LONDON — The U.K. reveled in California-style sunshine this summer. Now it wants to try the Golden State’s housebuilding policies. Faced with a housing crisis successive governments have failed to address, Britain’s new administration under Prime Minister Andy Burnham is desperate to push up building rates and is looking west for answers.
A recent update to planning rules encourages adding homes above existing buildings and in gardens in England. The policy bears similarities to the “accessory dwelling units” (ADUs) that now make up a quarter of all new housing in California. Experts think the tweaks could help the government stretch towards its target of building 1.5 million new homes before the next general election, but note the risk of a political backlash among local residents worried about their neighborhoods losing their character and green spaces and becoming overwhelmed.
There’s always a fundamental tension between the need for more homes and the potential local backlash about where those homes are and what they look like, which is why early, meaningful communication with communities matters.” Indeed, planning changes around garden use during the previous Labour government in the 2000s led to public outrage about homes being demolished so speculators could cram properties into available land, as well as fears about destruction of green spaces. Labour was forced to intervene on what was dubbed “garden grabbing” as the 2010 election loomed, then the successor Conservative-Lib Dem administration was quick to change the rules. Now the government has tweaked them again to fuel development on and around existing buildings, instructing planning committees via national guidance to favor upward extensions to homes and commercial buildings and filling gaps around houses.
The aim is densification: increasing the number of homes on a designated land mass. The official said the rules are designed to encourage “ADU-style” building, but help “safeguard residential gardens from inappropriate development” while retaining local government oversight. When it comes to finding gaps to slot homes into, California is the blueprint.
The state that invented suburban sprawl has seen a surge in ADU home construction over the last 10 years to add more housing into already-developed neighborhoods — although it took aggressive government intervention to make it happen. For decades, the state had laws on the books to encourage the building of ADUs, also dubbed casitas and granny flats. But cities implemented barriers including high fees, strict rules on size and lengthy reviews that stymied most new building.
Amid a housing shortage driving up home prices, California state lawmakers passed a series of new laws, starting in 2016, to strip away restrictions local governments were using to block construction. Those behind the effort worked clandestinely at first. They didn’t want to provoke a backlash from residents fearing the plans would upend the suburban development pattern of a single-family home, spacious backyard and two-car garage — putting their property values at risk.
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