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TCPA
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Interim
Report |
1.1 The Sustainable Housing Forum was set up by
the Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA) in January 2002. It forms
the latest step in the Association’s continuing work on the implications of
changing over to more sustainable forms of development which began well before
the first World Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
1.2 The TCPA set up a working group in 1990 to
explore what the pursuit of sustainable development would involve and what the
policy stance of the Association should be in this regard. The result was the
book entitled Planning for a Sustainable Environment published for TCPA
by Earthscan in 1993, containing many specific recommendations for action in
the fields of planning and development.
1.3 This was followed by an investigation of how
these recommendations for action might be applied to a major metropolitan area,
the results of which were published as the book, Manchester 2020: Integrated
Planning for a Sustainable Environment, by Earthscan in 2000.
1.4 Further work on sustainability issues
resulted in a series of articles in the TCPA’s journal Town & Country
Planning in 2000 and 2001, concluding with recommendations to the TCPA
Policy Council for taking a more campaigning stance, recognising how limited
the progress in the past 10 years had been, and the urgency of doing much more
in the next ten.
2.0 Objectives
2.1 The TCPA Sustainable Housing Forum has the
following four objectives:
§
To raise the environmental standards of
new housing so as to make a contribution to sustainable development targets and
the reduction of emissions that contribute to climate change;
§
To establish what practical steps could
be taken to achieve these higher standards by drawing together the experience
from the growing number of innovative housing projects and assessing how much of current best practice could be
applied as the norm throughout the house building industry;
§
To make recommendations to government
and the house building industry for the specific changes to the design and
regulatory systems having the best potential for achieving higher standards by
2010;
§
To use the drive for higher standards
in new housing in order to raise public and political awareness of the
practical possibilities for making new construction generally more sustainable,
and the long-term benefits, both financial and in relation to quality of life.
3.1 The UK is committed to making substantial
reductions in its carbon dioxide and other climate altering emissions; a major
source of which is housing. We are
expecting to build at least an additional four million new dwellings over the
next 20 years, but most housing built today falls far short of current best
practice in relation to energy efficiency. Very large savings in consumption of
fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions could be achieved if the
environmental standards for new housing were raised (see article in the June
2000 issue of Town & Country Planning) to somewhere approaching those in
demonstration projects such as BedZed in south London.
3.2 Although huge reductions in energy
consumption and emissions needs to happen in all sectors of the economy, the
possibilities for doing so quickly are significant in the housing sector, by
incorporating much of current best practice in relation to energy efficiency
and economies in the use of scarce materials.
3.3 There is already a great deal of experience,
from a number of pioneering projects, about how standards could be raised and
what the design and cost implications of this might be. The purpose of the
Sustainable Housing Forum is to bring together this accumulated experience so
that it can be shared, examined and assessed, with the objective of developing
an effective campaign for adopting higher environmental standards in housing
design and community structure as the norm throughout the house building
industry.
3.4 The choice of new housing as the initial focus for action was designed to establish clearly defined objectives where it would be possible to make easily recognised progress. Success here could help raise public confidence that sustainable development can be defined in terms of practical, achievable targets and measures for action. Higher standards in new housing could then lead to corresponding improvements in the large stock of substandard existing housing.
4.1 Between March and June 2002 the Forum held four expert seminars. The purpose of the seminars, attended by policy and decision makers, developers, financers, academics and lobby groups, was to discuss a range of issues relating to how the Forum’s objectives could be met. The following topics were covered, although discussion was not limited to these:
§
How the planning system performs in raising the
environmental standards of housing.
§
Sustainability criteria and regulatory systems –
environmental standards, building regulations, environmental health, envelopes
for climate altering emissions.
§
Financing sustainable design
and construction – financing regimes to encourage sustainable
construction, construction and operating costs and savings, financial
evaluation of raising the norm, whole life appraisal.
§ Sustainable housing and sustainable construction: lessons from examples of current best practice (Finland, Germany, Norway, UK) – origins of projects, basic design principles, approval processes, financial evaluation, operating experience (financial and environmental).
4.2 The seminars have helped us scope the major issues and build up a
body of interest. Stage Two will now look in more detail at some of the more
promising areas for changing current practices in order to achieve a major
improvement in environmental standards. This will begin with a comprehensive
review of current literature and work to establish precisely what is already
going on in this field and how we can best work with such initiatives. A number
of specialist working groups will then be set up to develop proposals and
recommendations.
4.3 Seminar One
The first seminar explored how well the current planning system performs in
raising the environmental standards of housing. The key issues that arose from
the discussion are set out below.
