To think that people who object to planning applications for new homes are selfish

[LauderSyme]

My aim is not to be goady or induce a bunfight (though I well understand some of you might think that), but rather to try to understand a different point of view without judging it.
I live in a generally well-heeled and very "civilised" area; most of the properties are immaculately kept, many are sizable with large gardens, the public realm is well-maintained and crime rates are relatively low. It is amongst the top retirement hotspots in the UK. It is a lovely place to live and I appreciate our quality of life.
I am a tenant who has never owned a property. I work full-time but have a low household income, partly due to being a single parent. My flat is one of the ahem less desirable properties in my area. I would dearly like to have a secure home and a garden for my dc, but the only way I am likely to achieve this is if I am lucky enough to inherit.
The exorbitant cost of housing is mainly driven by an acute shortage of stock. Developers frequently put forward planning applications to build new homes in my area, but without fail, residents form protest groups to fight the proposals tooth and nail. Many applications are ultimately refused or watered down due to local opposition.
AIBU to think that this is selfish? Most of the protesters are fortunate enough to own their own home in a nice area, and it seems that they wish to deny this privilege to other people. Do they just not care that other people's lives are blighted by the housing crisis, as long as they are not inconvenienced? I feel that they are motivated purely by self-interest; does anyone have any other convincing arguments?

I live in a rural area and they are building new houses. The weird thing is that there are more people moving out of the area than there are people moving in. There are no jobs round here, although there's some beautiful countryside. There isn't a housing shortage by any means.

I'm not keen on them building new houses round here, but I'd love to see some money being ploughed into regeneration and encouraging businesses.

I'd like to see it turned around so that where big developments are planned, with promises of schools and shops and surgeries and new roads and a certain percentage of affordable homes, all of those things have to be built before the larger luxury heavy profit houses are built.

Too often round here the affordable housing is an afterthought and oops we forgot that/actually it's unviable/oh no, that part of the land can't be built on after all, a sudden survey says what you all said before and it's a flood risk etc.

Start with the promises and then build the profits later.

I live in the centre of town in the South East where blocks of flats are popping up everywhere. I think it's great. People can't afford houses so why not flats? One block has been built directly opposite my house and it has turned a disused factory wasteland into a nice block of 90 odd flats. It looks a lot better than the scrap of land that was there before.

I'm all for sustainable development, but locally they built 500 homes in a village of 1,200 people, without any additional infrastructure or school places, and none of them are affordable homes.

There are several new developments going up on the outskirts of our town. I objected because there is little being done to improve the existing facilities. The town has been steady at about 8,000 for years. The existing doctors' surgeries are stretched to breaking point. All the banks have closed. The shopping facilities are a fraction of what they were. The area is subject to power cuts because of aging cables and no new schools are planned for the children of the expected 4,000 expected extra residents. And yes, beautiful countryside will be destroyed.

It's a very complex issue. In the U.K. most new housing is built by developers and they like to build large, boring estates full of lookalike housing where people are car dependent and there is very little in the way of public amenities. This is a disaster.

Unfortunately we live in the age of greed and property developers are a prime example. The desire to develop land to squeeze out the maximum profit is not a sensible way to ensure a good quality housing stock to meet the needs of the population. I think people have to object to prevent areas being over built and local services being over stretched. What we need is a centrally planned housing building programme. The cost of housing has very little to do with construction cost as it has been turned into a commodity. A centralised home building strategy (built by and owned by the nation not developers) would mean that the much more housing could be built and be made avaliable to those who need it and remove some of the commodity worth of the housing stock in general. The social benefits would include employment, delivery of homes to communities that need them and a return to affordable accommodation. The economic benefits would include a large state owned assest, the removal of house prices as an economic measure and available workforceso where they are required. So in answer to your question yabu.

I live in west yorkshire. I have a well paid job and dh runs a successful business.

The houses that are going up in our already crowded area are tiny, out of our price range, have tiny gardens, barley any parking ect.

They are neither affordable for people on lower incomes or family homes.

In the last five years i havent seen ine bew build thats a decent size and affordable.

These new housinf developments dont help people who are already struggling to buy a house.

I live in a working class town in the North West that is basically sustained by the shipbuilding industry, and recently there has been an influx of new modern housing developments cropping up all around town supposedly to accommodate all the new contractors coming to work in the shipyard ... which would be fine if they were affordable but they aren't.

