You've got to ask yourself...how does this happen?

Like, beyond the whole developers are evil and just want the money.

*Actually* how does this happen?

THREAD https://twitter.com/InvisibleMapper/status/1301093605365485568

It starts with the false idea that developers hold all the risk for houses not getting built (), or never being able to sell (), or that the process is too complicated and houses quickly go over budget ()

In other words, to get anything done, they're the only option.

So feasibility reports are made with an inbuilt assumption of around 20-25% profit on cost, for each 'house' – for holding that risk – no questions asked.

This is the real non-negotiable. The 'cost of doing business'

Those same reports then frame everything around the house:

That they'll cost more to make than we think
They wont sell for as much as we hope
Oh and you wanted 'affordable' homes? Well that means we'll have to sell some others for A LOT more to pay for those...

Thing is, there isnt much money to be made in actually selling the same old houses. Try selling a brick for 25% more than you bought it for 5 years ago

The real money is in the land and keeping demand high enough so you make fat stacks off a studio flat on the 9th floor

The actual houses cost more or less the same to make – regardless of whether they're 'market rate', "affordable" (80% of market), actually affordable, or socially rented.

Especially when your business model is to build as fast and cheaply as possible - coz it's risky remember.

As @AlastairParvin's always saying – asking (or even forcing) developers to provide genuinely affordable housing is like giving a burglar the keys to your house and asking them to cut you in on the profit once they've sold everything your own.

So when we accept that developers hold that risk, what do(n't) we get in return?

Genuinely affordable houses –
Spacious, adaptable homes –
Waking distance to work/school/etc. –
Zero carbon neighbourhoods –

The answer: a lot of bloody *risk*

We need a new urban development model.

The one we've got right now is like a bad boyfriend – a lot of promises upfront, renegs on everything, then asks you to pay for dinner.

We need to break up with this loser.

We need a model that takes us back to how housing was meant to work, how it used to work. In a way that's designed to create a platform on which society can

This means nurturing a whole new middle market of non-profit, community-focused development organisations.

These could be anyone with an interest in making great neighbourhood happen, but ideally as close as possible to the people who'll end up living there:
Neighbourhood housing groups
Local climate activists
Architects & designers
Housing associations & local authorities

And we could support that by:

Fixing land costs to cut out the bidding war, so people can build genuinely affordable, high quality homes –

Like this https://www.opensystemslab.io/affordableland 

Outline what we want from neighbourhoods with design codes to make planning predictable - saving time and money for a lot of people - and make it easy to read and navigate (preferably automated)

Like this @RightToBuild https://righttobuildtoolkit.org.uk/briefing-notes/design-codes-and-plot-passports/

Support faster, cheaper, better, more sustainable ways of building buildings – local, digital manufacturing and fabrication

Like this @WikiHouse https://www.wikihouse.cc/ 

Test out what 21st cent building societies could look like – providing finance and legal support to guide anyone and everyone who wants to build affordable, zero carbon, social connected neighbourhoods.

As the impacts of Covid get deeper and more damaging – we desperately need housing models that aren't designed to drain every last piece of value out of a place.

But in models that are regenerative, local, and resilient to their core.

This is something we're working @DarkMatter_Labs with @OpenSystemsLab @00ecosystem and many more.