The organisation responsible for the redevelopment of London’s Olympic park held a public consultation recently – specifically a consultation on a parcel allocated to residential development – so I went along. The offer was a fairly standard mix of private for sale and affordable (i.e. subsidised) housing; no baugruppen in sight. I had a couple of minutes with one of LLDC’s development professionals – at a senior level – and asked about baugruppen. They’re not being considered for any of the Olympic site, and the reason given was that a baugruppe would be making use of new infrastructure (i.e. roads, piped services) while not paying for it. In essence, a free-rider argument. Justifiable? I don’t think so, not without more detail. There are lots of implicit transfers going on in any kind of urban development and quite often private for-profit development benefits without paying. For example, the Docklands Light Railway was upgraded at taxpayer expense in advance of the Olympics. It now serves Westfield Stratford, a major new mall. It’s true that Westfield’s developers paid for some local transport upgrades, but not – as far as I know – any part of the DLR. But perhaps this sort of accounting is always going to be imprecise. Some transfers a city planner will simply allow, with a shrug. For example, the homeowners now living near the location of the planned Northern Line extension into Battersea are likely to benefit from that piece of infrastructure, but no one is going to impose some special tax on them.
My hunch is that the LLDC simply prefers to work with big players; organisations that can be leaned on for some sort of contribution towards something. In that context, would-be baugruppen are just irritating small fry. They could be tolerated – or even welcomed – but no luck this time.
Anyway, the model looks good:
Groupbuilding 