A new draft PPG3 aims to give planners the right to dictate density, design and mix. It is expected this month as part of a raft of prescriptive guidance. Are we looking at an interventionist programme for handing officers new powers?
Government planning policy on house design never used to be prescriptive. That is to change. Between a tough reworking of PPG 3 and several "design compendia", advice will go from being about weeding out the bad to eliminating the mediocre. Which brings us to the Urban Task Force, headed by Labour's favourite architect Lord Rogers. Its interim report on 13 January tell us what to expect early this summer.

Anyway, it is PPG3 that will really count. A new draft for consultation was prepared by officials just before Christmas but ministers felt it was too long. It is currently being tightened up. It could emerge this month. Let's look at the changes to come.

Existing advice

PPG3 insists that "developers should aim for a high quality of design and landscaping in all new housing developments. A well designed scheme that respects the local environment can do much to make new housing more acceptable to the local community. a good scheme will produce buildings which are well designed for their purpose and for their surroundings." PPG3 is keen on planning briefs as aide memoires for developers to draw attention to site characteristics and the importance of "appropriate materials in particularly sensitive areas".

Planning authorities, says PPG3, should consider the overall scale and density of the development; the height and massing of its various elements; the layout of the scheme and its landscaping; and access and parking arrangements.

But the existing PPG3 blows cold on detailed design controls. "While it will rarely be justifiable for local planning authorities to use the development control system to impose controls over detailed design, they should reject obviously poor designs which are out of scale or character with their surroundings".

Planning authorities are also reminded to follow the advice in DOE Design bulletin 32 (The layout of residential roads and footpaths). In case you missed it, this was updated with a companion guide restricting the use of the cul-de-sac in September.

PPG3 goes on to insist that while planners "may need to control aspects of the design of new housing developments where these clearly have an impact on neighbouring development or on the general character of neighbourhood", this should not carry over to what the advice terms as "functional requirements".

In other words provision of garages, internal space requirements and the size of gardens are a matter for the developer. In addition, planning authorities are specifically warned against specifying layout - or housing mix except "where there are specific planning reasons for such control and in doing so they should take account of marketing considerations".

Revised PPG3

Last year the Commons environment committee investigated housing policy and published a critical report. The all-party committee argues that the government should sharpen up its advice.

In particular the MPs insisted that local authorities should be required: to adopt appropriate densities and car parking provision for urban areas; to end the application of rigid maximum housing densities and minimum car parking provision. Government, said the MPs, should give clear guidance on how local authorities should ensure a mix a housing types, tenures and densities.

Ministers largely agreed. The new look PPG3 will, they insist, have a much clearer set of objectives, including:

  • providing sufficient housing;
  • creating mixed communities and providing greater choice of types of housing;
  • creating more sustainable patterns of development, both within and outside existing urban areas; and
  • improving the quality of the urban residential environment.
The government has also made it clear that it wants to see local authorities undertaking so-called "urban capacity studies". These will reassess the capacity of urban areas and allocate sites to accommodate more housing.

Density, car parking and housing mix

The MPs had a lot to say on this; ministers have made it clear that the revised PPG3 will take this on board. The official mantra goes like this: "The Government is concerned about current practice with regard to densities of development, the amount of car parking required by local planning authorities and the layout of many new housing developments. The government agrees that advice is needed and that higher densities should be achieved on both previously-developed and greenfield sites. This will have implications for urban capacity studies."

The Urban Task Force reiterates that and the publication of Sustainable Residential Quality by the Government Office for London and LPAC in early 1998 pre-empts both, even showing how to design by abandoning UDP parking allocation. Which is what they did for Prescott's political limo, the Greenwich Millennium Village.

Ministers have added: "The Government proposes to give clear guidance on the issues of the mix of types and sizes of housing in different locations to extend the choice of housing and lifestyles that greater variety of housing provides. This should also help to better meet the variety of household types and the needs of the growing number of one-person households".

Finally, a word about quality

Both the Urban Task Force and an earlier 28-page guide by The House Builders Federation, the Planning Officers Society and the DETR have a lot to say about design "quality". Let's look at the latter, Housing layouts - lifting the quality. This recognises that the most significant obstacles to lifting the quality of layouts are : l rigid highways standards;

  • developers' reliance on house types; and
  • rigid dimensional planning standards.
It suggests local planning authorities should produce concise "concept statements" for sites, which would be the forerunner to a development brief. "Briefs offer the best way of establishing design objectives before land values are fixed, but they must emphasise creative opportunities and options, and seek to liberate design skills."

The document makes the point that "bad design can increase land values. Overdevelopment with uniform house types laid out on minimum plots, in schemes that ignore site characteristics and local identity, will maximise the land value. Good design does not necessarily increase costs, but it is rarely able to match the land value achieved by bad design. It is therefore essential that quality targets are established before land values are fixed".

PPG3 will be trying to square that particular circle.

Source

Building Homes