Solving level crossing problems in built up areas through wider urban redevelopment

[BayPaul]

Interesting. I certainly would not want to see any more of this; it is an affront to the idea of freehold. It is unavoidable sometimes (e.g. if you need to build a railway) but it is totally wrong to do it as a method of changing round a residential layout you just happen not to like or building a shopping centre.

Of course if it's not a nice area, what would be morally better would be to make excellent, above-value offers to the residents, or even consider offering them quality temporary rental accommodation and one of the new units for free which they might then take voluntarily. That's a morally acceptable way to achieve the same thing, but with less developer profit. Almost invariably, compulsory purchase leaves the former owners in a worse position than they were in, often unable to afford an equivalent replacement.

I mus say I found it a little uncomfortable. I am broadly OK with the principle of new developments that are for the wider public good being eligible for CPO, and it would definitely be taking a very railforum-eyed view to say that building a railway is OK, but redeveloping a town centre isn't, but as you say, CPO should be absolutely minimised.

 

[Bletchleyite]

These sorts of schemes might seem attractive in terms of avoiding the political capital cost of building super-Milton Keynes out in East Anglia or somewhere, but they have enormous costs in terms of political capital when you get the television showing endless interviews with photogenic people forced out of their family homes and dumped in flats with huge "management charges" that will inevitably bleed them dry with a far worse quality of life.

I'm not sure I'd build a "super MK" but rather a set of smaller public transport and cycling-oriented new towns centred on rural railway stations. The Marston Vale seems to be ripe for this sort of development. If you imagine the line was down South, New Lane and Bescar Lane might be ripe for that sort of thing. Or perhaps even Cheddington! (Or would that fall into the Chilterns AONB making it difficult?)

It has been done at Long Buckby, which was previously a decent example of a station in a field.

(Notably building MK didn't involve much in the way of demolition, it nicely incorporates old homes alongside the new ones)

 

[HSTEd]

I'm not sure I'd build a "super MK" but rather a set of smaller public transport and cycling-oriented new towns centred on rural railway stations. The Marston Vale seems to be ripe for this sort of development. If you imagine the line was down South, New Lane and Bescar Lane might be ripe for that sort of thing. Or perhaps even Cheddington! (Or would that fall into the Chilterns AONB making it difficult?)

This goes way off topic, into examination of what form we want society to take - but my ultimate goal would be to build an extremely public transport focused city that would be large enough to eventually (after decades) compete with London and form a counterbalance to it's influence.

Small towns obviously can't do this.

In any case, we now live in a society where our engineering capability far outstrips our political willingness - projects should reflect this.

 

[Meerkat]

These sorts of schemes might seem attractive in terms of avoiding the political capital cost of building super-Milton Keynes out in East Anglia or somewhere, but they have enormous costs in terms of political capital when you get the television showing endless interviews with photogenic people forced out of their family homes and dumped in flats with huge "management charges" that will inevitably bleed them dry with a far worse quality of life.

That’s why the linked concept was better - it wasn’t developers ripping off residents, it was a structure for residents to come together to decide a design code for their street (ie changing their 30’s semis into four storey Georgian terraced town houses).
Depending what was agreed you could move out temporarily, sell up and the residents make most of the profit, or at the lowest end just agree to how allow two townhouses on each plot (to a design code) and then it was up to the individual residents whether to do it or not (but still get a value increase from the potential)
But anyway….back on topic the more applicable concept is land pooling - a legal structure is created so that a group of property owners can throw their property into the mix and get an equivalent proportion of the end result or the profit it creates. So NR would get the property owners around Reigate station together and say “we need this area of land (but might pull in a few fringe properties), the public gain from removing the level crossing will get us some slack on planning rules so how about we come up with something that you all make a profit on?”

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Jul 2021 ==

I'm not sure I'd build a "super MK" but rather a set of smaller public transport and cycling-oriented new towns centred on rural railway stations. The Marston Vale seems to be ripe for this sort of development. If you imagine the line was down South, New Lane and Bescar Lane might be ripe for that sort of thing. Or perhaps even Cheddington! (Or would that fall into the Chilterns AONB making it difficult?)

