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Local Housing Plans: Learning from Great Britain
Local Housing Plans: Learning from Great Britain
253
Housing Policy Debate Volume 7, Issue 2
253
©
Fannie Mae Foundation 1996. All Rights Reserved.
Local Housing Plans: Learning from
Great Britain
David P. Varady
Rutgers University and
University of Cincinnati
Abstract
As the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development refines the new
Consolidated Plans, which replace the Comprehensive Housing Affordability
Strategies, it should examine Britains experience with local housing plans.
Case studies of four best-practice citiesGlasgow, Dundee, Birmingham, and
Yorkhighlight the value of these plans in assessing the success of cities in
their new enabler role.
Five key lessons for American cities emerge from this article. First, these
plans can serve multiple roles beyond bids to central government. Second,
local housing plans should address market-rate as well as below-market-rate
housing issues. Third, American housing plans should use a wider range of
data sources than census information alone and should incorporate housing
market analyses dealing with specific areas and population groups. Fourth,
the stress on implementation and strategy in British plans should be emu-
lated. Finally, aspects of Britains competitive bidding system should be
considered for implementation.
Keywords: Great Britain; Urban planning; Low-income housing
Introduction
Americas record in local housing planning over the past 20 years
has been mixed at best. Most local officials viewed the Housing
Assistance Plans (HAPs), which are required to receive Commu-
nity Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, as a paper
exercise. As the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devel-
opment (HUD) refines the new Consolidated Plans, which re-
placed the Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy
(CHAS),
1
HUD should draw lessons from other countries where
1
According to the final rule published by HUD, the planning activities
embodied in the rule [providing for the Consolidated Plan] are those of the
Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) requirements enacted
by the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (NAHA) and of the
Community Development Plan requirements, added to the Community Devel-
opment Block Grant Program by NAHA (Final Rule 1994). According to
Kathryn Nelson of HUD (1995), the Consolidated Plan does not have as much 254
David P. Varady
housing planning has been more successful. Great Britains
experiences are particularly relevant. The U.K.s system of local
housing planning was instituted at about the same time as
Americas HAP. However, Britains system has proved to be more
sophisticated and has benefited from strong technical guidance
issued by Londons (or Edinburghs) central government to its
localities.
This article describes the emergence of Britains system of com-
petitive local housing plans and seeks to answer seven sets of
questions regarding these plans.
1.
What are the missions of these plans? Are they simply bids
for funds from central government? If not, what other func-
tions do they serve?
2.
What is the scope of the local planning effort? To what
extent do the plans extend beyond low-income housing
issues to middle-income housing issues?
3.
What approaches are used to measure housing problems?
What is the relative importance of housing needs analysis as
compared with housing market analysis (a comparison of
future demand for housing with future supply to identify the
need for new construction)?
4.
How are priorities set for different types of policies (e.g.,
rehabilitation of inner-city tenements versus the redevelop-
ment of peripheral housing estates)?
5.
How are citizens and home builders involved in the prepara-
tion of plans?
6.
To what degree are the plans concerned with implementa-
tion issues (e.g., coordination between housing and planning
agencies, indicators of management performance)?
7.
What is the relative success of neighborhood revitalization
strategies?
Answers to these questions are sought through case studies of
four best-practice British cities: Glasgow (population 672,500),
rigor and oversight regarding priority setting as the CHAS does. The Consoli-
dated Plan decreases the number of things that local agencies have to com-
plete, including the number of income categories that they have to fill out on
forms. Local Housing Plans: Learning from Great Britain
255
Dundee (172,300), Birmingham (1,014,000), and York (123,100).
2
The first three are manufacturing cities that experienced
declines in their industrial base. City leaders attempted to
revitalize local economies as centers for the service sector. In
contrast, York is a regional center and much less dependent on
manufacturing, but the successful conservation of its medieval
core has made it an important tourist destination.
Housing and planning officials at both the city and neighborhood
levels in these four cities were interviewed, as were experts at
British universities and staff from both the Scottish Office and
the Scottish Building Employers Federation.
3
In addition, site
visits to local area housing projects were conducted and relevant
plans and reports were studied, particularly the four most recent
housing plans: Birminghams Housing Investment Programme,
Strategy Statement 1992 (Birmingham City Council 1992),
Dundees Housing Plan 19901995 (City of Dundee n.d.),
Glasgows Housing Plan for the 1990s (Glasgow City Council
1992a), and Yorks Housing Strategy Statement 1993/94 (York
City Council n.d.).
Recent changes in the housing and planning
environment
4
To understand local housing plans, key characteristics of
British housing and planning policy must be recognized. First,
2
The cities were selected based on conversations and correspondence with
British housing experts including Robina Goodlad and Duncan Maclennan
(University of Glasgow); Colin Wood (University of Central England); and
Barry Cullingworth (formerly University of Delaware, now Cambridge Univer-
sity). These experts defined for themselves what constituted best practice.
These four local authorities are not necessarily representative of the approxi-
mately 450 in Great Britain. In fact, the sample is biased toward Scotland and
large urban authorities (all controlled by the Labour Party). While important
lessons can be derived from the experiences of these four, the article lacks the
experience of authorities in southern England, who have had to deal with and
recognize the problems of housing affordability and housing shortage. As one
of the anonymous reviewers of this article noted, southern authorities have
been much more active and not unsuccessful in an enabling approach to
social/affordable housing provision, e.g., through the use of housing associa-
tions, planning powers, low-cost homeownership, etc.
3
There is a danger in a comparative study such as this of relying too heavily
on statements from local officials and, as a result, uncritically accepting their
sentiments. This is especially true today in Great Britain, because of the
increasing importance given to presentation and quality of strategy. I tried
to avoid this problem by corroborating conclusions across multiple interviews,
including national and community officials, in addition to city staff.
4
This section draws heavily from Best (1994). 256
David P. Varady
housing departments are on the District Council level and are
responsible for providing a wide range of housing services, in-
cluding the management of council/public housing.
5
Housing
departments are one part of local authority. The British
use the terms local authorities and housing authorities
interchangeably.
Second, beginning in 1979, the direct provision of housing has
been deemphasized. Housing authorities are losing quality stock
to sitting tenants who are entitled to purchase their homes at a
discounted price. Council housing, which peaked at 30 percent of
the nations homes in 1980, now accounts for 20 percent of the
total. (The comparable figure for the United States is roughly
1.5 percent.) The policy has both positive and negative results.
Many new owners take special pride in their homes and have
made substantial improvements. The policys downside is that it
has reduced the number of rental properties. Local housing
authorities are increasingly seen as enablers that set the strate-
gic context for implementing housing policies but have few
powers to carry out the policies. The enabling function encom-
passes promoting house building,
6
fostering house improvement,
influencing property