My town has areas that are in the top 5% most deprived in the country and average house prices are around £100k for a semidetatched house in one of the nicer areas of town (I live in a 2 bed mid terrace in a decent area and I bought it for £75k last year). There is a large proportion of empty houses all over town, and yet they are still building more "executive" houses that aren't being bought because they're not the starter homes first time buyers need and most contractors working in the shipyard either rent a room Mon-Fri or buy a cheap flat since they aren't intending to settle here long term.
And even those who are looking for those size houses are mostly people who have lived in the town a long time, so if it's a choice between a £450k 4 bed "detatched" (but built with about 6" between either neighbours' house) new build with postage stamp back gardens on a housing estate full of other identical houses, or a 4 bed semi set back from the road with large front and back gardens 5 minutes down the road for £300k?

One development was built 5 years ago ... half the houses are still empty; another development was completed 3 years ago ... half those houses are still empty, there's a development that's just finished being built and only 5 of the 40 houses have been sold and the same company has already started building another development. If they were building affordable starter homes they might have people buying, but they're not.

When our estate was build about three years ago, most of the "locals" tried to block it. We moved in towards the last phase and I remember looking online at some of the objections. They were pretty vile and very NIMBY.

It's a nice quiet area which attracts a lot of older retired people and house prices are fairly high. Before our estate, there was nothing built in years.

I remember some of the comments were from people who basically said they didn't want "riffraff" moving in and de-valueing their properties, that they didn't want the "type" of person who would buy these properties in their village.

Despite the fact the developers gave money to the Doctors surgery and schools to expand (which they have), improved the roads and created a large roundabout to ease congestion.

The developer now wants to build on the land next to our estate, and the NIMBY's are out in force yet again

I live in a northern city, in a 'middling' area. Lots of Victorian terraces, and twenties/thirties semis. Good transport links, and reasonably affordable. A semi would sell for £140-£170k, with terraces starting around £100k. I recently worked on a project looking at housing for older people. As the proportion of older people in society is growing rapidly it's an issue that must be recognised by government and local authorities.

One of the main reasons for older people underoccupying family homes, whether they be expensive villas or council semis, is the lack of local alternatives. There are bed sits and small one bedroomed flats available via our local council, but they aren't what most older people wish to downsize to, or in the area where they currently live. My neighbours in three and four bedroomed houses are nearly all single older people or couples whose children have grown up. When a house comes on the market it's usually snapped up quickly as families like the area because there are schools, a large park and the hospitals and universities are fairly near. There are very few bungalows in this area, either for sale or social rent. There are some in other parts of the the city, but those are either very expensive or miles away. Developers won't build them now because of the cost, so most new estates usually comprise large houses and perhaps some flats.

Selling up and renting a bungalow or custom built flat from a housing association in later life would be a popular option, no housing benefit needed as the capital from the sale of the house would cover rent and costs associated with care. Buying or even part buying would be an option, but not when these cost more than a family house! Living in appropriate housing would also reduce bed-blocking in NHS hospitals, as unsuitable housing is one of the reasons older folk aren't discharged.

on the fence here.
if the new development is well planned, and infrastructure (public transport/schools/healthcare) is set up to cope well with the increased demand, I'm all for development.

but if a developer tries to get away with a 39 storey tower block and other high buildings not in keeping with the other residential developments in the area, without planning for schools, public transport, adequate parking... then objections you will get!

See OP. The issues around this area complex. Quite frankly it should not be left to developers to decide what to build where. The snobby idea that all who object are trying to keep out the 'riff-raff' is unhelpful and doesn't represent most of the examples given by people on here who have objected.

It makes me very sad that my lovely village is being turned into a cross between a giant retirement community and Disneyland. Pretty much all local services are focus towards the retired or tourists. Children have to leave for local town when they grown up to find affordable rentals and they never come back. It is only going to get worse if developers are allowed to game the system.

By local I mean 20 to 30 mins away. My elderly neighbour has lived here all her life in her council house. Her children couldn't find work or afford to buy here so they moved away. She is now very much on her own. Her grand children are desperate to move back to the village but can't afford to.

i think it's often more complicated than NIMBYism. Very often people who live or work in an area have a more detailed understanding of local issues than those at the town hall.

there is a large development planned near my children's school. Due to some odd natural features this part of town is a one road in, one road out place. The effect on traffic will be enormous, as those living there will ALL be travelling in the same direction. Not a problem for me as I live just the other side of the one-road-in part. No mention has been made of expanding the already over subscribed primary school. Again, not a problem for me, my kids already have their places.