I have a concept of playing hard ball on basket case stations - “You guys build enough to make the station viable or we close the station, you choose”

 

[zwk500]

But anyway….back on topic the more applicable concept is land pooling - a legal structure is created so that a group of property owners can throw their property into the mix and get an equivalent proportion of the end result or the profit it creates. So NR would get the property owners around Reigate station together and say “we need this area of land (but might pull in a few fringe properties), the public gain from removing the level crossing will get us some slack on planning rules so how about we come up with something that you all make a profit on?”

This just sounds like a jackpot for Lawyers and property developers, to the detriment of NR and the local taxpayers.

I have a concept of playing hard ball on basket case stations - “You guys build enough to make the station viable or we close the station, you choose”

I like this idea. But what is 'viable', and do you permit railheading to be included?

 

[Meerkat]

This just sounds like a jackpot for Lawyers and property developers, to the detriment of NR and the local taxpayers.

Owners would hire the developers so be in control. Lawyers always gain!!

I like this idea. But what is 'viable', and do you permit railheading to be included?

Not the railway‘s problem! “Do whatever you like, as long as it realistically gives us X passengers”

 

[BrianW]

I'm not sure I'd build a "super MK" but rather a set of smaller public transport and cycling-oriented new towns centred on rural railway stations. The Marston Vale seems to be ripe for this sort of development. If you imagine the line was down South, New Lane and Bescar Lane might be ripe for that sort of thing. Or perhaps even Cheddington! (Or would that fall into the Chilterns AONB making it difficult?)

It has been done at Long Buckby, which was previously a decent example of a station in a field.

(Notably building MK didn't involve much in the way of demolition, it nicely incorporates old homes alongside the new ones)

I think it will be found that this will be the corrollary of East-West rail, to the surprise of locals who want the trains for themselves but without the houses for incoming oiks and without noisy smelly fright (sp!!)
I seem to recall Weston Otmoor, and Bicester Garden City ...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think it will be found that this will be the corrollary of East-West rail, to the surprise of locals who want the trains for themselves but without the houses for incoming oiks and without noisy smelly fright (sp!!)
I seem to recall Weston Otmoor, and Bicester Garden City ...

Bicester has already expanded massively - about 15 years ago it had a small-market-town feel, now it is much larger and feels so.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I assume you live in rented property, as you clearly don't have the emotional bond with your home that most people who own property as a place to live do. One's home is worth far more than its bricks and mortar value.

You couldn't be more wrong with that sentiment if you tried.

But you said they would be compensated fairly - market value isn’t fair if they have no choice to move.
They could have just finished racking up debt improving their home to their desires, then you force them out of that home, leaving them with the debt but not the home of their dreams.
Not getting your money back on improvements is tough if you choose to move, but not fair if you get booted out to make other people money.

If that debt is matched by an increase in market value for the property, then there isn't a problem. The debt would be wiped out by increased CPO payments.

If you're over-developing your property for its market value then you have problems without CPO ever coming into view. You can't plan everything on an assumption you'll live there forever. Developing a property that you own is taking a risk, which can have a payoff. Creating the expectation that people will always get repaid for the amount they put into a building means detaching people from economic reality, and that something is only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it.

These sorts of schemes might seem attractive in terms of avoiding the political capital cost of building super-Milton Keynes out in East Anglia or somewhere, but they have enormous costs in terms of political capital when you get the television showing endless interviews with photogenic people forced out of their family homes and dumped in flats with huge "management charges" that will inevitably bleed them dry with a far worse quality of life.

Especially as people now expect they will be semi regularly ordered locked into their houses by the state in the future.

It is much easier just to bury the railway (either into a trench or into a tunnel) and be done with this, not tear down millions of housing units to avoid building a new city somewhere.
(Even a polder in the North Sea is likely to be more cost effective than mass expropriation and demolition)




The primary reason is the population of Scotland simply isn't growing significantly.

There are also enormous costs in terms of political capital when bright young people aren't able to afford a house where they grew up, despite being better educated and better paid than their parents were at the same time.

There are also enormous costs in terms of political capital when you build on the greenbelt, by adding onto existing towns which are not sized for the new level of population.

