Transcript Aberdeen - Big Society, Localism & Housing

The Legal Geography of Housebuilding
Antonia Layard
(Funded by an ESRC Grant on
Localism, Law & Governance)
‘I imagine if we were all assembled again in 10
years’ time we’d still be talking about the
challenge of making sure that our housing
supply kept up with housing demand and we’re
all legislators here and we all have a
responsibility to the next generation.’
On top of this we’re also pulling out all
the stops to get Britain building, having
already delivered 170,000 new
affordable homes since 2010, with
further plans that will lead to the fastest
rate of affordable housebuilding for 2
decades.
The ‘God trick’
Who are the actors?
National Government
Local Authorities
Neighbourhoods
Individuals (with legal personality)
Re-scaling and re-hierarchisation
Cala Homes litigation
“This decision may
result in developers
challenging
unfavourable
planning decisions
where the abolition
of Regional Spatial
Strategies was given
undue weight or
wrongly taken into
account as a material
consideration. If you
believe you are
affected by this
decision, contact us.”
NPPF – ‘guidance’ (material
consideration); ‘golden
thread’; 5 year + buffer land
plans (boost significantly)
Fox Strategic Land and Property v Cheshire East Council
[2014] PAD 4
Stratford upon Avon DC v Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government (JS Bloor
(Tewksbury) Ltd [2014] JPL 104
Calling In
‘Strategic’
‘More than
local’
The results of deconstruction politics are
serious. Postmodernism celebrates its lack of
global vision. The postmodernists defend
their position with the claim, "But there are
no Grand Narratives." However, the
opposition is not playing that game. It has
belief systems, meta-narratives that allow
theories of power, of action. When we look
around, everyone else is operating as if there
were Grand Narratives.
Joel Handler, Presidential Address to the Law
and Society Association, 1992
Regulatory Capture?
Despite comprehensive planning legislation, over the past
40 years governments have become increasingly
dependent on the private sector to initiate development.
That explains why more market-orientated forms of
planning can be traced back at least to the early 1980s,
when government circulars on housing land release began
to reflect the interests of those in the private sector
responsible for housing production. In this sense,
increased concern with market signals within planning
policy is not entirely new, but rather represents the most
recent capture of the relevant technical agenda by
development interests. (Adams, 2011)
Solutions?
• Need to conceptualise “housebuilding companies
as profit seeking organisations with a diverse
range of objectives, the most crucial of those
being the survival of the organisation itself”
(Karadimitriou, 2013)
• Recognise market is socially constructed (Adams
& Tiesdell, 2010)
• Contracts/planning
• Tax (BTL, SDLT, AET and NHB/Help to Buy)
• Bottom line = profitability
Barratt has seen its share price increase 23% since the start of
the year as it, along with the other U.K. house builders, has
benefited from the U.K. government's "Help to Buy" and
"Funding for Lending" schemes. It was last in the top index
between June and December 2007. (Wall Street Journal, March
5, 2014)
Repeat Players
‘repeat players’ have “distinct advantages:
Briefly, these advantages include: ability to
structure the transaction; expertise,
economies of scale, low start-up costs;
informal relations with institutional
incumbents; bargaining credibility; ability to
adopt optimal strategies; ability to play for
rules in both political forums and in litigation
itself by litigation strategy and settlement
policy; and ability to invest to secure
penetration of favorable rules” Mark Galanter,
“Why the haves come out ahead” 1974/5.