Housing for Generation Z

The need for new housing is clearly an ongoing debate and becoming something of a political game of chess; yet there is a dire need to provide homes, particular affordable ones, for many people seeking their first home. Housebuilding in England?is due to fall to its lowest level since the second world war, according to an analysis by the Home Builders Federation (HBF), owing to a range of government policies that threaten to dramatically slow development.

The study says “the supply of new housing is likely to fall below 120,000 homes annually over the coming years, less than half of the government’s target, as a result of changes to planning policy and what developers say is over-strict enforcement of environmental regulations. The drop will leave England with a huge shortfall of new homes, the HBF warned, exacerbating the country’s housing crisis and making it harder than at any point in recent history to become a homeowner”.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently produced a report called Reboot: Building a Housing Market that Works for All. In the report it notes that “Inadequate housebuilding is both a cause and consequence of wider dysfunctionality, and reforming housebuilding will be central to building a better housing system. This means reducing our over-reliance on market housing for new supply by delivering a greater diversity of tenures and types of housing, including social rent homes affordable to households with low incomes as well as low-cost homeownership options targeted at creating genuinely additional first-time buyers – without contributing to house price inflation, as recent schemes like Help to Buy have done”.

The need for affordable homes in rural counties such as Yorkshire, again is a well-documented issue, since rising house prices prevent younger generations living, working and playing in the areas they were brought up in. Perhaps building a small number of affordable homes in each rural settlement would assist greatly to rebalance the demographics of villages and sustain the necessary facilities required for a substantive community. Such issues were highlighted in a recent Design Review I attended, looking at the creation of a new settlement on the fringes of a local city. We discussed what the requirements of a settlement would be to create a thriving community for all and to think about the needs of Generation Z, perhaps with a very different agenda from our own? I know from experience that the new generation are keenly focused on environmental issues which should influence the design of new homes-to ensure that they are both sustainable and flexible to cater for changing needs. The trend towards home working, arising from the Covid pandemic, highlights a requirement for private workspace either within the home or as a separate garden studio. We discussed how housing could be designed to accommodate a change of use, so that a home office could potentially become a fledgling business office employing one or two local people. We discussed transport infrastructure to cater for bikes and pedestrians along safe routes, the provision of play for all ages and the creation of service facilities all required by a local community. The temptation always is to jump in the car and drive to the nearest superstore, and key would be to create service sectors catering directly and economically for the local community.

Such initiatives require determination and a willingness perhaps from landowners to seek sensible land values which hopefully could translate into affordable homes. Whatever way we go, the housing crisis is real and we need radical solutions from top down to ensure that the next generation have a home to call their own.

Ric Blenkharn FRIBA