From yesterday's Evening Standard:
Housing minister Grant Shapps has announced a scheme where local councils will be offered a bonus sum from central government, say £9,000, for each planning consent granted. Critics fear that residents in wealthier areas in and around the capital may simply end up agreeing to pay more council tax to make up for the shortfall in those bonuses in return for keeping the developers out.
At first blush, that looks like the Law Of Unintended Consequences in action, but maybe he's already mapped this out. A few facts and figures to set the scene:
1. Even in the absence of net immigration, with increasing life spans and a growing economy, we would expect the UK's housing stock to increase by (say) two per cent every year. So the natural rate of construction would be one new home for every fifty existing homes each year.
2. The £9,000 figure is of course plucked out of the air, and Council Tax is also a completely made up figure that covers about ten per cent of the cost of 'local services' (ninety per cent is central government grants).
3. So let's assume that the NIMBYs in an area decide they'd rather pay an extra 1/50 x £9,000 each = £180 in Council Tax than allow a few new homes to be built.
4. That's a policy fail, but what happens if next year the figure doubles; and doubles again the year after that? Would NIMBYs really be prepared to pay an extra £1,000 or £2,000 each year each to prevent any new homes being built?
5. Just to up the ante, they could make the charge explicit - if you want to vote "No" to new development, you have to hand over the banker's draft there and then at the polling station. If the NIMBYs win the popular vote, all the money gets dished out to everybody who voted "Yes" to new development.
6. NIMBYs make up (say) eighty per cent of the population, so if the break even figure is £1,000 a year, everybody in the minority who voted "Yes" would bank £4,000 a year until such a time as the NIMBYs caved in.
7. So even if this led to little or no development, the priced out generation would be handsomely compensated for the inconvenience of having to live in a smaller home; delay starting a family; having a longer commute time etc etc.
8. What is that break even point? There's only one way to find out, and Captain Shapps is exactly the man to pilot us into the unknown...
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7 comments:
Finite amount of land /Infinite number of people = cultural disaster
You can vote to turn the whole of the UK into South London if you like but I would sooner emigrate.
Like my parents, I bought small, worked hard on my house, sold at a profit when I needed to and moved up a bit in size. I didn't expect a 3 bed semi on some crappy soulless Wimpey estate to land in my lap. This is perhaps the worst planning idea ever to come out of government. A charter for vandalism unless you believe building on every bit of green and huge dormer towns are the way to go. I pity my grandchildren growing up in Englands grey and unpleasant cesspit.
Do you know, I really am starting to sincerely believe that the world, and especially government, has gone stark staring bonkers mad.
This is the maddest idea to solve a genuine issue I have ever heard.
But of course it keeps the power central, so from Shapps' point of view, it is sane.
Tell me Mr W, wouldn't simply converting the whole boiling thing to LVT be a whole lot easier and saner?
Well if the local votes to grant planning idea goes through then it certainly could end up being a consequence, don't think at many of those that live "up in t' posh bit" in Sheffield are likely to want to grant any planning consent in their area. At a push one off self-builds but not to "let the developers in" certainly not.
If the whole "localism" spin from Scameron is a load of hogwash, I can see councils going over the top and granting too much planning consent in stupid areas against the wishes of residents. Most likely for more bloody flats (or appartments as we call em these days to make em sound less like the shite they are)
People want 3/4 bedroom houses with a nice garden and a good view. Councils are too stupid to manage the planning process to accomodate this and NIMBYs are too rigid in allowing planning through, they would do better identifying to councils good sites to use for new housing (away from their own house of course they are NIMBYs after all....)
"they would do better identifying to councils good sites to use for new housing (away from their own house of course they are NIMBYs after all....)"
I tried that once, when I was on the Town Council. A developer owned a patch of ground on the top of a hill. As a sweetener he was going to provide a bit of "bypass" to the town, that actually fed traffic back into residential streets. The cry was "the town needs homes or it will die". I pointed out that the houses could just as easily be built at the bottom of the hill, close to the railway station and the bypass could then go all of the way round the town and not half way, but was told "but no-one's asking to build houses at the bottom of the hill". Planning, what planning?
"6. NIMBYs make up (say) eighty per cent of the population,"
In your neck of the woods perhaps, but nationally, I'd say more like 20%, but a 20% that makes its presence felt.
L, the idea, in isolation, is a disaster zone, but if you keep honing it and refining it to make it more sensible... all roads lead to LVT.
SW: "People want 3/4 bedroom houses with a nice garden and a good view." Count me in! And a bit of off-street parking would be nice, and not too far from the shops, school & station.
B, good anecdotal. As to prevalence of NIMBYs, I hope you are right but fear you are wrong - the idea is to make them put their money where their mouths are.
I think your sums are off. I believe the size of the incentive was supposed to be the equivalent of the Council Tax for six years, so, say, £1500 per house per year.
So, in the first year the incentive would only be 1/50 x £1500 = £30 Council Tax each. After six years it would reach the £180 you mention, but that's where it maxs out, as in year 7 you stop receiving the incentive on the homes from year 1 (but start picking it up on the new year 7 homes).
Anon, maybe, but you missed my logic:
1. Councils get 5 times as much money from central government as they do from C Tax.
2. So 50 NIMBYs in a village all paying £1,000 C Tax also receive £250,000 from c govt.
3. Rewarding 'good' behaviour is the same as fining 'bad' behaviour.
4. So instead of offerin £x extra per year (whether that is £30 or £180 is irrelevant) is the same as fining each NIMBY £30 or £180.
5. The easiest way to fine them is to curtail the £250,000 c govt grants (99.99999% of which is paid by people not living in the village, several of whom might like to move there if houses were available).
6. So in Year One,c govt. says one household wants to build a house in your area - if you NIMBYs vote down this planning application, we cut your c govt grant by (say) £10,000 (that's £40 on every NIMBY's c tax).
7. If the NIMBYs put their money where their mouth is for once, next year the c govt say 'If you refuse this planning, we cut your grants by another £20,000' and so on.
8. It may well be that all NIMBYs across the whole country are happy to pay an extra £5,000 a year in c tax to ensure that nothing ever gets built anywhere near anyone ever. In which case c govt has £100 billion extra to repay debts, cut other taxes, whatever.
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