There are also enormous costs in terms of political capital when you work out all these new suburban sprawl homes are an environmental and economic disaster. Most new housing estates basically require you to own a car, as they're too far away from existing services and too low density to be able to have their own. When people start having to pay for the carbon costs of heating detached noddy homes (having four walls and your own roof means lots of places for heat to escape) and the costs of driving about, they'll get a fright. The people living in denser urban areas will not.

There seems to be a strong mental block in some people on this thread. They can't imagine towns growing up as well as out. Larger towns and cities need to be built more densely at their centres to be sustainable. However, the process of building up necessarily means replacing existing buildings. Towns and cities across the world have seen buildings in their centres replaced again and again with larger and denser ones as the town grew around them. This didn't use to be controversial. People didn't mind knocking down rows of old cottages to replace them with the then-new terraces and commercial buildings we have today in most towns.

If nothing else, when you grow the town population, you need to have wider roads to handle all the new traffic. Some very historical towns and cities have avoided the need to redraw the road network by creating a sort of inner ring road that divides the old and new areas. However, on the other side of these roads, they started building high density, not sprawl.

 

[alf]

The idea of a level crossing is brilliant:
compared with under or over bridge far cheaper, more direct,
uses minimum land,
visually far better.
often the only solution in tight spots like Egham & Sheen to Barnes.

The one problem is that a small percentage of drivers/ walkers
ignore the lights.

And if we could be sure the red light would be obeyed the “gates down” time could be reduced, increasing road & rail capacity.

So we have to find a way of making sure even drunks, car thieves, pursuing policemen & the disturbed stop.

Is there a way? Punishment/certain conviction, insurmountable physical barriers or traps as on guided bus ways, picture of light jumpers face guaranteed on special websites?

If not and if we want effective railways we have to CPO Egham & Mortlake gardens & garages for bridges.

Over a thousand people have been displaced at Euston for HS2.
There have been no riots, no national headlines. Those Egham railside properties are not the homes of the pushy rich or middle class. It can be done, specially if the payments are value plus x%

 

[Bletchleyite]

Over a thousand people have been displaced at Euston for HS2.
There have been no riots, no national headlines. Those Egham railside properties are not the homes of the pushy rich or middle class. It can be done, specially if the payments are value plus x%

There is a big moral difference between a major transport project (road or rail) which can't avoid a bit of "collateral damage", and replacing one set of freehold housing with another because someone thinks squeezing more housing into the South East is sensible.

If it involved my home, I would see it as "one of those things" if the former resulted in compulsory purchase, but would be very, very angry indeed (probably to the point of organising a campaign of petitions, newspaper reports and other legal protest etc) if it was done for the latter reason, and would certainly be as awkward as possible even if I had to concede in the end. The thing is you can't build major transport projects without a bit of "collateral damage", but you can build houses elsewhere.

The only thing that might sell me on it would be if I were offered a similarly sized property in the new development at no extra cost plus free-of-charge quality rental accommodation in the meantime, but then it won't be as profitable. And there's the issue of leasehold if they're to be flats, too (I would be more interested if England moved to a system of commonhold/condominium ownership instead - leasehold has too many problems - Scotland is already there with its tenement ownership system).

The answer here if the crossing is a problem is to stick the railway down a hole, then you can bridge over it (and probably make money from the air rights above it). Actually, there you go - bury the railway and build flats on top of it, Gerrards Cross Tesco style.

 

[HSTEd]

There are also enormous costs in terms of political capital when bright young people aren't able to afford a house where they grew up, despite being better educated and better paid than their parents were at the same time.

Not everyone wants to live in the same place as their parents.

This is the reality of why urbanisation continues to increase in the UK despite the enormous rise in London property prices.
Despite how insanely expensive it is to live there, people dont' want to live in random small towns.

There are also enormous costs in terms of political capital when you work out all these new suburban sprawl homes are an environmental and economic disaster. Most new housing estates basically require you to own a car, as they're too far away from existing services and too low density to be able to have their own.

This simply isn't true (emphasis mine), if you have the sort of political capital you would need for your scheme of mass forced demolition and reconstruction, you can subsidise public transport into lower-density areas for a very long time.

Suburbia predates the motor car, as Metroland demonstrates.