There is another undeveloped site on the other side of town, but it's less appealing to developers, as the features that make the chosen site difficult (being surrounded on two sides by protected parkland, transport line crossing the third) are the same features that are likely to make this site command higher house prices. The other side of town isn't rough, is better served by road and public transport, and has more schools within walking distance, but is simply less pretty and therefore won't make as much profit.

Depends on why. My parents objected to 200 flats being built (instead of the 75 first stated in the application) with only 50 parking spaces. Parking on roadsides are already tight and with 150 flats with no parking, some two bedroomed, it would be carnage. Especially as they are near a school so it can be carnage anyway. Some developers take the piss.

There are already loads of flats needing owners but like these will be they are too expensive.

We had a new development proposed near us. A few people who lived next to it complained about it spoiling their view, which is fair enough because it's a view of a world heritage site (and the new houses would have got the view too which is probably why the developers were trying to get it). Anyhow, most other people, including me) were objecting because there have been thousands of new houses built with no real corresponding uplift in local services. So we have primary schools that are over their capacity who have changed their catchment three times in the last decade to try and cope. Now the impact is being felt on the high schools. I have to leave half an hour earlier to get a space at the train station because it's so much busier. We have massive swathes of new estates but no shops or services. So for me, it's the disregard for wider issues that makes me object rather than the actual houses.

I live in an affluent city with very expensive and limited housing. There has been an absolute plethora of new builds over the last five years. Average price of starter homes built in these new developments is around £500,000. Generally they don't have gardens and aren't very nice.

insidecroydon.com/2017/01/10/croydons-nimby-housing-ministers-targets-just-got-tougher/

This is it in a nutshell for me and happens a lot. Guildford is the same with a voiciferous nimby leading their campaign.

The people who are selfish are the ones who own 5, that's why there's an effing shortage.

larry surely more people would lead to more demand for shops and banks so they wouldn't have to close?

I think homeowner and tenets alike should be able to oppose new development if it detrimentally affects their living standards.
We have recently opposed a planning application.
We stated the entrance shouldn't be built on a blind bend (which is an area crashes currently occur), on a piece of land separating 2 villages (which would then be one larger one), in a village with little ammunities (no shop/post office/school), houses which have windows overlooking our garden, cutting down numerous trees. This was all no allowed according to planning law in our area - so we were perfectly in our right to object.
Others objected in terms of flooding issues/traffic issues/lack of public transports (so all 40 houses would need at least 1 car) ect.
If the development was planned in line with the planning law there would be few objections. But that would mean the land would have maybe 10 houses and that means less profit.
As stands our objections haven't stopped the proposal but it has been changed to be far better (for us at least) so we're considering not objecting to this propsal.

In our area there are only 18 houses and a business. Tiny hamlet miles from anywhere. There are 3 houses that are virtually derelict because they were poorly built in the 1950s and they have come to the end of their natural life. The owners at various times put in planning applications to demolish and rebuild. For my part perfectly reasonable houses. They have been told no from day 1.
The business closed and was bought by a building company. They have put in for 60 houses. Most in the same style that the council turned down as unacceptable and not in keeping with the area in previous applications from individuals.
In the application their is a section of 46 properties which will be for social housing. Whilst this may be a good thing One of the criteria is that SH should be based within a certain walking distance from amenities. Apparently because they will be within .5 mile radius of a Hotel this constitutes amenities.

But you would have to cross the M25,no bridge or walk at least 2 miles down an unlit un pavemented road with no jumping out of the way of cars areas to get to a hotel. Any shops are 3.5 miles away in similar walking conditions.
They have passed these plans. I despair for those that get the SH if they don't own a car. Even I get sick of driving to our local village when we run out of milk or just need to go anywhere. I certainly wouldn't walk on the roads it is too dangerous

I think that pretty much every development is opposed by local residents on the basis of traffic, schools, Drs etc. You could almost do a copy and paste for each one.
These issues are central government funding ones and highway agencies.

YABU. I chose my home as it has lots of lovely countryside at the end of the road. I wouldn't have moved here if there were loads of houses on that land. If that makes me selfish, so be it.