Join us to discuss four papers featuring insights into housebuilding, neighbourhood planning, and affordable housing - it promises to be a great discussion. The full abstracts are below.
Presentations from these authors and a live Q&A session are available to all HSA members. Book here
1. Mel Nowicki Learning from Dublin? Rethinking council housebuilding through the Rapid Build Programme
Similarly to many UK cities, Dublin is in the midst of a chronic housing crisis. In response to this, in 2016 the Department for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government launched ‘Rebuilding Ireland – An Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness.’ The plan includes commitments to increase building by local authorities and approved housing bodies. Included in this is the expansion of Dublin City Council’s Rapid Build Programme. The programme uses modular housebuilding technology to expand council housebuilding in the capital at faster rates than traditional bricks and mortar building. Although the Rapid Build Programme shares some similarities with local authority modular housebuilding in the UK, one key difference has emerged. As of 2017, all Rapid Build homes are now offered as permanent council tenancies. This is very much in contrast to the UK context, whereby contemporary modular construction is largely used to build temporary housing. Based on in-depth interviews conducted in 2017 and 2019 with Rapid Build residents and practitioners involved in their development and design, this paper examines the successes and drawbacks of the Programme, and asks what lessons can the UK learn from Dublin City Council’s approach to new council housebuilding.
2. Richard Nickson Encouraging greater public participation in neighbourhood planning - an ethnographic examination of the impact of the Localism Act 2011 in England
The paper will present the outcomes of a postgraduate (PhD) thesis that explores the impact of the Localism Act 2011 on public participation in planning through the ‘lived experience’ of volunteers in neighbourhood planning. The research was ethnographic in nature and the author carried out participant-observation in the development of a plan through to adoption. Interpretative Thematic Analysis (IPA) was applied to a large data corpus culminating in a thick narrative description, which will be summarised in the paper. The paper will identify; what changed as a result of the Localism Act, consider whether these changes represent the emergence of a new paradigm for planning in the UK, how and why individuals are becoming involved at a local level. It will propose a new framework for good practice for community involvement in neighbourhood planning in the new context, in order to inform best practice in spatial planning policy. The paper will assess the appropriateness of community involvement in planning from the view of the lived experiences of those participating. The research applied an uncommon approach in planning practice and the paper will suggest that ethnographic techniques are appropriate for this area of sustainable development and planning research on the basis that the research has given ‘voice’ to participants in ways that cannot otherwise be achieved using traditional planning techniques.
3. Martina McAuley Falling Behind: Exploring the gap between Local Housing Allowance and the availability of affordable private rented accommodation in Northern Ireland
It is often assumed that the affordability problems highlighted elsewhere in the UK do not exist at all or to the same extent in Northern Ireland. However, this paper challenges this assumption, particularly for low income households. The research on which it is based explores the data which has been used to calculate local housing allowances in NI going back 10 years. The findings show that the cuts to the LHA rates have resulted in only one in ten private rentals in NI being offered at or below the LHA rate and also that LHA rates in NI are no longer aligned to the 30th percentile rents, with all of the LHA rates now below that threshold. The research also explores the impact of the reduction in generosity of LHA rates over the past 8 years in NI by a thematic analysis of cases recorded by Housing Rights. This qualitative research element shows the impact which this has had on low income tenants in the PRS, with many affected by precarious work and changing family composition as well as difficulties finding accommodation which is affordable for households relying on LHA, particularly in high demand areas. The research highlights the difficulties faced by both tenants and landlords in the provision of affordable homes for low income tenants, given that many more low income households are now seeking accommodation in the sector, which is naturally focused on profit and has no obligation to provide housing to low income tenants.
4. Harald Stoeger Investigating the role of local authorities for the promotion of affordable housing
The proposed paper investigates the role of local authorities in the search for innovative policy initiatives to promote new affordable housing options in the wake of the economic uncertainties, migration and growing social inequalities of housing consumption. The local level is supposed to provide a locus for policy experiments, social innovation and new forms of political involvement. Building on the recent academic debates, the first part of the paper elaborates a theoretical model identifying the causes and the contents of local policies: The role of political parties in local governments, the activities of (local) pressure groups, and the political heritage of the past are considered as main explanatory factors for the design/implementation of local housing policy initiatives. In the second part of the paper, the theoretical framework is applied to the federal system of Austria, where subnational levels have powers in various policy domains, including housing. Data for the case study is gained from policy documents, statistical data bases and interviews with local experts and policy-makers. The main finding is that local authorities take advantage of their decentralised powers to implement different initiatives to promote affordable housing solutions. As a consequence, distinct paths of local housing strategies can be identified within a single national context. Besides the interests of local political leaders past local experiences are key explanations for the choice of different housing approaches at the municipal level. However, the different housing policy approaches vary in terms of their effectiveness in mitigating housing inequalities.