When people start having to pay for the carbon costs of heating detached noddy homes (having four walls and your own roof means lots of places for heat to escape) and the costs of driving about, they'll get a fright. The people living in denser urban areas will not.

More likely people will switched to forced air heating systems using air sourced heat pumps that will hold down the growth in their heating bills due to the very large COPs that can be obtained.

Towns and cities across the world have seen buildings in their centres replaced again and again with larger and denser ones as the town grew around them. This didn't use to be controversial. People didn't mind knocking down rows of old cottages to replace them with the then-new terraces and commercial buildings we have today in most towns.

Because they were allowed to do that of their own volition.

Their property wasn't seized without their consent and diverted to some scheme that the local government or their neighbours likes.
See Manhattan for a city that was able to densify without massive property seizure.

The only reason cities can't densify today is because planning systems deliberately prevent it from happening.

If nothing else, when you grow the town population, you need to have wider roads to handle all the new traffic. Some very historical towns and cities have avoided the need to redraw the road network by creating a sort of inner ring road that divides the old and new areas. However, on the other side of these roads, they started building high density, not sprawl.

Suburbia does not have to be car dependent, you can just spend slightly more subsidising public transport instead.
This is especially true of newbuild suburbia which could be built to intelligently use land, instead of just squashing down a 70s housing estate to fit more houses in.

 

[Andrew S]

I sort of like this as an idea - I too wish there was a way to replace huge areas of low density housing with well designed, high quality mid density housing. I really don't think this could be a rail-led scheme, though

Exactly. It's nothing to do with level crossings.

 

[Meerkat]

If you're over-developing your property for its market value then you have problems without CPO ever coming into view. You can't plan everything on an assumption you'll live there forever. Developing a property that you own is taking a risk, which can have a payoff. Creating the expectation that people will always get repaid for the amount they put into a building means detaching people from economic reality, and that something is only worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it.

Thats not at all fair. For a start it’s not over developing unless you are intending to sell soon for a profit.
It is optimising a house that you intend to spend years in, so you don’t care if others don’t value those changes at cost. And you take into account how long you intend to stay when deciding how much to spend.
If that future is then taken away from you it is reasonable that you are compensated at above market value.

Suburbia does not have to be car dependent, you can just spend slightly more subsidising public transport instead.

Public transport that replaces cars requires higher densities.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thats not at all fair. For a start it’s not over developing unless you are intending to sell soon for a profit.
It is optimising a house that you intend to spend years in, so you don’t care if others don’t value those changes at cost. And you take into account how long you intend to stay when deciding how much to spend.
If that future is then taken away from you it is reasonable that you are compensated at above market value.

Exactly. The best "use case" for a home is to develop it to your precise needs regardless of the effect on the value.

Therefore, any compulsory purchase should really take into account being able to acquire an equivalent property and to pay professionals to reinstate the modifications in the new place.

I very much suspect that those in favour of this are not homeowners, or are people who are relatively "low down" on the ladder and so do have to consider value as they'll have a few more moves yet.

 

[HSTEd]

Public transport that replaces cars requires higher densities.

Colour me extremely skeptical of such a sweeping remark!

 

[Meerkat]

Colour me extremely skeptical of such a sweeping remark!

Low densities can’t get enough people within walking distance of their shops, stations, work etc so they still require cars. Once they have a car they will use it.
Also to keep people within close distance of a bus stop means lots of (low use) bus stops, which makes the bus too slow to be chosen above the car.

 

[HSTEd]

Also to keep people within close distance of a bus stop means lots of (low use) bus stops, which makes the bus too slow to be chosen above the car.

That depends on the layout of the area - you can obtain relatively low housing density whilst still placing people close to bus stops without placing stops too close together.

[Long thin plots stacked into blocks is an obvious layout]

And if we are building newbuild they don't necessarily have to be buses.

 

[Meerkat]

That depends on the layout of the area - you can obtain relatively low housing density whilst still placing people close to bus stops without placing stops too close together.

[Long thin plots stacked into blocks is an obvious layout]

And if we are building newbuild they don't necessarily have to be buses.

Long thin plots doesn’t sound like marketable low density - may as well have a shorter garden and fit more in.
What else other than buses?

 

[HSTEd]

Long thin plots doesn’t sound like marketable low density - may as well have a shorter garden and fit more in.

