PIP

The causes & consequences of high density housing on Portsea Island

As we all know, Portsea Island is one of the most unique urban settings in the United Kingdom. The perspective shown in the image on the left states three obvious things against a backdrop of population growth. We have a fixed area of land, road areas will not be expanded significantly and there is a relationship between the number of people living on the Island and the number of "resident" cars. Anyone with even the most preliminary appreciation of locational-state issues know that "desirable housing unit densities", or multiple unit constructions such as flats, smaller units or the division of larger houses into multiple units, as applied in other urban areas, cannot be applied as easily on Portsea Island because of the immediate impacts in terms of diminished amenity for residents and increasing difficulties in residential parking.

The causes

Typical transversal (East-West) two way road in Portsmouth where there is only room for one car in any direction at a time. Pedestrian visibility, especially for children, is low, as it is for drivers of vehicles entering such roads from North or South. This chaos has been imposed on the City by bad planning and as a result, even a 20 mph speed limit, is unsafe.

This evolving problem became more evident in the 1960s with trends in car ownership buoyed up by an active second car market. Thus real estate values were becoming a weaker indicator of the likelihood of car ownership. By the 1980s the implications of not having on-site parking in many new constructions were becoming evident driven forward by increasing prosperity and a second car market characterised by good quality reasonably-priced cars flowing off the leasing market. By 1980 it was apparent that there were too few on-site (off-road) residential parking provisions and therefore the areas of operational road space1 were declining because this surface was being used increasingly for parking as well as to support traffic flow. This situation brought with it significant safety issues for both pedestrians and drivers. Since the mid-1990s, because the size of some vehicle classes is increasing (SUVs etc) there is an added issue of increased risk within traffic flow on the existing operational road space¹. In spite of this obvious trend Portsmouth City planners have always been behind this evolutionary curve. During the last 15 years, the City of Portsmouth has followed an agenda of providing planning permission for higher density housing and ignoring residents' pleas to refuse planning permission on such projects. Even by 2008, the City was still not insisting on onsite parking for higher density housing schemes.

The consequences

On balance residents counselling against such projects have been proven right in the light of the current disastrous outcomes of this process. This has given rise to a querying of why the City of Portsmouth continues on a pathway which is destructive of the amenity of residents of Portsea Island, puts at risk the safety of pedestrians and motorists and fails to control the road way clutter in the form of parked cars. There is obviously a problem of competence on the part of the City planning activities both on the part of officials within the administration and councillors on Planning Committees. It is failure in adequate strategic planning and above all an irresponsible attitude to the upholding responsibility for actions and decisions that sustain equity and a balanced equilibrium in supporting constituent preferences and freedom. For the last 15 years or so Planning Committees have been getting things wrong and a tipping point seemed to occur when the residents of Coniston Avenue and Eastern Copnor Road petitioned in 2008 against a high density housing proposal with no on-site parking provisions (see The Coniston Avenue Petition). The Planning Committee process in this case has been documented and analysed and it shows up a shocking disregard on the part of the City officials and councillors for the opinions and preferences of constituents. More details on this process can be found here.

Planning in Portsmouth is becoming farcical as the Planning Committees continue to take a "hard-wired" decisions by ticking boxes to satisfy themselves that any plan meets Government targets and planning regulations. There is an obvious objective to target certain areas of the Island in terms of offloading higher density housing to satisfy targets, not determined by the local constituency, but rather a national government and the particular interests of the individual or company putting forward a proposal.

The City administration and councillors have therefore been involved in proactive decision-making that are characterized by, or have, the following consequences:

marginalized residents from any substantive influence over planning proposals that affect their amenity
created difficulties for residents in finding convenient parking near their homes
increased traffic chaos
decline in safety for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists
extending journey times
distorting the real estate market by creating downward movements in relative property values of existing housing stock
reducing the relative value of properties directly affected by the impact of high density housing
removed green areas

The problem with this state of affairs is that one encounters the problem that the City appears to have been very much the significant part of the problem as opposed to having any role in the solution. This state of affairs needs to change.