§
The planning system already encompasses many of the
tools necessary to promote sustainable housing, but they are commonly not being
fully utilised. Sustainable development must become central to the
decision-making process at all levels, from the national to the site-specific.
§
Raising technical performance standards through the
building regulations are not the only way of achieving sustainable development.
Individual buildings are only one element in the equation – site-level planning
is just as important, and planners must plan positively (through master plans,
for example). Local planning authorities require a strong political lead to
empower, and obligate, them to act.
§
There is a need for long-term perspectives in
planning so that development does not adversely impact on the ability to meet
future needs. For example, ‘solar rights’ may become important in the future,
and would require avoiding any design (especially in high-rise development)
that inhibits solar gain. Compatibility with higher densities is important
here, but there are design solutions to this problem.
§
The planning system could introduce the concept of
‘carbon envelopes’, wherein a specified area (locality or region) would emit
only a specified amount of carbon dioxide each year, based on a proportion of a
global maximum.
§
Information on the appropriate design criteria for
sustainable housing is not reaching planners; education and professional
training to remedy this is therefore crucial. However, it is not only planners
who need information – house-buyers in the UK notoriously buy on initial price
rather than on longer term operating costs and future value. Information on
factors such as life-time costing should be made available as part of the basic
sale specification.
§
Negotiations with developers are often essential in
order to ensure that projects are designed to meet sustainable development
criteria, as evidenced by the experience of the National Trust in requiring
higher standards in development on their land, and in the development of the
BedZed zero-emission housing scheme in Sutton, south London.
§
In both cases, land ownership was a critical factor
in obtaining agreement. The asking price for the land being made available for
development was reduced on condition that the developer built to higher
environmental specifications – requirements were written into the contract and
were thus enforceable.
§
Environmental quality measures that result in
higher costs are likely to be resisted by lower-income groups. Developers may
be able to offset these higher costs by reducing the price paid to the original
landowner, but this would require strong planning policies known to the
developer when purchasing the land. As this option does not apply in the case
of developers’ existing land banks, other means must be found for minimising
additional costs of building to higher standards, including the economies of
scale that will come with an increase in the total amount of new housing being
built.
§
The community must play a central role in planning
for sustainable development in order to create a greater sense of ownership.
Opposition to new forms of development (e.g. designs that maximise solar gain,
utilise neighbourhood heating schemes, incorporate local generation of power,
minimise rainwater runoff, and so on) is likely to be less if there is an
ownership stake and clear benefits (including financial ones) to the local
community.
4.5 Seminar Two
The Second seminar looked at sustainability criteria and regulatory
systems, and in particular, environmental standards, building regulations,
environmental health and envelopes for global warming emissions. The following
issues were seen as particularly relevant.
§ Current UK Building Regulations are set too low, and not properly enforced. Standards need to be progressively raised and more effectively supervised. Even so, it is clear that regulations on their own will not be sufficient to achieve a really substantial improvement in the overall environmental performance of buildings. They will need to be supplemented and reinforced by stronger policy direction, and a more proactive programme to increase public and professional awareness of the objectives and the potential for improvement.
§
Improvements in environmental performance in
housing will need to be, at least in part, market driven. The current chronic
low rate of construction (estimated at 60,000 fewer dwellings per annum less
than needed) gives no incentive to house builders to build better since they
can sell almost anything. The links between policies need to be developed, so
that an expanded programme of house building meets multiple objectives,
including the reduction of overall shortages, an increase in the proportion of
affordable housing, and a major improvement in environmental standards.
§
Sustainability rating schemes need to operate in a
way that allows gradual improvement, or ‘ratcheting up’, over time. The example
of fridges in the United States illustrates this, whereby the best performing
product on the market today, in relation to efficiency, becomes the minimum
standard in three years time. Such an approach could be applied to the
energy/environmental performance of housing and would establish a set of
non-negotiable and enforceable targets.
§
The possibility of developing a tiered
environmental rating system for houses, i.e. bronze, silver, gold, should be
explored, taking into account resource consumption by householders and in the
materials used for building. Such a system would require a proportion of new
houses to meet the gold standard each year and would operate on a
‘ratcheting-up’ basis.
§
It is important not to ‘reinvent the wheel’ when
attempting to develop, apply or improve environmental criteria for housing,
i.e. one must build on schemes that already exist, such as EcoHomes. It is
important that such existing standards are more widely applied, while making
sure that there is a well known programme for progressively raising the
standards to match current ‘best practice’. Such information needs to be made
more readily available to developers and all relevant decision-makers, as well
as house purchasers, through widely publicised sources.