Well my parent's plot is ~15m x 100m
I'm not sure its "non marketable".

But it still means ~133 properties per km of road.

What else other than buses?

Well there are numerous solutions, from urban gondolas, through single car VAL/mini metro systems, through buses, through all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well my parent's plot is ~15m x 100m
I'm not sure its "non marketable".

15m is quite wide. This isn't the sort of thing we are looking to build here (if the nonsensical idea did go ahead).

Well there are numerous solutions, from urban gondolas, through single car VAL systems, through buses, through all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

Gadgetbahnen are not generally a solution to very much to be honest.

 

[HSTEd]

15m is quite wide. This isn't the sort of thing we are looking to build here (if the nonsensical idea did go ahead).

Well such a system gets 133 properties per km of service, at the same time as allowing stop spacings to be double the "walkable distance" whatever that is.

Gadgetbahnen are not generally a solution to very much to be honest.

All of the systems I mentioned by name are in operational service?
In a newbuild system we have to consider full lifecycle costs without any existing infrastructure lock in.

I am of the opinion that such a system heavily favours systems with lower manning requirements.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Not everyone wants to live in the same place as their parents.

This is the reality of why urbanisation continues to increase in the UK despite the enormous rise in London property prices.
Despite how insanely expensive it is to live there, people dont' want to live in random small towns.



This simply isn't true (emphasis mine), if you have the sort of political capital you would need for your scheme of mass forced demolition and reconstruction, you can subsidise public transport into lower-density areas for a very long time.

Suburbia predates the motor car, as Metroland demonstrates.



More likely people will switched to forced air heating systems using air sourced heat pumps that will hold down the growth in their heating bills due to the very large COPs that can be obtained.

Because they were allowed to do that of their own volition.

Their property wasn't seized without their consent and diverted to some scheme that the local government or their neighbours likes.
See Manhattan for a city that was able to densify without massive property seizure.

The only reason cities can't densify today is because planning systems deliberately prevent it from happening.



Suburbia does not have to be car dependent, you can just spend slightly more subsidising public transport instead.
This is especially true of newbuild suburbia which could be built to intelligently use land, instead of just squashing down a 70s housing estate to fit more houses in.

Lots and lots of people want to live in the South East of England, because London is a major economic hub for the entire world. The South East as an economic region of 25 or so million people is comparable to Greater Tokyo, the Ile-de-France, the New York Metropolitan Area and so on. It's almost an order of magnitude larger in scale than any other economic region in the UK, so it's fundamentally impossible for us to replace it. It's going to remain relevant globally even when megacities develop in emerging countries like India or Nigeria.

If we're going to provide more housing, then we're going to need to build it somewhere. The amount of land we've got left to build is reducing every year. Meanwhile, demand for housing keeps going up. Redeveloping rows of terraces and semis into flats is not easy for the private market to do on its own because the land boundaries are split up. You can have all the planning approvals in the world but they won't help you if you need a larger plot and there are private owners who are refusing to sell up.

Mass owner-occupation of property isn't necessarily a good thing. This is a good example of it. When properties are owned as investments by institutions (including social housing) the institution is capable of making rational decisions about what is in their best economic interests. Redeveloping an estate so that you can redraw the road network and individual property boundaries is an entirely rational response to changes in the housing market. For a long time, most plots in Manhattan have been owned by institutions, as their values (and sizes!) have been too high for individual owner occupiers to sustain them. That's why they can be so readily redeveloped. Even when adjacent plots are owned by separate institutions, it's a straightforward business transaction to combine together the plots and develop them together for greater profit than would be possible individually.

You don't actually need to subsidise public transport if density is high enough. And indeed, if housing demand is high enough, it can be very profitable to redevelop housing. That's the big economic signal here. If you do the sums and find out that it'll be cheaper to CPO and redevelop, at higher density, the town centre of Egham over its level crossing than it would be to bury the railway and increase public transport subsidies, then that's the economy telling you that the first option is a better option overall. Not doing that option would be madness.

