It's difficult to know where to start with this article in The Evening Standard...
A Town Hall is poised to ban open-plan design in new housing developments because it is unpopular with Asian families.
A six-month investigation by Tower Hamlets found affordable units in the borough — aimed at key workers and people on low incomes — were vacant. But there are more than 22,000 people on its housing waiting lists.
The council believes this is because many families, particularly those of Asian origin, are not interested in homes with a combined kitchen and living space. A report on the problem says: “Separate provision would be much more suited because the [Asian] lifestyle requires separate seating space for male and female visitors and also the type of food cooked, heavy in oil and spices, which can have strong odours.”
Despite the borough's large Asian community — almost 37 per cent of the population, according to the latest census — only 12 per cent of the open-plan units were sold to Asian buyers. Almost 70 per cent of those sold recently have gone to white people.
Tower Hamlets is now set to alter its planning guidance to specify the need for separate rooms in all new developments. The Greater London Authority has recommended separate living and kitchen areas in large family units...
Developers often prefer open-plan designs because they are cheaper to build. But if they fail to find the extra space in family-sized affordable homes in Tower Hamlets, they are unlikely to win planning permission.
Waiseul Islam, chairman of the council's group on affordable home ownership, said: “Overcrowding and the demand for social housing have continued to rise locally, and shared-ownership schemes designed to assist people into home ownership haven't been as successful as anticipated.”
... so I don't think I'll even start, because it would take me all afternoon.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Wrong on so many levels ...
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12 comments:
mmmm "how many families can we fit in here?".... I've seen it, believe me.
A perfectly sensible idea.
If the state didn't step in then builders would be building houses that no one wanted to buy.
The horror! A planning department that is actually doing some planning!
"A Town Hall is poised to ban open-plan design in new housing developments because it is unpopular with Asian families" This is typical journalese. For a start, it is not all new developments, simply so-called "affordable housing". "Affordable housing" is usually housing that the developer doesn't want to build and is only doing so because the council has made it a condition of the planning permission. The council isn't doing this for fun, or because it hates property developers, it's doing it because it wants to get some homeless people housed. If the local homeless want affordable housing with separate kitchens and living areas instead of open plan affordable housing, then that is what the council will ask for as part of its granting of planning permission for the rest of the development.
Alternatively, you could say that the homeless should take what they're offered and be grateful, but given that "affordable units in the borough — aimed at key workers and people on low incomes — were vacant. But there are more than 22,000 people on its housing waiting lists." you'd probably have to force them to and sod the gratitude.
Bayard, hang about here, even by the council's own admission, 63% of the population (and presumably 63% of those on waiting lists) are non-Asian and who would prefer open plan kitchen/dining (I know that I do).
So were the council to demand a 37/63 mix, then that's fine, but to "ban" open-plan means a 100/0 mix and that the Asians are clearly being prioritised and pandered to and the wishes of the majority ignored.
And that's simply wrong, wrong, wrong. That's what drives people to vote BNP.
I don't think it follows that the non-asian waiting-listees would prefer open plan. My experience of having to defend my decision to make a barn conversion open-plan against the criticism of most of my friends indicates otherwise. I was pushed into making that decision by layout restraints; personally I prefer to keep the cooking smells in the kitchen. We don't know that the journalist hasn't singled out Asian families' preferences because it makes better copy.
wv: bless!
B, OK, each to his own, but if you were a builder building on spec, would you do every flat with separate kitchen just to pander to a minority, or would you go for half-and-half?
An awful lot of small newly-built flats seem to have a living room with kitchen along one wall, often with insufficient space for a dedicated dining area.
It's not to my taste at all - far too bed-sitty for my liking.
But that's just a matter of personal taste. I hate it and would never choose such a design, yet I have neighbours who bought their flats because they love the layout.
It's got absolutely nothing to do with legitimate planning considerations.
It was the white working class who resisted open-plan layouts in the 1960's, prefering to have a parlour for Sunday Best.
Property developers are not only under commercial pressure to build nasty little crowded 'units', the government, some while back, decided that we would all be better off with a higher headcount per acre.
In my 20s, in London, one of my favourite places was me mate Denzils house; this was a big old north London terrace ( 1890s ). His family was Goan Catholic, matriarchy, where life centred around food, cooked and eaten in the large kitchen, more or less 24/7.
Banned, open plan one way or another, you're coming out with some classic Home-Owner-ist stuff here:
"Property developers are not only under commercial pressure to build nasty little crowded 'units', the government, some while back, decided that we would all be better off with a higher headcount per acre."
The reason there are more people per acre is because the NIMBYs threaten to march on Parliament every time a single square inch of The Hallowed Greenbelt is built on. It is not quite so difficult getting planning for brownfield sites, so that's where they build.
So higher headcount is not the government's fault, it is the NIMBYs' fault.
The reason why property developers build 'nasty little crowded units' is because it is so difficult getting planning and so building land is very expensive. For a given selling price £x (which is fixed by the amount of money people have), the bigger the land cost/value £y and hence the lower the amount £z that can be spent on the actual building.
So that is not the property developers' fault, it is the NIMBYs' fault.
It is then the height of hypocrisy for the Home-Owner-Ists and NIMBYs to then say "We oppose new developments because they are inferior to the houses that were built in the good old days when planning was much easier to get". That just makes things worse.
There was me thinking that people came to live here because they liked the way we lived; you live and learn.
If people really are homeless then they won't be arguing the toss about whether the house they are being offered is open plan or not. This isn't about homelessness its about providing cheap subsidised housing to build up the clent state.
Having said that, I don't have a problem with planners looking at what people prefer for future builds as long as we get a true cost benefit analysis. The extra costs cold be balanced by having a more harmonious community.
And Mark, you are wrong here:
The reason there are more people per acre is because the NIMBYs threaten to march on Parliament every time a single square inch of The Hallowed Greenbelt is built on.
The will march on Parliament as soon as anyone even mentions that they might be thinking about building in the green belt.
Mark, I think you'll find that in the past, when planning controls were absent and the free market reigned in housing, headcounts per acre in the cities were a lot higher than they are now.
To reply to your reply: we don't know it's a minority because we are not told what percentage of non-asians don't like open plan,(or, for that matter, what percentage of asians like it) but "Council panders to foreign minority" makes a much better story line than "Council changes planning regs to suit majority" Note that what it says "The council believes this is because many families, particularly those of Asian origin, are not interested in homes with a combined kitchen and living space." All that says is the percentage of open-plan haters is higher amongst Asians. All the rest is implication. Note also the totally irrelevant comment by a man with a Muslim name at the end. This story has been spun like a reel of cotton. Yes it is wrong on so many levels, but most of them are in the way it's been written.
Mark, thank you for your response; your long-running debate on property ownership is one that I have generally avoided, in part because it is so time consuming but also because I don't generally know enough to comment upon it.
I therefore withdraw from this particular topic.
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