§
The level of detail and transparency at which
sustainability criteria should operate needs to be addressed. Is a simple
‘black box’ approach appropriate, for example BRE’s EcoHomes, which gives no
details of the basis for its criteria? Would greater transparency and/or more
detailed application of standards be more effective?
§
There is clearly a practical difficulty in
balancing the need to set realistic targets for improving the environmental
performance of housing within a relatively short timeframe, against the
multitude of other issues that also need be tackled. A ‘mainstream’ approach to
reform would focus on a few ‘do-able’ priority issues and problems, in order to
avoid becoming bogged down in the enormity of problem. A more radical approach
would stress the need for a fundamental overhaul of our current way of life,
which might include, for example: increasing the occupancy rate of housing,
building to far higher densities, using more pre-fabrication, and insisting on
vastly improved environmental performance in all aspects of house construction
and use.
§
Exemplar sustainable housing schemes, such as
BedZed, should be thoroughly analysed to help understand better the barriers to
more widespread adoption of stringent sustainability criteria.
§
The issue of skills and training needs to be
addressed since the construction industry is already suffering from a chronic
shortage of both. The Solar Cities programme in London is attempting to address
this. Such schemes could be applied nationally.
4.6 Seminar Three
The third seminar focused on financing
environmental design and construction. The discussion considered factors such
as, different financial regimes to encourage sustainable construction,
construction and operating costs and savings, financial evaluation of raising
the norm and whole life appraisal. The main issues to come out of the day are
set out below.
§
Environmental improvements and features do not
generally add value to the property in the eyes of investors. The financial
benefits of such improved standards need to be identified (possibly in the form
of an ‘environmental performance’ certificate attached to the sale particulars)
so that its environmental rating could be recognised as additional value when
mortgages are arranged.
§ The NHER energy rating scheme can be used to illustrate the benefits of lower energy use. But experiences from Milton Keynes, where 15,000 – 20,000 houses have been built to NHER rating scheme, shows that people do not generally think about running costs when buying a house. This indicates that the NHER rating is not being used as an effective tool. It seems clear that more action, both regulatory and fiscal, is needed to promote consumer demand for lower energy houses.
Measures to improve the environmental performance of housing have already been successfully demonstrated. Current best practice shows how good design can significantly improve energy performance, for instance by providing good weather protection or orientation to maximise solar gain. Some schemes are offering adaptable housing packages to home buyers which allow dwellings to be built in ways that meet specific individual requirements, environmentally, socially and economically.
§ Renewable energy, such as photovoltaic (PV) roofing, has a critical part to play in sustainable development; it can enhance security of supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But there are still many barriers to their implementation such as price, grid connection, net metering, high costs, and design constraints imposed by the planning system.
§
The level of interest and ready sales in the BedZed
development indicates that there may be a bigger market for sustainable design
than often assumed. There is a growing awareness that sustainable development
can deliver more than just environmental improvements, but can also offer
health and social benefits.
§
Some aspects of sustainability may be mutually
incompatible, making compromise and a careful choice of priorities necessary.
§
There are also problems with providing an adequate
supply of green materials in the UK. The supply chain needs to be developed to
provide adequate capacity, together with a more efficient information flow
concerning sources and availability.
Some possible financial
mechanisms to help both house purchasers and house builders were developed
during the final discussion.
§
Changes to RICS ‘red book’ to include
sustainability criteria.
§
Preferential mortgages for higher environmental
performance (lower rate or larger lending).
§
Clear standards to enable people to judge
environmental performance of a property.
§
Varying of stamp duty and VAT depending on the
performance of the property.
§
Lifetime costs of dwelling should be made clear in
a seller’s/buyer’s pack.
§
Selected subsidies may be a useful tool (at least
in the early stages) to encourage installation of more efficient equipment and
renewable energy.
§
Environmental disadvantages of old housing compared
with the improved standards of new housing should be emphasised as part of any
campaign to stimulate consumer demand for improved performance.
§
Adopt positive measures to create confidence that
sustainable development adds value to a development, so that house builders
receive some market advantage by building sustainably.
4.7
Seminar Four
The final seminar looked at examples of current best practice in Finland,
Germany, Norway and the UK, focussing on the origins of projects, basic design
principles, approval processes, financial evaluation, and operating experience
(financial and environmental). A number of key points emerged from the
presentations and discussions relating to applicability in Britain.
