The end of the private back garden? AIBU to think this is a crap idea?

[2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/architects-hope-to-tear-down-garden-fences-of-englands-future-homes/ar-BB18huJd

Reported in the Guardian this morning. The shortlist of developers drawn up to attempt solve our housing crisis by new design
includes the idea of communal back gardens that have to be booked in advance to use privately!

Oh yes I can see that going down really well on Mumsnet future AIBU

"My next door neighbour overstayed their time"
"I hate sharing and want peace and quiet"
"Cynthia has just repotted all my begonias"
"Can I put a swing up in the communal garden, the neighbours are complaining"

AIBU to think that this is just a really crap idea?

I used to live in a small block with a good sized outdoor garden. When we bought the freehold jointly as a block residents made some improvements adding flower beds etc which were maintained. The gardens were used for a bit if sunbathing, small barbeques etc. It worked well because residents were mostly neighbourly and considered one another. Furthermore, we paid into a collective service charge to a management agency as required by the leases which created a legal obligation between the owners. The management agency hired a gardener who maintained the garden and the directors of our block freehold company would hold occasional meetings to agree how things were to be deal with. All this meant that residents largely behaved well and there were no big issues over the garden. However, without that structure in place it would quickly have become a free-for-all with all sorts of abuses. I think if communal gardens are developed there would have to be a legal method of binding the various owners to an agreement and some method of management so that individual owners couldnt just take over the garden to everyone else’s detriment.

It sounds very woke to me.

Having said that 4 of my neighbors have had no fences between their back gardens for nearly 50 years. We have hardly any fences in front gardens either. They all brought up kids over that time, and it seemed to work ok. 2 of them have been there for 60 years, 2 are a bit newer. They are big gardens though and are not communal.

So basically a scheme dreamt up by Ministers, Architects and Developers (who most likely live in nice big detached houses with large private gardens) to allow them to build more houses on land that they couldn't previously? Oh and lets not forget they get grants for meeting a few token 'green' credentials. No doubt they'll be on the market for a premium compared to the sale price of current new builds. No thankyou!

@Griefmonster

It's not a new or ridiculous idea. Victorian tenements in Edinburgh have shared back greens and the Georgian New Town have beautiful shared gardens. Friends of mine have a shared back garden that is happily shared between young and old. I'm sure other cities of the same era and density have similar

Yea but those communal gardens weren't bookable in advance for just one family's private use. That's the daft bit.

Absolutely stupid idea. Front gardens without proper marked boundaries on new estates cause so many issues. People's gardens are their sanctuaries. Bet none of these architects live in their pokey designs with communal gardens - they're probably all in Georgian rectories with walled gardens, surrounded by countryside .

I've lived in houses converted to flats that had shared gardens, in some instances it worked, in others it didn't. Some were split gardens and some were single shared space. It's not really a novel idea

In one place the lady upstairs said we could use the whole garden the whole time cos she never did

I guess in London there are some large communal gardens that seem to work well in that properties sell at a premium?

I don't like the idea but can I point out there is a difference between Developers and Architects. Equally, Architect's have to design a percentage affordable housing with any new scheme that Councillors have to approve. So the decision as to what is built is decided by people who have no qualifications, training or experience in this field and often conflicting politics.

Most Architects under 40 do not earn amazing money and live in apartments, particularly in expensive areas of the country, with no back gardens!

Would knock thousands off the value of the houses.

Idiots

TBH I can see the appeal of this because I utterly loathe gardening but enjoy spending time in a garden so having a communal garden that was someone else's problem to keep nice then that seems like a great thing. But that's not enough to make me think this is a good idea. "Good fences make good neighbours" is an important concept - we can cope with not being the best of friends with our neighbours because we don't have to share unless we want to. Enforced sharing causes friction and I have had enough unpleasant neighbours over the years to shudder at the idea of not having some kind of veto over who I have to share with. You can't force community spirit this way and it's a very limited 20th Century idea of community anyway - communities don't need to be immediately adjacent to one another and form organically as like-minded individuals who are spread over a wider locality find common ground that they want to share - but with none of the people in between being compelled or obliged to join in. By all means build developments with communal areas - a shared green area (that isn't anyone's back garden) or shared "community room" building is an excellent resource that will be beneficial to all - but not at the expense of each home having their own space.

Shared gardens may have worked years ago when people were societally more prepared to consider their neighbours. These days? Not a hope.

Well they might design them like this and they might even be built, but no one is forced to buy them. If they don’t sell, the developers won’t keep building like this.

Presumably this would be for new developments so if people don’t want this arrangement they wouldn’t buy them. And I would hope the developers would specify no pets in the communal garden to avoid issues of dog shit being left.

