A patient approach - spearheading a new form of development
Land stewardship is a conscious practice that rests on an understanding that community building takes time and commitment over generations, with a slower return on investment. However, a longer-term perspective rewards the landowner/ developer with opportunities for greater dividends from growth in future capital receipts and rental income.
In this model, quality of place and life are at the forefront, and the increased time-horizon allows the landowner to follow best practice and invest for the benefit of the wider community and the place as a whole. As such, it is spearheaded by landowners that act as custodians of place, that feel an inherent affinity with the places they co-create, and a social and economic responsibility for its future success.
Gail Mayhew, Smart Growth Associates, explains in conversation that the housebuilder model is to build homes and then move on, and it doesn’t actually matter to them in ten years’ time what that place is like. “If you are a long-term landowner developing your land, and really care about how the place evolves, you are more inclined to invest in attributes and components that might cost a bit more because you can make the place better, and people are happier to live there.”
The vision for Nansledan is led by a land stewardship approach that puts money back into the local economy, working with local people and responding to local needs. This is important, because if people can benefit economically and socially, the landowner/developer can set a precedent for good placemaking that builds confidence and erodes some of the fear of change and growth that impedes development today. If people can sense the positive effects, they are much more likely to get involved in shaping their communities. When people can recognise where their input has been translated into an output, trust between all parties will improve and they will have the confidence to keep participating1.
Today’s system favours the volume housebuilder that is seeking a quick return on investment in a single-use product; there is evidence to show a high tab for land sale upfront, and less data in support of dividends down the line. As a result, landowners who need to demonstrate best value to their trustees and beneficiaries are more likely to sell their assets than staying involved long-term.
Current legislation2 states that the sale of public land should respond to the ‘best considerations’ that can reasonably be obtained. This is often interpreted as the highest financial offer; however, the intention is for the landowner to realise overall best considerations without being held to a timeframe. Social and public value as well as environmental and governance benefits, which are likely realised over a longer time horizon, are integral to achieving best considerations. Thus, the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s report Building in Beauty (2020), argued that it might in fact be best consideration not to sell upfront — a particularly poignant point to consider for trustee and public authority landowners.
"If you are a long-term landowner developing your land, and really care about how the place evolves, you are more inclined to invest in attributes and components that might cost a bit more because you can make the place better, and people are happier to live there."
Gail Mayhew, Director at Smart Growth Associates
A patient approach comes with more risk and time commitment than most landowners and developers are willing to pledge, even with the potential for increased social and financial benefits. The initial cost of land and necessary infrastructure is an impediment to holding on to sites. With many objectives and aspirations shared between long-term stewardship models and local plan agendas — such as delivering affordable homes, key community infrastructure, schools, new recreational spaces and jobs — local authorities could benefit from establishing private-public joint ventures that recognise patient developments as essential delivery mechanisms for a common vision, i.e. the developer could help deliver some of the key policies and aspirations set out in the local plan. In return, the local authority could offer up the land or provide it on a leasehold to the developer against a share of the profit, sales price or a building license model, avoiding the need for the developer to make costly land purchases upfront. This would allow many more builders to cashflow developments and open up the market to a much broader range of developer interests, including regional bespoke builders, eroding the almost monopoly position of a very small number of volume housebuilders.
A public/private joint venture could also facilitate a smoother planning process. Patient developments are also challenged from a planning perspective as they often require a dynamic and resilient framework for growth that can adapt over time, as opposed to a fixed and finished masterplan. For planning strategies to be effective long-term, it is paramount to coordinate ambitions beyond party politics and the four-year term of office, allowing places to benefit from comprehensive policies with a long-term perspective. Such an approach has been taken in Nansledan, where the Duchy of Cornwall has developed a 30-year vision to underpin a more holistic and long-term approach to change that can be delivered incrementally. The patient development model is underpinned by a set of fundamental placemaking principles that add value for the landowner, the developer, affordable housing providers and the community in the longer run. Over the next pages, we explore these in the context of the changing reality that we find ourselves in before exploring the systemic changes that could encourage more developments of a patient kind.