§
Landownership turned out to be one of the most
important factors for the realisation of sustainable housing projects and can
be a major restraint when the land is not owned by the city or a single
landowner. As the Viikki development in Finland shows, it was the most crucial
factor in managing the extra costs of the project and provided the opportunity
to set high building standards and criteria for sustainability. The situation
was similar in Hannover, where the Habitat site was owned by the City.
§
The importance of an integrated, holistic approach
to sustainability was emphasised by Reinhard Martinsen (Germany) as well as by
Chris Butters (Norway).
§
The lack of quality information on customer
perceptions and desires about housing was stressed. The standard industry
‘storyline’, including the lack of customer interest in sustainable housing,
was criticised as too simplistic. Chris Butters used organic food as an
example, showing that customers purchase such food for health as well as for
environmental reasons. It was suggested that the same may be true for
sustainable housing. The reason for the interest in sustainable housing from
the construction industry is likely to be from the point of view of improving
their reputation and attracting and retaining high quality staff.
§
There is a need to break the ‘cycle of blame’, i.e.
each sector (investors, architects, developers, customers etc.) citing the
others as the reason for not building more sustainable houses.
§
The importance of ‘human’ factors, rather than
technological ones, was highlighted: for example the reform of professional
training, addressing the poor image of green developments, and emphasis on
getting the process right. Sustainable housing needs to be kept simple so that
it continues to function in a sustainable way even if used differently, which
may mean fewer technological solutions.
§
The Hannover example shows that significant
improvements can be made with minimal effort and without expensive gadgets. A
stepped approach was used to reduce energy consumption by 47%: through the use
of high quality construction, extra insulation, combined heat and power and
energy efficiency.
§
It is often difficult to obtain information about
European policies, working groups and funding programmes, partly because
different elements of the European Commission do not co-operate closely. There
also needs to be co-operation between different EU countries in order to share
good practice. EU funding streams such as INTERREG could help.
5.0 The Main Issues for Further
Work
The
remainder of this report will draw out the major issues from the four seminars,
which will form the basis of the work for Stage Two.
a.
What changes need to be made in the Planning system
to ensure that it has the tools necessary to achieve much higher environmental
standards?
b.
How should planning controls and building
regulations be co-ordinated in order to achieve higher standards? At what
levels should these be set?
c.
How can a long term perspective be built into house
building (for example, to encompass such regulatory changes as solar rights or
carbon envelopes) to facilitate further improvements as standards become more
stringent in response to issues such as climate change being given higher
priority?
d.
What are the key areas where education and training
are needed if all those involved in the design, approval and construction of
new housing are to make a positive contribution to the raising of environmental
standards (e.g. implementing the Solar Cities programme)?
e.
How can the process of negotiation in pursuit of
higher standards (e.g. between planners and developers) be facilitated?
f.
How can the need to build to higher standards,
while minimising additional costs, be reconciled? What financial help can be
provided to make higher initial costs acceptable?
g.
How can the added value/lower operating costs of
sustainable housing be expressed so as to influence purchasers’ choices? What
financial help can be provided (e.g. lower mortgage rates) to help purchasers
in offsetting higher initial purchase costs against lower subsequent operating
costs?
h.
What role could active community involvement play
in demanding higher standards, and what benefits would result?
i.
What are the linkages between the drive for more
sustainable housing and other policy areas (for example the need for a higher level of house
construction and a higher proportion of affordable housing)?
j.
How can quality ratings systems for sustainable
housing be developed that help all sectors? How can these build upon existing
systems? How can these be related to targets? How detailed/stringent should
these be?
k.
How can building new housing that is more flexible
in design help in the drive to make housing generally more sustainable (e.g. by
building in the potential for the progressively raising environmental
performance in existing housing as standards generally are raised)?
l.
How can the balance be struck between designs that
are more technologically advanced, so as to reduce environmental impact,
without conflicting with residents’ needs for household operating systems to be
as simple as possible?
m.
How can best practice demonstration projects be
replicated more often in mainstream housing projects?
n.
What practical measures can be used to expand the
supply chain (e.g. of appropriate building materials and household equipment)
in step with the adoption of higher standards throughout the house building
industry, and to encourage further “green innovation” in building components?
o.
Since land ownership is such a powerful lever in
achieving higher environmental standards in new development, how can the land
assembly process be streamlined?
p.
How can the various responsibilities (and
opportunities) for moving to more sustainable forms of development be clearly
identified, avoiding any ‘cycle of blame’ approach to the removal of obstacles
to change.