Low impact communities and low impact developments (LIDs) aim to create laudable whole-of-life equilibrium with their productively used natural surrounds yet they face considerable planning and financial challenges.
Planning for low impact developments
As outlined in Chapter 6, Lammas ecovillage struggled with planners and planning legislation contributing to the evolution of the ground-breaking Welsh ‘One Planet Development’ (OPD) policy. By way of an example, the Undercroft house ‘largely constructed from sustainable
timber, stone and earth on the land and placed to maximise natural energy flows, such as solar gain’ exemplifies a plethora of hurdles in the Lammas – and similar – applications. Despite the fact that its embodied energy exceeded government targets ‘both in its construction and future-proofing possible effects and disruptions of climate change’, Dale reports that ‘the materials and construction techniques met considerable resistance from building regulations which operate under the strictures of industrial, global standardisation’.36
The OPD policy was instituted in 2011. Just 23 applications (including the nine from Lammas residents) had been successful by mid-2016, with five in process at 22 May 2017.37 Moreover, in October 2016, a three-bedroom Lammas home featured on Kevin McCloud’s Channel 4 series Grand Designs. A massive collective effort, the straw bale and timber home used only £27,000 worth of materials but cost an extra
£5,000 to feed the 277 volunteers assisting in its build. McCloud endorsed it as ‘how we could and should live’ and referred to their accomplishment as ‘a clarion call’.38
Indeed, the introductory context statement of the OPD practice notes, published alongside an ecological footprint template, spreadsheet and further advice for local authorities and applicants, reads:
The Welsh Government’s Sustainable Development Scheme, ‘One Wales: One Planet’ has an objective that, within the lifetime of a generation, Wales should use only its fair share of the earth’s resources, with its ecological footprint reduced to the global average availability of resources of 1.88 global hectares per person (the global availability of resources in 2007). This is a very challenging but necessary target.39 Similarly, Paragraph 4.15.1 of the relevant technical advice note (2010) refers to the OPD as an application of LID, ‘zero carbon in both construction and use’ and a ‘potentially exemplar type of sustainable development’. The notes outline requirements for ‘robust evidence’
and justification that a formally constituted community could collectively provision for its basic needs within five years of approval.
Consent is conditional on a legally binding agreement focusing on a development-specific management plan, that includes several elements:
• Business and Improvement plan to identify whether there is a need to live on the site and establish the level of the inhabitants’
requirements in terms of income, food energy and waste assimilation that can be obtained directly from the site
• Ecological footprint analysis of the development
• Carbon analysis of the development
• Biodiversity and landscape assessment
• Community impact assessment to identify potential impacts on the host community (both positive and negative) and provide a basis to identify and implement any mitigation measures that may be necessary
• Transport assessment and travel plan to identify the transport needs of the inhabitants and propose sustainable travel solutions.40 The practice notes duly spell out expectations in addressing each element, referring to OPD as beyond ‘a physical development’, ‘a way of living differently’, and laying out best practice for planners to effectively engage with and advise future applicants and assist in fostering ‘under-standing and trust’. Permaculture is identified as ‘intrinsically site-based and focused on low environmental impacts’. There is due concern with assessments of the land as capable of supporting its prospective inhabitants and acceptance that mobile and canvas structures such as caravans and tents are, ecologically speaking, light-footed.41
In short, this legislation shows remarkable conceptual and practical advances in understanding the needs of future sustainability and the appropriate kinds of skills and approaches planners need to adopt.
While a Welsh OPD does not need to be collaborative, unusually for planning codes, the policy acknowledges and accounts for them: three of five defined OPD types are majorly collaborative. Beyond singular self-sufficient households and agriculture-oriented enterprises that are self-provisioning, they identify small clusters of dwellings with a modicum of shared activities and facilities through to either small or large planned communities with ‘economies of scale and cooperation’ that involve substantial collaborative activities and facilities. All are self-provisioning but in more collective ways than the simpler stand-alone types. At the same time, a further category of ‘loose networks’ is recognised – associations between OPDs, say for cooperatively value-adding, sharing equipment or distribution. Inclusion of such a category is indicative of the policymakers’ big-picture and long-term view and expectation that OPDs are outward-looking and inclusive.42
Simon Fairlie, who coined ‘low impact development’, has criticised the OPD policy for being ‘so prescriptive’, suggesting it ‘actually makes it harder rather than easier for land-based LIDs to get permission’. Still, the OPD only applies in Wales. While Fairlie reports that ‘most competent low impact smallholdings manage to acquire permission’ even if on appeal, he suggests building a LID in England and, later, applying for permission. Indeed, Pickering has pointed out that Lammas was the exception, the ‘first eco-village in Britain to be built legally, rather than requiring retrospective planning permission’. Fairlie explains the barriers to many attracted, but ultimately deterred, groups as first, the necessity of a loyal driver with boundless energy; second, that the mainstream application process is so arduous that ‘it is hard to find people who will stay the course’ (say, sitting it out for five years); third, the costs of conforming to bureaucratic details blows out the budget; fourth, in reality, the LID method is to make it up as you go, such as by obtaining at-hand, local, reusable material that might depart from the original plan but is appropriate.43
Financing low impact communities
A significant disadvantage of illegal and ad hoc construction is the inability to gain financing. Financial assistance is less necessary with the level of sweat equity common to LIDs, but obtaining fertile land in an increasingly expensive market and necessary processing of agricultural produce make funding a useful, even critically needed, option. Today, a few financial institutions operate in the UK that are prepared to assist with funding collaborative housing projects, such as the Dutch Triodos bank, the Ecology Building Society and the Co-operative Bank.
Moreover, there are more financing models, such as communal fund rotating loans or individual private loans guaranteed by the community.
A community housing association or philanthropic organisation might grant funds or advance finance for land, say on the basis that they will own rental properties in the final development for low-income social housing. Half of the 14 dwellings of the eco-cohousing Threshold Centre in Gillingham (UK) – legally a company limited by shares – are owned by a local housing association under such an arrangement.
Radical Routes, a secondary or umbrella cooperative of British housing cooperatives, functions to finance cooperative housing that is infused with social and environmental values.44
The not-for-profit Leeds housing cooperative Lilac (low impact living affordable community) (discussed in Chapter 5) adopted an equity-based share/leaseholder Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS) legal structure. The MHOS owns the property and structures via a long-term mortgage provided by Triodos. Every member-resident pays the MHOS a 10 per cent deposit based on the total of equity shares proportionate to income and built dwelling cost:
Members of Lilac pay their housing costs through the purchase of equity units. Every member pays around 35% of their monthly net income, and the income from these payments pays off the mortgage that financed the land and development costs. In addition, Lilac has chosen to detach the value of the equity units from the property value, removing the possibility of speculative investment. Instead, the value of Lilac equity units is linked to earnings ensuring they remain affordable in perpetuity.
This model has similarities with community land trust (CLT) models, many of which operate in North America. CLTs tend to use a collective financing model and try to insulate subsequent member purchases from increases in market value. Lilac bought its site from the Leeds City Council at a market price but half the cost was deferred and they received significant funding to decontaminate the site and for a trial straw construction (from the UK Homes and Communities Agency).
Significantly, Leeds had councillors proactive in promoting self-build and cohousing.45