PIP

City of Portsmouth Civic Offices
©APE

The construction of high density housing, located within areas of lower density housing combined with a failure to provide any parking for cars has a range of negative impacts:

Pedestrian safety & security
Antisocial behaviour, crime & violence
Compromised emergency services
Declining environmental sustainability
Eroded green space
Compromised potential for green energy solutions
Erosion in amenity
Depressed equity

In terms of low energy green economy provisions the use of high density housing in fact lowers the amount of green energy available per person (e.g. thermal solar and heat pumps) so that high density housing is esentially a means of creating ghettos unable to benefit from future advanced green technologies. Green areas are being removed through the use of gardens for parking using dropped curbs. These two detrmiental impacts on aspects of the natural environment in fact reduce the environemntal sustainability of the population in such dense housing units. The excessive two-sided parking often compromises the ability of service vehicles including fire engines and ambulances from accessing houses, this on occasions can mean the difference between life and death. The declining areas within housing projects which are recreational or pleasant to be in leads to antisocial behaviour, crime and violence amongst young people and this can affect whole neighbourhoods. There is a statistical association between smaller housing units, lower income segments and social issues including drug additction creating a significanct problem associated with the impostion of higher density units. The dropped curve system involved cars crossing pavements and double sided parking pevents people being able to observe on road traffic making crossing more dangerous, especially for old people and children. Overall there is a palpable and observable decline in amenity of those in areas where new higher density housing has been established while making no provisions for parking. The overall outcome of this unacceptable, Soviet style process of social engineering is a depression in the relative value of existing housing stock.

Planning applications are supposed to take into account impacts on amenity and the way of measuring or expressing the nagative impacts on amenity is through reference to the decline in relative property values. On the other hand, planning committees are not required to take into account current property valuations or any changes that might result from the impact of proposals. Such a provision under planning statutes is divisive since residents are provided with no means to protect their freehold assets from value declines imposed upon them by poor planning.

The CAP case, the issue is not to try and estimate house values but rather to evaluate the likely relative decline in property values in comparison with other housing stock on Portsea Island. As parking becomes more problematic and amenity declines one can assume up to a 20% relative decline in property values even although overall property prices might rise in nominal terms. The impact of high density housing can be estimated on the basis of opportunity cost of the relative decline compared with the situaion if there was no high density housing.

For Coniston Avenue alone the opportunity cost comes to £1,250,000 and for surrounding properties impacted by the parking issues and the loss of amenity a further £1,360,000. Overall, the impact of the high density housing in West Side Copnor Road on the surrounding existing real estate values is of the order of £2.50-5.00M. In terms of reduced ability to raise loans based on equity this represents for the existing freeholders a decline in financial liquidity by this same total. This is money that will not be ploughed back into the local economy. The most divisive aspect of this state of affairs is that properties on the Island less affected by the scandalous planning standards will receive windfall relative gains in value as a reult of their relatively more attractive amenity. There is therefore a serious social engineering dimension to the current planning policies.

Sub prime

The current financial crisis was precipitated as a result of house equity-based debt not being paid off by lower income mortgagees as a result of inadequate risk assessment and the over-stretching of family resources. When the Federal Reserve increased interest rates at the end of 2007 the rises in mortage payments surpassed the ability of a sizeable proportion of home buyers. This segment of home buyers became known as the sub prime market. The rises in interest rates and accelerating defaults resulted in property values falling and banks being unable to recover the full values of oustanding loans (mortgages). On Portsea Island, we have not had to wait for rising interest rates to create a sub prime market. This is being created slowly as a result of the declining attractiveness of properties in those areas where Planning Committees permit high density zero parking provision projects to be implemented. To a man and woman be they MPs or local councillors, our representative, so-called, continue to do nothing on the poltical stage to bring abour change so as to terminate this outrage. Instead, they participate in the very decisions that maintain this destructive inertia, not only on Portsea Island, but country-wide.