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posted by on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the if-it-can-fit-a-bed,-it's-fine dept.

Hundreds of tiny studio flats, many smaller than a budget hotel room, are to be squeezed into an eleven-storey block in north London as its developer takes advantage of the government’s relaxation of planning regulations.

Plans for Barnet House, used by the London borough of Barnet’s housing department, reveal that 96% of the 254 proposed flats will be smaller than the national minimum space standards of 37 sq metres (44 sq yards) for a single person.

The tiniest homes will be 16 sq metres – 40% smaller than the average Travelodge room. [...] In the surrounding area, studio flats of a similar scale to most planned at Barnet House sell for around £180,000 and rent for around £800 per month.

[...] Office buildings in Croydon have also been converted into studios with floor areas of as little as 15 sq metres under the Tory deregulation. Housing experts have attacked the relaxation of planning regulations as a “race to the bottom”, but ministers insist the measure is helping to deliver vital new housing, and point out that more than 10,000 new homes were created from office buildings last year.

Under the “permitted development” system, developers who convert offices into homes do not have to meet minimum floor area standards, considered by researchers to be important for health, educational attainment and family relationships. Neither do they have to include any affordable housing.

Source: The Guardian


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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:03PM (3 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:03PM (#485932) Journal

    That was due to excessive and poorly thought regulation coupled with a demand far exceeding supply. NO regulation is an excess in the other direction.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:11PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:11PM (#485937)

    Sure, but nobody is proposing (or permitting) no-holds-barred firetrap creation in London. Or NYC, for that matter. All they did in London was to reduce the relevant set of regulations as, in effect, an emergency provision to try to raise the housing stock; a problem that has plagued London for ages. Most of the people who would move into these areas are just too young to know an era when regulation was not the chokehold over housing stock alterations in London.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)

      by sjames (2882) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:44PM (#486008) Journal

      I'm not so sure. They're effectively doubling the number of people flooding the hallways and stairs if/when there is a fire. Has anyone modeled the evacuation to see if it can even work?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:20PM (#486113)

        No, check the background. These are office buildings. They're specified for full cubes of people. And the authorities didn't just open the floodgates, in regulatory terms - they just eased them.

        Is it perfect? No, but they have some other, really big fish to fry.