This has happened before, with very positive results. I'm struggling to find a link but a few months or years ago there was an article about a series of neighbours in ex-council flats in London who joined together to redevelop their land. They were all able to get a better property out of it for free, because the replacement development had more flats and their sale covered the cost of all the other works. That scheme was thought up by the residents - I think one of them grew up there but was now an architect - but that does not neatly scale up. You'd need to combine together hundreds of individual properties to make up a reasonably sized development plot, and that means talking to a lot of people who may not know each other at all.

 

[HSTEd]

For a long time, most plots in Manhattan have been owned by institutions, as their values (and sizes!) have been too high for individual owner occupiers to sustain them. That's why they can be so readily redeveloped. Even when adjacent plots are owned by separate institutions, it's a straightforward business transaction to combine together the plots and develop them together for greater profit than would be possible individually.

And yet Manhattan is littered with holdouts that didn't want to sell and yet did not prevent this from happening.

So I'm not sure what allowing neighbours to seize people's property does for this model?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Mass owner-occupation of property isn't necessarily a good thing.

And therein lies the innate bias that has been clear in your contribution to the entirety of this thread. I did think so.

You are not going to find much agreement with that in the people who would lose out through your scheme.

I'd have no great issue with us moving to a rental culture, it has many benefits, but the UK pension system is completely geared up to owning your house outright when you retire, and those who don't are far poorer in retirement. Massive reform would be needed, and a much higher pension to cover continuing to rent when you've retired.

 

[NotATrainspott]

And yet Manhattan is littered with holdouts that didn't want to sell and yet did not prevent this from happening.

So I'm not sure what allowing neighbours to seize people's property does for this model?

Manhattan was also set out on a grid deliberately designed to allow expansion.

And therein lies the innate bias that has been clear in your contribution to the entirety of this thread. I did think so.

You are not going to find much agreement with that in the people who would lose out through your scheme.

I'd have no great issue with us moving to a rental culture, it has many benefits, but the UK pension system is completely geared up to owning your house outright when you retire, and those who don't are far poorer in retirement. Massive reform would be needed, and a much higher pension to cover continuing to rent when you've retired.

Yes, massive reform would be required. The pension system is broken. That does not change the fact that redeveloping highly desirable town centres for higher density would be a better solution than sprawling out into the greenbelt and/or expensively rebuilding other infrastructure to suit them.

That said, the economic side of owner-occupation (which interacts with the pension issue) does not prevent solutions like this. If people are acting rationally, then they are essentially acting as a tenant and a landlord at the same time. When they spend money developing their property, they are doing so as a landlord, and when they are choosing to live there, they are doing so as a tenant. Development spending on your property is only rational when a market tenant would be willing to pay more in rent for that to be done (e.g. adding another bedroom in a loft conversion). With this landlord-tenant split brain, you won't have a problem with a CPO. You'll bank the cash from the CPO and use it to go and take ownership of another property that you'd also be able to justify renting.

So opposition to the idea of CPOs really boils down to:

1. You're not getting enough money, genuinely. This can be very reasonable. There are many tales of ex-council flat RTB leaseholders who have ended up getting only £300k for their flat when the council redevelops it, but they then can't afford the cheapest equivalent new property (£500k) in the replacement development. This can be fixed. There's also general under-valuing of less liquid property types, like what HS2 has faced. It's hard to come up with a price for a one-of-a-kind house unless someone is actually genuinely going to buy it to live in it.
2. You're not getting enough money to cover the over-development you may have done over the years, just because. I'm not sure actually how much overdevelopment is possible in this property market in the areas I'm talking about. Hell, in some areas of London, it isn't over-development to have someone come and dig the ground out from underneath your terrace and garden to provide you with a basement extension! You're never going to struggle to sell a 3 bedroom house that has had a loft conversion turning it into a 4 bedroom house. A purpose-built 4 bedroom house may only be worth more because it's got the possibility of conversion into a 5 bedroom house. Other works (e.g. fitting an accessible lift) might not be valued the same, but these are relatively small amounts of money in the grand scheme of things. Spending £20k on making a £500k house accessible for its owners, even if it won't increase market value, is something that can be managed as it isn't unreasonable. That said, if you're spending that money in the first place, then you'd face this problem when you sell even without a CPO being around, so I don't know how fair it is to say it's a problem of CPOs. You can't actually guarantee you'll live somewhere for as long as you'd like or want to plan for.
3. Sentimentality. People don't want to be moved from the house they/their kids grew up in. This is economically irrational, but emotionally powerful. There's not much you can really do about this other than remembering that every house NOT built because of these oppositions is a house where similar memories cannot be formed. Not building enough housing means lots of younger, poorer families will never get to be too attached to their homes as they'll constantly be shifted around by rising rents.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, massive reform would be required. The pension system is broken. That does not change the fact my opinion that redeveloping highly desirable town centres for higher density would be a better solution than sprawling out into the greenbelt and/or expensively rebuilding other infrastructure to suit them.

