With the Labour government looking to vastly increase house-building, consensus will help achieve the right balance of density and quality – and architects are well placed to help achieve this, argues Fabrizio Matillana
The recent National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation is proposing changes to bolster housebuilding. Of note are housing targets being reinstated, strategic planning across planning authorities, setting a new standard method and calculation, ‘acceptable in principle’ on approval for brownfield land, and promoting mixed-tenure development.
Another change is the promotion of ‘grey belt’ areas of released green belt safeguarded by ‘golden rules’. These would seek to ensure 50 per cent affordable housing, new infrastructure and green space.
These changes aim to send a strong signal in favour of housebuilding that is strategically informed, regionally coordinated and takes advantage of ‘grey belt’ areas. It also has safeguards in place for quality, tenure mix, and infrastructure, and caters for a variety of tenures. The government has recently launched consultation on ‘brownfield passports’ to ‘explore ways in which providing more explicit expectations for development could lower the risk, cost, and uncertainty associated with securing planning permissions on brownfield land’.
There is a risk, however, that to achieve this renewed housebuilding ambition and deliver the required targets, housing quality is vulnerable to compromise. We need innovation to build consensus rather than compromise – and architects are well placed to work with planners on achieving this.
Compromise and balance
The practical implementation of the proposed ‘acceptable in principle’ in brownfield land and ‘golden rules’ in grey belt land can present questions of planning balance. Decisions to meet housing growth may challenge contextual densities and raise issues of how effectively new development turns this intensification into high-quality housing.
There is a tension of perceived density which is conflicted with strategic imperatives and local communities’ response. The previous government attempted to tame this debate with concepts such as ‘provably popular’, ‘gentle density’ and ‘beauty’ – though with little inroad. Even in a highly regimented policy landscape like London, the tension of meeting housing targets and higher density is already prevalent in called-in applications. Local authorities without design policies and supplementary planning documents (SPDs) to support them are particularly vulnerable.
The planning system, at its heart, is a balancing act of material considerations that planners weigh to achieve their local plan objectives. These include land use, amenity, bulk, housing mix and sustainability. Such considerations can be objectively verified (daylight/sunlight for instance). Others, such as massing, townscape impact and quality of accommodation, can be seen as subjective. These design-related matters lie at the heart of context informing density, versus target defining density. This is a grey area that, at times, leads to delays due to lack of clarity, differences of opinion or an absence of consensus, as I have shown in more detail in my research.
To de-risk the design ‘grey area’ of planning, design planning tools can be adopted such as design codes, SPDs and guidelines. These can create the necessary consensus to ensure an efficient planning process.
Design codes
Design codes have risen in prominence and are already a feature in the NPPF. Their implementation is showing potential in bridging the grey area of housing targets, site allocation, context and what a high-quality design response to the site might be.
In brownfield projects, the use of design codes can provide a golden thread through long development timescales. I worked as a design officer on the first phase of Meridian Water in north London. This was an ambitious project that used design codes to de-risk its delivery. An outline application with a design code (and parameter plans) informed a subsequent reserved matters application. Following changes in the market, Phase 1 was split into two (Phase 1A and 1B), where one was following the design code and parameters plans, and the other had much more intensified plots, due to viability pressures. The design code became a tool to bridge two halves and design a coherent place. Phase 1A had robust design planning tools which, despite its long application process, allowed it to consistently deliver on the design code’s ambition.
A key building in phase 1A is Brambling House, by Urban Projects Bureau with input from the wider collaborative team of Hawkins\Brown, HTA and Fisher Cheng. It deftly stitched the existing suburban context with a gradation of intensification and was typologically robust to absorb changes in budget, without risking the quality of its affordable homes. Its successful delivery was substantially de-risked by a pre-application process that checked the use of the design code and parties that subscribed to its adherence. Other tools used such as design charters, a client-side design review panel and a robust planning performance agreement ensured this collaborative thread and compliance of design planning tools.
When considering the proposed NPPF wording of ‘acceptable in principle’, greater weight would have been given to its brownfield designation, altering the planning balance and the weight given to other material considerations, such as design quality. The work on preparing these design planning tools, aside from their place in reviewing an application, set an ambition for the place. Most importantly, it achieved a consensus that stakeholders subscribed to and aided its planning process. This early work ensured high-quality placemaking, irrespective of what a planning balance decided. The 2024 Planning Awards for best housing scheme (500 homes or more) and Editor's Pick recognition for Meridian Water is a testament to this work.
De-risking with borough guidance
Borough-specific design guidance further de-risks planning where specific characteristics of a borough are identified. In Islington, the New Build Design Guide is used by the council’s New Build Team, which is delivering new council housing. There are moments of alignment with the Greater London Authority (GLA) Housing Design Standards but also of more detailed guidance. The GLA’s London Planning Guidance (LPG), for example, does not specify the housing mix, leaving it to boroughs to set it out. The New Build Design Guide does this for council-owned homes. It also sets the preference for family homes to be at ground floor level. The GLA’s LPG sets that as a ‘best practice’ requirement. The New Build Design Guide, reflecting inner London space constraints, sets out guidance on how to consider privacy in locations that are less than 15m. This is absent in the GLA’s LPG.
The New Build Design Guide is used to plan high-quality infill schemes within existing estates. Coupled with resident consultation and a collaborative dialogue with the local authority, schemes can achieve their housing mix requirements and deliver high-quality communal amenity and architectural design. There are already examples of specific borough guidance informing a development brief, and pre-application processes that understood the guidance and policy alignment required to deliver a successful scheme to planning.
Other options for building consensus
These projects demonstrate how consensus can be built from design planning tools – the preparation of guidance and codes with stakeholder consultation to inform the development brief. This is essential to ensure a planning balance that is less a compromise and more a unanimous confirmation from all parties on densification, particularly in areas where this challenges the existing context.
Other such initiatives include Barking and Dagenham’s BeFirst’s MMC Pattern Book. This combines aspects of a design code with building types that are linked to established procurement chains. This can further de-risk projects and ensure cost-effective procurement from the outset. The City of London, meanwhile, has created the Tall Building Contours 3D model in Vu.City for the City Cluster and Fleet Valley. This visualisation de-risks discussions of townscape, daylight/sunlight and can create consensus by giving a clear signal of height potential.
Design lies at the forefront to clarify the grey area of objective/subjective assessments in the planning balance. The NPPF refers to design planning tools that cut through this uncertainty. Architects are the best equipped to offer further innovation in this field. The government should continue the funding of Office for Place’s Pathfinding projects for design code production, but also other initiatives that work in this territory of de-risking and consensus making, such as pattern books and the 3D plan-making. Moving beyond a discourse of solving a housing crisis, design planning tools can communicate new visions, create ambition and instil pride in new places. This, one can agree, is a goal that all parties can reach a consensus on.
Fabrizio Matillana is a design and conservation architect and an RIBA Journal Rising Star for 2020. This article is written in a personal capacity.