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The first official estimate of infrastructure costs across the city associated with massive housing development expected over the next decade puts the cost of providing schools and transport links at £217 million.
Surely the developers should be paying for the schools, shop premises, bike paths, railway stations & roads.
Why should council tax payers have to subsidise developers?
Well, there are two ways of raising the money - either the costs are added onto the individual houses being built and paid for by the initial occupiers, or the costs are met by all the city's residents.
I suppose since we don't make people who live in a certain area stump up the cash when their school needs refurbished, the same principle leads these infrastructure costs to be met centrally.
"Making the developers pay" doesn't have much meaning when the houses are sold at total cost + profit margin. At most you can adjust the amount that homeowners will pay the developers.
Except that houses are not sold at some total cost to build plus nominal profit margin (say 5 - 10%). They are sold at market value, which gives the developers a huge profit margin.
Huge profits and no real payback to society. Just another example of the increasing inequality in this country.
"Huge profit margin"
https://www.cala.co.uk/~/media/files/group/cala-annual-report-and-accounts-2014.pdf
Operating margin of 13%. Does that count as huge? Dunno, as I work in a different industry, but it doesn't strike me as being excessive.
"Huge profits and no real payback to society"
Well, they did build the houses that people have bought, so I'd count as delivering something to society.
Interesting that in 2014 Cala only built 66 Affordable & 677 Private versus 209 Affordable 666 Private in 2012.
Could explain why their profits lept from £12m (2012) to £27m (2014)
Could do, as could recovering house markets, recovering lending or a whole load of other externalities.
"Surely the developers should be paying for the schools, shop premises, bike paths, railway stations & roads"
"no real payback to society"
"whole load of other externalities"
(I know those aren't directly related to each other.)
Just some of the things that show how complicated it all is and how those who say 'just leave it to the market are a bit deluded'.
Likewise 'public sector bad, private sector good'.
They depend on each other - not always in balanced or healthy ways.
'Obviously' private companies want to make money - often as much as possible. This might involve cutting corners (or even breaking laws). Certainly they will look for help/incentives/subsidies and externalising costs as much as possible.
It would change things significantly if large scale developments had to completely cover the costs of consequential schools, hospitals, extra roads etc!
But just because companies provide places for people to live doesn't mean that they are really responsible for all related infrastructure.
Clearly developers will 'try it on' and it's important that laws and the agencies that enforce them (generally local authorities) are fit for the purpose!
Well, the developers seem happy enough to provide roads.
But a railway station? Or a bike path? ... that could be 'technically challenging'
And as for shops... why do you need them when you can just 'walk' to the nearest village (which is far easier to drive to)
Just take a look at the Calderwood development. It is supposed to be designed as a village from the ground up. But not a single shop to be seen. From the blurb:
The first phase of development is close to the village of East Calder, facilitating easy, walkable access to shops and primary schools [my bold]
Except that it's nearly a mile to walk to the shops at East Calder.
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A controversial plan which sets out a blueprint for development acropss the capital has been approved despite widespread criticism and thousands of objections.
Councillors today passed the Local Development Plan (LDP), which sets out where thousands of urgently needed new homes can be created across the city. The plan will now go before the Scottish Government for approval.
There had been calls to amend the proposal, with development sites at Cammo, Brunstane and Newmills removed and proposals for a sprawling ‘Garden District’ development on land between the A8 and M8 at Gogar included.
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http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/controversial-local-development-plan-approved-1-3773102
Just take a look at the Calderwood development.
Think that's where my sister is moving to (a 2 car, 1 child family). Although brother-in-law is intending to cycle to work in Livingston. he did just by an E-class Merc' though. Le sigh.
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Councillors also made a recommendation in favour of the Garden District, a strip of land between the M8 and A8 near Gogar, which has not been included in the LDP but which could absorb a large chunk of the city’s housing growth, relieving pressure elsewhere. However, critics dismissed the move as an empty gesture.
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http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/council-chief-says-local-development-plan-mince-1-3773102
Obviously a brownfield site because there was already industry there…
I often wonder if anything is planned for the neglected-looking land north of the railway line at Edinburgh Park Station. Would seem a logical place for development - flat, previously un-built on and with access to already-developed infrastructure.
@Aken it is (was) certainly reserved for the expansion of Edinburgh Park, but beyond the Travel Lodge hotel nothing has ever happened since the late 1990s. There's certainly been no planning applications lodged for it in the last 5 years.
There's still quite a bit of site vacancy at South Gyle, in fact one of the offices down by BT has been reconfigured to a hotel so suggests over-capacity / under-utilisation. So probably not a lot of pressure to expand the existing office accomodation. They've recently repurposed the old Scottish & Newcastle distribution site on South Gyle Broadway into a mixed-use development focussing on housing. Someone said that the empty site next to the Post Office is being built on now too (think it used to be one of the Ferranti / GEC plots).
