Birmingham Local Conservatives have submitted a motion for debate at this week’s June meeting of the Full Council calling for limits on build-to-rent housing and the implementation of a “gentle density” model and design guides to ensure beauty is factored into future housing.
The motion, submitted in the names of Cllr Matt Bennett (Con, Edgbaston) & Cllr Gareth Moore (Con, Erdington), reads:
“This Council is concerned about the growing build-to-rent model for housing development which both prices out those on the lowest incomes and adds to pressure on housing costs making home ownership more unaffordable.
Council is also concerned about the risk to local character from build-to-rent developments as well as other unsympathetic developments of inappropriate style or density, particularly in mature suburbs.
Council believes that the city needs housing and public space that is both aspirational and inspirational, with beauty built into the design. This includes ensuring that density is appropriate to the immediate surrounding area, to prevent overcrowding, as well as developing style guides that reflect and live up to the high aesthetic standards of our city’s Victorian and Edwardian predecessors.
Council therefore calls on the Executive to include within the new Birmingham Development Plan:
- Restrictions on the number of build-to-rent developments, in favour of developments that provide ownership and affordable\social rent options.
- Restrictions on high-rise developments outside of the ring road, with a preference for gentle density, as defined by the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, such as the mansion-style blocks the council has been historically famous for
- Support for the development of neighbourhood level design guides, produced in consultation with local ward councillors to ensure they match existing character and have the support of local residents”
Cllr Bennett said,
The spread of the build-to-rent model of housing across Birmingham has happened, so far, without debate or even discussion. In our view, it is not the right way to meet the city’s current housing needs. The increasing number of build-to-rent developments in the city effectively removes the bottom rung from the property ownership ladder for many potential first time buyers. The high rent on these properties has priced those on the lowest income from their local communities. We should be doing everything we can to encourage home ownership and good quality, affordable rental accommodation. The unchecked spread of build-to-rent has precisely the opposite effect.
Cllr Moore added,
Homes must be affordable, but they must also be of a high quality and aesthetically speak to people’s aspirations. People want to live in homes they can be proud off, which have been designed with aesthetic appeal in mind. We have a fantastic architectural inheritance in Birmingham from the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Birmingham Labour has not always respected this, but we can begin to correct the damage done by implementing design guides with higher standards of aesthetic appeal and adopting a gentle density approach in suburban areas to prevent overcrowding while ensuring the built environment maximises the use of space.
Cllr Robert Alden (Con, Erdington), Leader of the Opposition and Birmingham Local Conservatives, concluded,
Birmingham has some wonderful heritage buildings, such as the mansion blocks of Edgbaston, currently too often the Council threatens these by allowing the building of out-of-keeping new developments. The new development plan gives the Council the chance to change this by focusing developments around the ring road and surrounding main roads into developments that compliment these blocks in design, scale and massing rather than another modern bland tower