Fixed that for you. Not everyone will agree. I certainly wouldn't if you were proposing this for my home.

That said, the economic side of owner-occupation (which interacts with the pension issue) does not prevent solutions like this. If people are acting rationally, then they are essentially acting as a tenant and a landlord at the same time. When they spend money developing their property, they are doing so as a landlord, and when they are choosing to live there, they are doing so as a tenant. Development spending on your property is only rational when a market tenant would be willing to pay more in rent for that to be done (e.g. adding another bedroom in a loft conversion). With this landlord-tenant split brain, you won't have a problem with a CPO. You'll bank the cash from the CPO and use it to go and take ownership of another property that you'd also be able to justify renting.

Can you just confirm my assumption that you are not a homeowner is correct?

It is clear you do not even slightly understand peoples' emotional attachment to and investment in their home. (I'm using the term "home" deliberately, because people who own houses to live in don't talk of property in the cold, hard manner you imply).

If you do not intend to sell in the near future (or at all), investing in your home as a landlord does not make sense. What makes sense is to invest in it so it fits your needs. This will not necessarily add financial value, and nor need it do, because the financial value of your home is only of any relevance if you intend to sell it.

As an example, I removed the bath and fitted a large walk-in shower. This makes the house less attractive to buy (as it's less suitable for a young family, who might otherwise buy a smallish 3-bed terrace) but that's not why I did it, I did it because I hate baths and love a good rain shower with lots of space. Standing in a bath just doesn't substitute. Did it increase the value? No, it probably reduced it a bit as a young family would need to have it redone to fit a bath to bathe the baby. Was it a worthwhile investment? Yes, I enjoy it and am glad I did it every single morning.

So opposition to the idea of CPOs really boils down to:

1. You're not getting enough money, genuinely. This can be very reasonable. There are many tales of ex-council flat RTB leaseholders who have ended up getting only £300k for their flat when the council redevelops it, but they then can't afford the cheapest equivalent new property (£500k) in the replacement development. This can be fixed. There's also general under-valuing of less liquid property types, like what HS2 has faced. It's hard to come up with a price for a one-of-a-kind house unless someone is actually genuinely going to buy it to live in it.
2. You're not getting enough money to cover the over-development you may have done over the years, just because. I'm not sure actually how much overdevelopment is possible in this property market in the areas I'm talking about. Hell, in some areas of London, it isn't over-development to have someone come and dig the ground out from underneath your terrace and garden to provide you with a basement extension! You're never going to struggle to sell a 3 bedroom house that has had a loft conversion turning it into a 4 bedroom house. A purpose-built 4 bedroom house may only be worth more because it's got the possibility of conversion into a 5 bedroom house. Other works (e.g. fitting an accessible lift) might not be valued the same, but these are relatively small amounts of money in the grand scheme of things. Spending £20k on making a £500k house accessible for its owners, even if it won't increase market value, is something that can be managed as it isn't unreasonable. That said, if you're spending that money in the first place, then you'd face this problem when you sell even without a CPO being around, so I don't know how fair it is to say it's a problem of CPOs. You can't actually guarantee you'll live somewhere for as long as you'd like or want to plan for.
3. Sentimentality. People don't want to be moved from the house they/their kids grew up in. This is economically irrational, but emotionally powerful. There's not much you can really do about this other than remembering that every house NOT built because of these oppositions is a house where similar memories cannot be formed. Not building enough housing means lots of younger, poorer families will never get to be too attached to their homes as they'll constantly be shifted around by rising rents.

