Viability Planning, Value Capture and the Geographies of Market-Led Planning Reform in England

Ferm, Jessica; Raco, Mike

doi:10.1080/14649357.2020.1754446

Cited by 45 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This highlights how the politics of crisis response, heavily linked to the particularities of the housing needs of local authorities, shapes where developers are willing to bring forward sites. Such an understanding better informs the geography of urban development, particularly the geography of a viabilityled crisis-informed policy landscape (Ferm & Raco, 2020). Secondly, we argue that, in addition to reshaping where sites are viable, the crisis narrative is discursively used to bring new products and investors into the market.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…These two layers of governance shape the wider context, but it is in local authorities, and in neighbourhood-based planning, where approval decisions are (primarily) made. The variability within and across London is considered an important determining factor in where developers bring forward sites since viability negotiations vary hugely across London (Ferm & Raco, 2020).…”

Section: London's Housing Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis

Brill¹,

Raco²

2021

Political Geography

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The idea of 'crisis' plays an important role in academic and policy imaginations (Heslop and Ormerod, 2020), particularly since the global financial crisis. Across major western cities, at the same time as policy-makers have had to respond to 'the (economic) crisis', many have also experienced intense 'housing crises' and the acute divergence of average incomes and house prices. In response, cities such as London have become central sites in debates around housing acquisition by the ultra-wealthy, land value extraction and growing levels of unaffordability. However, much critical geography research on housing crises is state-centred or focused on civil society impacts, with relatively little reflection on the real estate sector and the work that crisis does as a narrative in shaping institutionalised and actor-centred practices. In this paper, we draw on in-depth research with developers, investors, and advisors in London to argue that crisis-driven policy responses have created political risk which is differentially experienced by actors across the sector, with large housebuilders and advisors benefitting whilst smaller niche developers move out. Moreover, we show how consultants, investors and developers have used the crisis situation to create new geographies, products and investor types in the housing market. These, in turn, require regulatory support and demonstrate the inherently political nature of crisis narratives' use. We use the London case to broaden understandings of the impact that conceptualisations of 'crisis' have on urban and regional planning practices, and how these influence and shape processes of contemporary urban development.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: London's Housing Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis

Brill¹,

Raco²

2021

Political Geography

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“…Cuts in welfare provision in general and housing benefit in particular, combined with additional de-regulation of the private rented sector, have further weakened the housing position of those on lower incomes (Stephens and Stephenson, 2016). The re-casting of planning as a market-driven system has been pursued with renewed vigour (Ferm and Raco, 2020). It seems likely, therefore, that the tendency for the distribution of residential space between social groups to become more unequal has continued since 2011.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incremental residential densification and urban spatial justice: The case of England between 2001 and 2011

2020

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Study of the relation between urban density and social equity has been based mostly upon comparative analysis at the city level. It therefore fails to address variations in intra-urban experience and sheds no light on the process of urban densification. Incremental residential development is particularly poorly recorded and under-researched, yet cumulatively it makes a substantial contribution to the supply of dwellings. The article presents a detailed examination of this form of development in England between 2001 and 2011, and considers its impact on urban spatial justice. We find that the incidence of soft residential densification was very uneven. It had disproportionately large effects on neighbourhoods that were already densely developed and that were characterised by lower income households with access to relatively little residential space. It thus contributed to an increase in the level of inequality in the distribution of residential space, increasing socio-spatial injustice.

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“…(Senior Civil Servant A) As respondents pointed out, this informalised approach was in line with Belgium's laissez-faire planning tradition (Oosterlynck et al, 2010;Van Loon et al, 2019) and trends towards market-based, flexibilised planning regimes in Europe more generally (see e.g. Ferm and Raco, 2020). The primary change was a shift from a post-political technocratic regime of governance beyond the state (Swyngedouw, 2018) to a politicised one, but in which 'politics' are narrowly construed as legitimisation of topdown elite power by electoral mandate (see Swyngedouw, 2018: 101-106).…”

Section: (Real Estate Developer A)mentioning

confidence: 66%

Land financialisation, planning informalisation and gentrification as statecraft in Antwerp

Ward

2021

Urban Studies

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This article offers insight into the role of the state in land financialisation through a reading of urban hegemony. This offers the basis for a conjunctural analysis of the politics of planning within a context in which authoritarian neoliberalism is ascendant across Europe. I explore this through the case of Antwerp as it underwent a hegemonic shift in which the nationalist neoliberal party the New Flemish Alliance (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie; N-VA) ended 70 years of Socialist Party rule and deregulated the city’s technocratic planning system. However, this unbridling of the free market has led to the creation of high-margin investment products rather than suitable housing for the middle classes, raising concerns about the city’s gentrification strategy. The consequent, politicisation of the city’s planning system led to controversy over clientelism which threatened to undermine the N-VA’s wider hegemonic project. In response, the city has sought to roll out a more formalised system of negotiated developer obligations, so embedding transactional, market-oriented informal governance networks at the centre of the planning system. This article highlights how the literature on land financialisation may incorporate conjunctural analysis, in the process situating recent trends towards the use of land value capture mechanisms within the contradictions and statecraft of contemporary neoliberal urbanism.

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Viability Planning, Value Capture and the Geographies of Market-Led Planning Reform in England

Cited by 45 publications

References 31 publications

Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis

Putting the crisis to work: The real estate sector and London's housing crisis

Incremental residential densification and urban spatial justice: The case of England between 2001 and 2011

Land financialisation, planning informalisation and gentrification as statecraft in Antwerp

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