Excellent news if true...story not up on the EEN website yet.
It seems it might help to have SNP politicians on-side when dealing with the present ScotGov
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Alan Alexander (@trapprain)
13/05/2015 15:51
@thistlejohn 2 letters from @MichelleThomson GE2015 campaign fyi @ediwestern @Cammo_Residents @MikeCrockart
http://pic.twitter.com/P11NUYdL5d
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On-line now
So they have refused planning permission for now but it could still be included in the LDP?
Either I'm overly cynical as to their motives or I am misreading the article, but the thrust of the Cammo Residents Association's argument seems to be that they don't mind houses being built on Green Belt land per se, they'd just rather they were built on Green Belt land somewhere else (i.e. David Murray's "we are conducting the Garden District charette charade")
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Building on greenbelt land has soared over five years
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(England)
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Hundreds of homes were demolished in 2007 to clear a site for the replacement high school, while two years later hundreds more were bulldozed, with no new houses to replace them.
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Regarding that last link, the reason that land has never been built on are all the old mine shafts in the fields from the 400 years or so of coal and limestone working at Gilmerton. The Bernard Hunter yard on the south of Gilmerton Station Road is the site of the last Gilmerton colliery (closed 1961 due to spontaneous combustion of the coal seams). The previous colliery was on the north side of the road, and before that there were small shafts worked out of the fields around the village, including the one in question.
True, but the developers think they can 'deal with it'.
Won't be cheap.
Surprised there is enough money for a new school...
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Bill Kerr-Smith, Chairman of Eskbank and Newbattle Community Council, said: “This leads to a situation where Midlothian is subject to statutory environmental degradation to satisfy the housing needs of Edinburgh. We do not need the extra housing proposed in the MLDP and we do not need the extra load on clinics, schools, roads and social services. Nothing in the MLDP mitigates the impact of the extra housing in the plan.“
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"to satisfy the housing needs of Edinburgh"
Mmm that's one way of looking at it.
There are a lot of factors in this.
Random list.
The arbitrary nature of the Ed/Midl boundary creates a lot of the pressure.
The (apparent) unwillingness of both councils to 'respect' the Green Belt doesn't help.
Fear of planning decisions being overturned by SG 'worries' CEC, don't know how much that affects/bothers MidL.
Previously MidL has encouraged as much development as possible (brings in council tax income and provides jobs).
That dates back to when both councils had Labour administrations which had very different views/policies. The Straiton sheds are where they are because MidL wanted the money/jobs and it's as close as possible to Ed. CEC objected because of 'traffic increase'.
Of course SG's 'presumption for development' and housing targets don't help.
Whether the current 'regional planning' system can deal with all this is also a factor.
It all reflects aspects of the 'modern world' - Edinburgh is a successful city which 'creates' more jobs than the residents 'need'. Also many people like living in the country (sort of) and/or can't 'afford' to live here (we've had threads on this.)
I am very disappointed at how much 'green belt' has been built on - notably around Newcraighall. (EastL is implicated in all this too). Under present rules/policies/economic systems this/expectations not a lot is likely to change.
The borders railway will increase the amount of house building along the route - mostly on green land - if not actually Belt. 'Ideally' there there should be extra places of employment/job opportunities close by.
Etc.
Certainly this all makes the case for 'proper' cycle commuting routes stronger. Doesn't mean that will happen...
The photo in the news story looks like it was taken prior to the relatively recent northern extension to Straiton, which at least doubled the size of the non-Ikea/Costco/Sainsbury section.
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We’re getting there and remember, at over 700 new homes, this is the largest housing-led regeneration project currently under way in Scotland. A project to which the council has committed £42m, a project that’s bringing new jobs, apprenticeships and work placements for local people and driving the wider regeneration of the area.
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Meanwhile elsewhere -
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Before locals grab the reigns so to speak there’s a big need to play catch up. Scarborough’s been changing and it’s hard to visit everywhere. People living in Scarborough have some general questions. Is growth being deliberately concentrated in Agincourt? Is Kennedy Station being transformed? What is going on with The Rouge? Is there a plan for Town Centre? Is there a general plan for Scarborough?
Periods of reset require local communicators paint pictures of local issues and opportunities so the whole community comprehends. Patrick Geddes, the first so-called Town Planner called the gap between issues and opportunities “the opening future”.
According to Geddes, supporting a period of accessible storytelling is a way of propping open a window onto the future community. After recording assessments of the future, the challenge is to maintain a set of guiding visual and linguistic references amidst future upheaval.
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Of course Geddes worked in Edinburgh. ("He introduced the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and coined the term "conurbation".")
Renewal of a Canada city is probably a lot different to Edinburgh then (or now), it's certainly hard to imagine councils or people managing to 'create a story' around Shawfair, Newcraighall etc.
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