What a splendid bit of alliteration by the BBC! The article continues...
Communities in England will get the power to decide where no shops, offices and homes are to be built, the government will announce.
Under the plans, local referendums will be held, which could force councils to adopt "neighbourhood plans" to block all new developments. The government will also offer financial incentives to encourage the "right kind of development", primarily "none".
Slow lane
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said this would mean "more people-planning for no new developments and less politician-planning for no new developments... For far too long local people have had too little say in turning down planning applications, and the planning system imposed bureaucratic zero targets by distant officials in Whitehall and the town hall. We need to change things... so there is more direct democracy and less bureaucracy in the system. These reforms will become the building blocks of the Big Society. Except there won't be any building - just blocks, mainly."
Hard shoulder
The Localism Bill, to be unveiled later, says residents can set out an overall plan for no new development in their area, which will then be voted on in a referendum. This will allow voters to decide where no building takes place and that all green spaces should be protected.
Councils will then have to adopt the neighbourhood plans, which would be put on a "fast track" to planning refusal, meaning urgent projects can be turned down immediately. The government is asking for 12 local authorities to volunteer to take part in trials.
Eighty mile tailback
Greg Clark, minister for planning and decentralisation, added: "We want local people to be able to impose their desire for farmland around their home town to remain farmland for all eternity. These reforms offer a scope for self-determination which previously local politicians were keen to impose on their voters' behalf. Localism in refusing planning will create the freedom and the incentives for those places that don't want to grow, not to do so, and for others to suffer the consequences. It's a reason to say 'no.'"
I Don't Know Why They Call Them 'Thinktanks'...
2 hours ago
13 comments:
This is 'localism' being highjacked by 'home-owner-ism'. Not really what Carswell and Hannan intended is it?
Wankers.
It's a shame, with one extra step it would be good:
Provide a method of rewarding all those "locals" that potentially oppose. Maybe by designating a vastly limited distance from the development site from which adjacent land owners can object, and specifying that all must receive the same, so a single hold out can't get a better deal. Then the developer can simply hand over cash/benefits to them in exchange for permission.
I realise that it's legalised bribery... but in a good way.
It's impossible with the current arrangements because too many people need bribing.
L, agreed, but the elite have to keep bribing the voters, and in political terms, this is a rich seam of gold.
OP, that seems like a half-way decent free market solution. It's a bit like negative LVT, in fact we could still have that on top of LVT (if we had LVT...)
"Pickles promises people's planning power"
He does nothing of the sort! If he did, the first line of the article would read: "Communities in England will get the power to decide where shops, offices and homes are to be built, the government will announce."
@ OP
That's just bribery of the ordinary man/woman, not any public official. I have no problem with developers bribing people to not object to planning (providing its not for super ugly developments that will bring down the neighbourhood)
SW, while OP's idea clearly 'makes sense', it is still Georgism turned on its head.
The Georgists say: occupy the land that you want and can afford and pay rent to 'the community' or 'the nation' to compensate them for being excluded. So underlying this is the assumption that all land belongs to 'the community' or 'the nation' (which seems perfectly reasonable to me).
While the Home-Owner-Ists always say that 'their' land belongs to them exclusively, somehow they see themselves entitled to compensation if somebody else wants to build something on their own land. So underlying this is the assumption that a neighbour's land somehow belongs to you (even though yours belongs to you alone), which is a bizarre inverse Georgism. "What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own".
Is there a quid pro quo where developers are allowed to develop already-developed land freely?
BE, it was OP's idea, not mine, trot over to his 'blog and ask!
Communities - Common Purpose in other words.
MW. I do agree with your precept that I should not be allowed to control my neighbours 'land'. But. It would be unreasonable for my neighbour to blight my 'land'. There might need to be some test of 'reasonableness' to arbitrate between 'landowners'.
I've always understood a 'freehold' to be a rent free lease in perpetuity from the Crown. So we already don't own the land we live on. This technical nicety seems to me to reinforce the concept of landownership being rental from the 'State'.
L, yes, there has to be arbitration, and I'd be the last to say we should abandon qualitative planning regulations.
But on Planet LVT, the council wouldn't allow something really stupid to be built as this would depress overall rental values (and thus their tax revenues). And it they do, well hey, at least you get a reduction in your LVT bill in future.
JH, I find 'the community' to be so overused as to be meaningless, so you can choose any collective noun you like - the people, the nation, the state, the government, the community, society in general etc.
MW However - I still worry a lot about bureaucrats being in charge / having power over 'qualitative' planning judgements. Most bureaucrats are competely useless and/or failed architects who love meddling with someone elses inspiration.
Oh Well. Hey ho for the human condition.
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