There was an article in yesterday's Times in which the RHS bemoaned the number of people who concrete over their front gardens for parking spaces, the issues being, it reduces 'biodiversity' (I'm not sure what that is, but from the context I'm guessing it's A Good Thing) and that it increases the risk of flooding (water runs off rather than soaking into the ground). Fair enough - and they provide a simple solution - if you want to park cars in your front garden, then just reinforce the area, making it hard enough to park cars on, but allowing grass to continue growing. All good stuff.
Then of course, they smuggle in the statistics that "30,000 gardens are lost to development every year ... In 1997, 11 per cent of housing developments were on land already classified as residential, but by 2006 this had grown to 22 per cent".
That 30,000 figure has to be seen in context of there being 25 million homes in the UK, so it's not a huge figure, and the percentage increase is meaningless - maybe the number of housing developments has halved? Maybe the housing developments on existing residential land tend to be far smaller?
This is all apparently a problem because "In towns and cities, the area of land used as gardens and other green space can be crucial to the survival of wild animals and plants."
Great, because there is a simple solution to this as well - instead of encouraging development on 'brownfield' sites (which includes homes with large garden on to which you can squeeze a block of flats) - allow towns and cities to expand instead - that way everybody gets a bigger garden, there's more biodiversity, everybody wins!
UPDATE: in reply to the comment by Longrider"It hasn't happened yet, but given sufficient pressure and developers will be encouraged to use compulsory purchase to force garden owners to relinquish them", this is AFAICS a total urban myth put about by patron saint of NIMBYs and sworn enemy of the land tax movement, Caroline Spelman MP (Con, Meriden) who claimed that "Worse could be to come, with even harsher planning regulations on the way and the prospect of compulsory purchase of gardens for 'social' purposes."
Does anybody have any real life examples of this happening? The NIMBYs oppose it just as vehemently when a neighbour perfectly voluntarily decides to sell his home and large garden to build a block of flats. If you are concerned about "property rights"', then which right is more important - one landowner's right to replace his house with a block of flats; or a neighbouring landowner's right to prevent him from doing so? The best way to find a compromise between these competing 'rights' is land value tax, but that's another topic.
The article also quotes the Tories as saying "Suburban neighbourhoods risk being 'over-developed' through a proliferation of 'one-bedroom pokey flats' instead of family homes built with sufficient space for parking and a garden, the shadow minister warned."
I couldn't agree more - but the reason for this is because the NIMBYs don't just oppose more concentrated development of urban areas; they don't want to allow people to build on a single square inch of the Hallowed Green Belt either. So where exactly are those 'family homes' going to be built?
Import the Third World
2 hours ago
11 comments:
What a weird argument you give. Where once there was open fields you want buildings and that will improve things because 'they will have gardens'
by the way regularly parking cars on grass tends to interfere with grass growth. And if it rains you get mud.
The problem here is that gardens should never have been designated brownfield in the first place. It hasn't happened yet, but given sufficient pressure and developers will be encouraged to use compulsory purchase to force garden owners to relinquish them (that was the reasoning behind the change after all). Opposing that is not NIMBYism, it's about property rights.
I don't have a problem if someone wants to put a parking space in their garden (the chap opposite did just that), I do have a problem if a developer wants to take mine and build a block of flats on it...
Sorry, but it's not an urban myth. The change from greenfield to brownfield was carried out by John Prescott's department. Local authorities are under pressure to approve developments in brownfield sites. Now, if it is like the one near here where old factory units have been demolished to make way for housing - that's fine. However, developers have been harassing people to sell their land (and there are documented examples - search my blog for the ones used when I discussed this last year) - and as structured, the law favours them should they press for compulsory purchase. It is not an urban myth it is how the law has been created, making way for unintended consequences. The answer is to re-designate gardens as greenfield sites.
Objecting to garden grabbing is far from NIMBYism as I pointed out, It has everything to do with property rights.
As for your response that property rights do not extend to one's neighbour... If my neighbour sells his garden to developers who build a block of flats, my quality of life has just been affected (reduced sunlight, for one, more noise, more crowded streets, less parking for another) - so, I'm afraid I would, indeed, object, just as I objected twenty years ago to a football stadium being built nearby. If I wanted to live next to a football stadium, I'd have bought a property in Ashton Gate. As it was, I bought this property in part because of its peaceful aspect, south facing garden and so on. Significant changes to that would affect me and I have every right to object to this. You accusation of NIMBYism is unreasonable - when one's quality of life is affected, objection is perfectly reasonable. Sure, do what you like with your property, so long as it does not adversely affect others, and that is the crux, it does affect others.
As it is, of course, I am moving to somewhere even more remote. Fortunately, a combination of excruciating French planning laws and more land for a similar sized population mean that this risk is extremely unlikely to happen ;)
OK, but how do you respond to those who oppose both higher concentration in urban areas and building on the hallwed green belt?
Correction: It was the Conservatives who made the original cahnge from greenfield to brownfield. Mea culpa.
Overlap - I would point out that there are plenty of urban areas in a state of decay that can be demolished to make homes. The centre of Bristol has transformed over the past couple of decades. You don't need to build on green belt while there are inner city industrial sites in disuse.
When you've run out of these, then we'll have the discussion about green belt. Until then, leave it alone.
Sure, and what will force the owners of those disused sites to get them back into use? Our old friend land value tax. There are even some Tories who admit that this would be a good idea.
I've no idea who owns these sites. However, what I have seen is massive regeneration in Bristol of old bond houses and such knocked down and very desirable riverside apartments put up in their place. Presumably what encouraged the land owners to allow this was a decent price... That, frankly, is far better than force. But, then, I don't approve of force, do I?
Gardens might be good for biodiversity but they are a mere drop in the ocean compared to green belt. Biodiversity (the number of different species weighted by the number of individuals of those species) decreases at an accelerating rate as land area does, so we'd do much better keeping a few large areas rather than thousands of dotted islands. That said, people like their little islands. I do mine. So growth should be ideally on both internal brown field sites and on the periphery of existing developments. Something land value tax would promote by increasing the cost of keeping that land undeveloped.
Phew.
It's funny, because when the land value tax came up for a popular vote in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the "antis" sent out broadsides, TV adverts and newspaper full-page screeds against LVT.
The message was, literally "Don't tax our gardens, don't build skyscrapers in our children's back yards." Oh, yes, they also said, let's not force churches to raze their naves and put up giant buildings to pay their land tax.
Luckily, the citizens saw through it, and voted for LVT 2 to 1!
JV, good stuff! But the whole atmosphere is different over here in the UK, you'd struggle to get one-vote-in-four in favour.
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