#3 is very, very important in a culture of home ownership (as the UK is) and you aren't going to change it. Again, I make the assumption that you are not a homeowner so you don't really understand what it is like to be one - that or you're low down on the ladder and so expect to move once or twice more, and so you don't get that value of having found your "forever home".

 

[HSTEd]

Is it really reasonable to assume that housing is only valuable in an economic sense whilst protecting farmland to an extent enormously beyond its economic value?

Farmland is enormously less valuable than housing land, especially low quality pasture.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Can you just confirm my assumption that you are not a homeowner is correct?

It is clear you do not even slightly understand peoples' emotional attachment to and investment in their home. (I'm using the term "home" deliberately, because people who own houses to live in don't talk of property in the cold, hard manner you imply).

If you do not intend to sell in the near future (or at all), investing in your home as a landlord does not make sense. What makes sense is to invest in it so it fits your needs. This will not necessarily add financial value, and nor need it do, because the financial value of your home is only of any relevance if you intend to sell it.

As an example, I removed the bath and fitted a large walk-in shower. This makes the house less attractive to buy (as it's less suitable for a young family, who might otherwise buy a smallish 3-bed terrace) but that's not why I did it, I did it because I hate baths and love a good rain shower with lots of space. Standing in a bath just doesn't substitute. Did it increase the value? No, it probably reduced it a bit as a young family would need to have it redone to fit a bath to bathe the baby. Was it a worthwhile investment? Yes, I enjoy it and am glad I did it every single morning.



#3 is very, very important in a culture of home ownership (as the UK is) and you aren't going to change it. Again, I make the assumption that you are not a homeowner so you don't really understand what it is like to be one - that or you're low down on the ladder and so expect to move once or twice more, and so you don't get that value of having found your "forever home".

You're talking to someone who spent hours last night coming up with a scale-drawn plan for a new custom patterned Marmoleum lino floor in his hallway. In a sense, I am doing something unreasonable. However, I already live in an exceptionally densely populated area where property values continue to increase. My local bus stop won't be a bus stop, but a tram stop come 2023. I also have a car, for better or worse, and I know how useless it is most of the time (pandemic excepted).

The shower-vs-bath thing isn't that dramatic, and you can change it back relatively cheaply if required. There is a strong market for walk-in showers, so I don't see this being a problem in itself. However, if you had put in a hot tub sunken into your back garden, then you'd have a problem.

Is it really reasonable to assume that housing is only valuable in an economic sense whilst protecting farmland to an extent enormously beyond its economic value?

Farmland is enormously less valuable than housing land.

I don't care about farmland. What I care about is that housing is actually sustainable. One of the biggest problems of car-dependent suburbs is that they are awful, awful places to live if your ability to drive a car is taken away. That is a major problem now that many of the early car-dependent suburban dwellers are getting to the age and physical condition where driving is inadvisable or prohibited completely. Take away your car, and your lovely suburban home with a driveway and space to live becomes a prison. Early suburbs within walking distance of public transport (more buses than trains, as buses take you to the things you visit every day) are still viable but newer ones have little or no capacity to sustain public transport. Even taxis are difficult and expensive due to low demand; when everyone has a car, no one needs a taxi!

It is extremely difficult to build new non-car dependent suburbs if all you can do is add housing onto the outskirts of the existing development. When brownfield sites exist, they can be redeveloped, but they will not be available forever.

Building an entirely new town out in the countryside is fine if it's built with high density in the centre. The ideal setup for an urban area is to have flats fronting onto major thoroughfares, but then stepping down to terraced housing in between. You have enough density for services and public transport to thrive on the major roads, but you can still have a more quiet suburban-style life in a terrace nearby. Family houses, flats for young people, flats and assisted living for older people, shops and jobs are all within walking distance of one another.

 

[Meerkat]

3 is very, very important in a culture of home ownership (as the UK is) and you aren't going to change it. Again, I make the assumption that you are not a homeowner so you don't really understand what it is like to be one - that or you're low down on the ladder and so expect to move once or twice more, and so you don't get that value of having found your "forever home".

How important would it actually be if people were paid enough to get something bigger/better?
Most people seem to move way more often than I could handle the stress of!
This isn’t just about density of course - building anew would be a much better way of dealing with energy efficiency and new climatic extremes than adapting current housing stock.