Turn redundant high streets into housing, says think tank
Policy Exchange calls for planning reform
Run-down high streets filled with empty stores and charity shops would have new life breathed into them if the commercial premises could be converted into homes, a report claims today.
The Policy Exchange think tank is calling for planning rules to be relaxed so changing a premises’ use from shop to residential is simple.
This would solve the housing shortage without greenfield sites being concreted over, it argues.
The report, More Homes: Fewer Empty Buildings, proposes that, as part of a strategy for growth, the government should reform the Use Classes Order to make it much easier to move buildings and land from use classes A (retail) and B (employment) to C3 (dwelling houses).
Such a step would be part of a wider programme of planning reform for which Policy Exchange has been arguing since 2005, the aim of which is to move away from the current top-down ‘plan-led’ system towards a collaborative and flexible model that delivers both more and better development.
The report’s co-author Alex Morton said: “Councils are holding back the conversion of vacant and under-used urban space into housing. Relaxing the planning rules to make it easier to convert commercial property would encourage investment, increase regeneration and create large numbers of jobs.
“We have rates of vacancy among commercial buildings nearly six times that of empty housing. That is a major indictment of our current system.
“Just because a building has always been a shop or offices shouldn’t have to mean it stays that way forever.”
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Readers' comments (6)
As a regular user of charity shops, I believe that they should not be lost. However, the most vacant areas of our high streets are those floors above shops. The access being only from the front, floors above become vacant since the shop will not give up a 1meter passage way to provide upper floor access. some form of high level rear or above street access path may be an answer.
It is refreshing that architects are making use of charity shops to survive the recession. But my local Oxfam has totally run out of black clothing.
definitely but how long as it taken to come to this decision. the pros are having residential at ground level improves security in an area, but landlords should have to prove it is not possible to rent the retail or office at a reasonable rent.
“Just because a building has always been a shop or offices shouldn’t have to mean it stays that way forever.”
A valid point, which seems to be a slightly different tack to that suggested by the headline and if a building can be appropriately reused then it should be.
However, I should hope this think-tank and other Government SpADs aren't planning on attacking the beleaguered high street further. They have already been decimated by the enforcement of zealous parking restrictions and high parking charges, not to mention the bully-boy tactics of out-of-town developer-led shopping centres and supermarkets.
High streets create high density, mixed-use zones that are local centres, they act as enablers for sustainable communities. They provide services, employment and a range of accommodation, often accessible within a short walk, bus journey or bicycle ride of many homes.
The decline of the High Street is a real concern that MPs and the planning system need to address. Introducing housing into vacant commercial premises such as redundant retail units may prove to be a sticky plaster for a gaping wound as there is no point in increasing housing if there are no local services to sustain the increased population, you just end up with another area of commuter belt, more cars and more journeys to get to and from work.
Why don't these think-tanks address the housing shortage by tackling housing quality, local job creation, the buy-to-let speculators, the high number of empty houses that are currently failing into disrepair, and look at tenancy rights to ensure people can settle where they choose? Perhaps these issues are too big so it is best to ignore them?
Converting commercial rights to residential rights will not produce successful regeneration, only another residential district demanding inefficient and duplicated services and where transport and energy mistakes of the past are repeated.
The principle of mixed use development is so well justified and established, it is a wonder it is today not taken for granted as the only route for rehabilitation of areas that died as the lifeblood of community bled out when only financial terms prevailed. Misguided planning perceptions that denied mixed use rights ignored centuries of history in which man organically developed communities according to need.
At an urban planning level, the restrictive thinking of the past has to give way to a flexible system of mixed use rights (commercial, residential, even urban farming and energy production) which presents the only route to recreating self-sufficient and sustainable urban environments efficient in services requirements and energy use. In rewriting rights toward the revival of these areas the only real exclusion vigorously applied should be the total exclusion of property ownership by absentee landlords.
At the individual project level, investors may fund development but ownership should be conditional upon local involvement in either commerce or residence or both so that the motivation for participation rests upon more than the old, and proven destructive, single bottom-line of profit. Regeneration should be guided by community in cooperatives adapting the principle and methods of co-housing so that the capital growth profits are realized as equity rooted in their community and environment and not drained off to an unrelated 'elsewhere'.
At a state and local authority level incentives and assistance toward implementing this process should recognize that a stable and functional society requires ownership and a sense of belonging. This leads to real communities, real productivity from which arises a stable tax base to continue the cycle.
It is globally accepted that sustainability is measured against a functionally balanced triple bottom line of social, environmental and financial performance. We know what to do. All we have to do is do it.
After massive decay, Johannesburg is experiencing unprecedented urban regeneration in this way. Other cities such as Philadelphia, have also paved the way. The pioneer days of urban regeneration are over, the principle and methods tried and proven. Adapt them locally. Allow people the freedom to do it. Autocratic days are over.
I say YES. What makes High Street precincts viable are customers. The greater the demand for the service, the more viable the supply becomes. Despite Elizabeth Cox stating that she supports the NO camp, the penultimate paragraph of her article suggests otherwise.
Sustainable living can only come about through a mixture of a residential community with convenience shopping. Protection of the High Street is an outdated concept. Councils need to encourage development to offset the blight of Urban decay.