Across the UK planners are being put on the back foot by the
increase in the numbers of applications for "live/work"
accommodation.
"Live/work" describes accommodation
that is specifically designed to enable both residential and
business use. It differs from ordinary home working in its
nature and in the intensity of business use that may be
involved.
Many people do work form home these days - either doing
traditional homeworking, or more modern forms involving new
technologies (teleworking). But in these cases the work
use of the home is small-scale, and very much secondary to the
domestic use of the premises.
With live/work accommodation, buildings or units are specifically designed to have a higher
intensity of business use. This may be in terms of the
amount of space devoted to the work use. It may also be
that the work element is designed to accommodate more workers
than just the resident, and may be set up to encourage company
growth.
Homes That Work, a new report for the housing
Corporation by Tim Dwelly and the Live/Work
Network, explores the growth and potential of live/work space
from the point of view of Housing Associations. In England
Housing Associations provide around 1.5 million homes, housing
over 3 million people. They are the main providers of
social housing in the country.
A timely report, with all that house-building being planned
Housing Associations have a key role to play in the planned
house-building boom in England. In the south of England,
some 3.8 million new homes are being planned. Much of this
will be social housing, allowing people on lower incomes and
from disadvantaged groups to find places to live in areas with
very high property prices.
Much of the new housing is set to be built on former
employment land, which begs the question where will the people
work? Work opportunities and homes have to be within easy reach
of each other, or else the transport problems will overwhelm the
infrastructure.
A key component of this house building is the "Sustainable
Communities" programme. From one point of view, this is a
disturbingly Orwellian phrase to describe covering much of the
south of England in concrete. On the other, it also shows
a commitment to create more balanced patterns of settlement that
have a less damaging impact on the environment than current
housing.
Reduction in the need to travel is a key component of this
(relative) sustainability. The government is looking to "mixed
use" development to bring workplaces, homes and services closer
together in more "compact" settlements. Live/work is a
form of fully integrated mixed use.
While this live/work seems to press all the right buttons and to be the embodiment of the
government's preference for "mixed use", the reality is that it
cuts across traditional barriers and poses challenges to
regulators. The report deals with the regulatory and
departmental issues, and concludes that the test of whether work
and residences can co-exist should not be based on bureaucratic
distinctions or historic uses, but on the nature and intensity
of the work carried out.
Growing businesses and domestic entrepreneurship
Housing Associations have always been at the forefront of
addressing social problems. Increasingly they are also
involved in projects that go beyond putting a roof over people's
head's. When addressing urban and rural regeneration,
developing employment opportunities is also vital.
Live/work space can combine meeting housing needs with an
innovative approach to business incubation.
Case studies in the report show a variety of approaches taken
by Housing Associations such as Peabody, Places for People,
Touchstone and Solon. These include the following:
- Peabody's West Ferry live/work development is home to 27
"work/live" studio units, all let to micro-businesses, plus 9
work only units on the ground floor. A partnership with
East London Business Centre provides closely integrated
business support for the tenants, including access to finance.
- Solon's Forest Garden Mews development has provided a home
for 8 live/work young artists - people in need of a first home
and studio to get their fledgling businesses off the ground
- Places for People have developed at Creative Lofts in
Huddersfield 21 live/work units. These are closely
connected to the Media Centre next door - home to a cluster of
new media businesses. The Media Centre provides support
and facilities for growing businesses, as well as the
broadband IT infrastructure for the live/work units.
The report is very candid about what has worked well, and
what hasn't - there are many lessons to be learnt. But the
messages are very positive ones, and show the contribution that
live/work can make in a regeneration context.
As an approach to developing new work in less favoured areas,
these projects have much to commend them. But the messages
about supporting "domestic entrepreneurship" surely go beyond
regeneration areas, and impact the whole way we divide up
residential and employment zones in our cities, towns and
villages.
Back to the future?
The report also argues for greater flexibility than is
currently allowed in changing uses within a building between
work and domestic use. Planners often try to define
precisely the split between work and domestic use as a way of
regulating live/work. How necessary is this really?
It's only since the 1920s that government at local and
national level has sought to exercise strong control over what
is done where. In previous eras it was accepted that "an
Englishman's home is his castle" - or if not his castle, then
his workshop or shop. Small-scale business use from a
person's home was not an issue for the authorities. And if
the business use ceased and it reverted to all residential, that
was not an issue either.
Reintroducing this kind of flexibility may not be easy after
two or three generations of increasingly rigid planning controls
and separate zoning of business and residential areas. But
the report argues that:
"the separation of land uses into different use classes may
have outlived its usefulness...We see merit in developing the
home as a flexible environment - akin to the concept of
'lifetime homes' - where a legitimate use of space for a portion
of one's life is running a business".
The report makes a range of recommendations for government,
and also provides a "Live/Work Checklist" for Housing
Associations and other live/work developers.
Dash it or slash it? A footnote on terminology
Should it be "live/work" or "live-work"?
Both forms are to be found in literature about the subject.
Here we have adopted the usage of the Live/Work Network.
In the end it all amounts to the same thing - though there have
been attempts to provide more rigid distinctions such as
"live-work" versus "work-live" (showing the different balance of
uses) and "live nearby" - indicating that the work space and
living accommodation may be within the same property but not
actually integrate: like having a little office or studio in the
garden, or in a separate work area in an apartment block.
In reality these distinctions are shades of grey, rather than
black-and-white.
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