - Design) Ltd, Fifth Floor, 10 Little Lever - C: Powers to assemble land in Street, Manchester, M1 1HR French spatial planning Germany, France, and the Netherlands 88 - - US urban renewal areas D: Land assembly test cases 92 - The URBED Trust, The Building Centre, Acquiring land - 26 Store Street, London, WC1E 7BT The Dutch ‘Building Rights’ model EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CAPITAL GAINS: A BETTER LAND ASSEMBLY MODEL FOR LONDON INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY This report brings together the evidence The research team identified an initial and makes recommendations for changing range of challenges in its submission the way land is assembled in London. It which provided the focus for selecting and responds to the commission from the GLA analysing relevant case studies, including: to address the following basic research questions over a period of four months: • Allocating suitable land for affordable housing; • With reference to international • Achieving quality development; examples, what conditions would best support land assembly for house- • Changing planning practice; building in London? • Mobilising people and funding; • Which specific statutory land assembly • Achieving a cultural step change; and models could enable an increase in and acceleration of the delivery of homes in • Building partnerships that work. London? • How could these specific statutory land assembly models be implemented in To help ensure the results would be robust, London? a Research Advisory Group was set up with the aim of testing our conclusions with a range of other experts from across the The report outlines a range of models, sector, including academics and the RICS. drawing on both international good The team undertook the commission in practice and London’s own past, and four phases: proposes improvements that could be made in the short term, as well as those Agreeing what may need to change requiring changes to statutory framework. An initial meeting considered conditions It is entitled Capital Gains because it deals that might need to change to support an with the particular challenges facing the increase in house-building in London, nation’s capital, and because it is aimed drawing on a review of previous research. at harnessing land values for the city’s Some thirteen barriers were identified that benefit. can arise in assembling land. Fourteen The research team has been led by Dr possible case studies were identified, and Nicholas Falk from URBED, supported by were narrowed down to the places from legal experts at Dentons and surveyors which the most could be learned. at Gerald Eve with particular experience of compulsory purchase, the network of Assembling the evidence metropolitan regions and areas, plus inputs Case studies were prepared of housing from Pete Redman at Housing Futures Ltd. developments in four countries. I • The French case study is ZAC Claude into individual plots. Finally, as well as designation of a New Towns and the Bernard in a disadvantaged part of North WHY LAND ASSEMBLY MATTERS owners who prefer to ‘hold out’ and London Green Belt enabled damaged land East Paris plus an example from the fast- FOR HOUSE-BUILDING speculate, there is a loss of the skills and to be mobilised in a strategic and planned growing city of Montpellier and Paris Delivery rates for housing have fallen far techniques that used to be available in both way. Comprehensive Development Areas Rive Gauche, where a railway line has behind demand for decades, with common the public and private sectors to assemble enabled sites in different ownerships to been built over to create a new district criticisms including restrictive planning land. be rapidly assembled, as did the setting policies, limited resources for planning up of the development corporation for the • The German case study is a sustainable larger schemes, a shortage of developers Utilities and transport undertakings can London Docklands. urban extension to the historic university willing to take complex schemes forward, be hard to engage because their priorities city of Freiburg plus an example of land and an acute shortage of experienced staff are not aligned with the need to deliver Today public-private partnerships are used pooling in Frankfurt. in the boroughs. For London the assembly more homes, making it hard to secure the to achieve something similar. But whereas • The Dutch case study is a new of land in multiple ownership is now seen ‘marriage value’ from putting adjoining London’s footprint grew physically by 60% settlement on the edge of the mid-sized as one of the main obstacles to doubling land together. Compulsory purchase, or the in the last hundred years, it has expanded town of Amersfoort where land has been house-building rates. threat of it, is therefore often essential, but very little in the last thirty. Successes such pooled plus an example from Amsterdam local authorities may be wary of exercising as the London Olympics and subsequent of creating new housing sites in the Land assembly to deliver housing is their powers because of a lack of capacity development in East London were at a high River Ij. inherently complex and time consuming as or experience as well as financial reasons. cost in terms of land assembly, and are it may involve any or all of: • The North American case study is a The nervousness about compulsory exceptional. Redevelopment of Council regeneration area in a former industrial purchase is deeply embedded in strategic estates is important but difficult. Case area in Portland Oregon plus the a. Unifying multiple interests including planning for housing with a general studies of the redevelopment of Croydon, example of Toronto in Canada. adjoining land, leasehold and other reluctance to incur the costs and delays the Docklands and King’s Cross illustrate interests affecting the title of the land; involved. possible models for mobilising strategic • The report also draws on examples land. of planned intensification from Hong b. Removing ransom strips and other Kong and Denmark where housing and impediments such as rights of way; transport has been combined. c. Obtaining agreements with statutory WHAT LONDON CAN LEARN FROM undertakers, including highways and ITS PAST WHAT LONDON CAN LEARN FROM other agencies; While land assembly today presents greater ELSEWHERE Because the UK has particular cultural and challenges than in the past, useful lessons d. Remediating damaged land; Continental cities that have kept up house- legal traditions, the team also drew heavily can be learned from when London has e. Providing infrastructure to land which building rates and suffered less from on what London could learn from its own grown fastest: a combination of leasehold otherwise would and could not come the effects of house-price inflation have past. A literature review has summarised development and public infrastructure forward; adopted much more proactive approaches the lessons from periods when London investment were responsible for the great to land assembly. grew fastest as well as good practice from f. Relocating non-compliant uses that private development ‘surges’ that have would conflict with