Its not always that easy. The houses with communal gardens will no doubt be cheaper. People with less deposit or less money are usually forced into new builds.

So we'll end up with low income families and first time buyers in houses with communal gardens because they want to get on the property ladder and that is all that is avaliable to them. No one would choose it, it would be forced on you.

Once the properties end up in the hands of landlords, again the only people in them will be people that financially have no other option.

How can you say no pets when each resident has part ownership of the garden. We had a shared yard in a flat we used to rent and the upstairs flat had two horrible dogs that shit everywhere and meant we couldn't use the space as the dog mouthed and jumped up the whole time. That's just a reality of shared outside space.

Is it a joke?

"Architects hope to tear down garden fences of England's future homes"

What are they on? How do they live? How did they live as children? How can they know so little about how other people live?

Given there's been a few articles about how housing in the future will have to change for the now-expected pandemics and lockdowns to be tolerable - this idea falls at the first hurdle. Everything else has been talking about more space being needed, especially dedicated outside space (so at least a balcony in flats etc.)

And I can just imagine the lobbying that would be brought to bear on politicians from the affected industries - garden furniture, plant suppliers, conservatory companies, trampoline manufacturers - there's a lot of money spent on gardens!

I have lived with communal gardens, council maintained. They were kept nice, but nobody used them. Because when they belong to everybody, the belong to nobody; and nobody felt they had the 'right' to set up so much as a deckchair in the gardens. We all just looked at them as we passed through .

Total non-starter of an idea.

Stupid idea. We lived in a flat with communal gardens and I never sat outside the whole time we lived there.

We now live in a maisonette where the upstairs and downstairs gardens run alongside each other. When we moved in there was no fence between the gardens and I hated it, it felt like a communal garden. We put up a fence and it felt like our space (and also meant we could cat proof the garden).

If only these designers were forced to live in the shit they design.

Hear bloody hear!

BOOK a time slot in the garden? I can't even .....

DH grew up with a shared garden in a flat. The flats were all occupied by young families so it worked.
30 years down the line the flats are full of childless couples, retirees and students. DHs parents were constantly furious the students didn’t do their share of the ‘work’ but to be honest they didn’t use it and were gone all summer. They mowed the lawn as they were the only ones who used it. All the surrounding gardens looked neglected as no one took ‘ownership’.

I've got a lovely, big communal garden that serves all of us really well. Space for adults to sit out, space for kids to run around and play football/ride bikes etc.
There is now a plan to build on the periphery of the garden and open the garden up/remove the perimeter fence. It has been clearly stated that the plan is to increase foot traffic across the garden to minimise anti social behaviour... The fence protects us from that.
We'd rather not have landscaping, just the open space.
Our space and privacy is going to be reduced and not one person is happy about it.

I used to live in a small block of flats with a communal garden. It was fine, until we had a couple of new neighbours who were smoking weed out there constantly, and it got covered in dog shit.

@Cattiwampus

Architects are always full of exciting, innovative ideas. Very rarely do they choose to live in them. Remember the continuous failures of the past, from tower blocks to urban community living, to heat conservation with tiny windows. Ideas that created endless social problems and mental health issues. I’ve only seen this work in retirement communities and expensive flats/communal blocks with young, childless individuals. At least now, thanks to SM and the like, ordinary people discover The Architects’ social engineering fantasies early on.

Fully agree. Some architects are more interesting in winning awards than actually designing buildings that are fit for purpose. I've no doubt that some buildings will be designed and built without personal gardens and may suit some people, but they certainly won't become the "new normal". It's just yet another fad that will come and go, but the architects will have banked a few more million and have a weird award on their shelf!

To be honest though, some new houses went up in my village. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms over three floors (so, family housing) and the gardens are so small that you can barely get a rotary washing line in. Certainly no room for a trampoline or a paddling pool or much in the way of kids toys.

So developers are already cramming in houses with little regard for how they are going to be lived in. And it's no wonder that children spend so much time indoors on devices, when there's no garden space to safely play.

I've lived in low rise flats with communal gardens and they worked well. It was mostly young people, families with their first child or older people downsizing. We had use of gardens without having to look after them which at that time was fine.

This isn't a new idea. Small squares of buildings around a communal garden or small groups of mansion blocks set in communal gardens have been around forever. Children can play in the gardens within sight of your window which is quite different from a trip to a park (if you even have one available).

Actually I don't think it is that terrible. Where I live, there is an arrangement behind several roads where there is a communal garden. Each house has a small private space, with a fence, but in the middle is a decent sized grassed area. It is public open space and gets mowed by the Council but really only gets used by these houses. It's fantastic for the kids who live there.
A communal space can work, but it depends on where it is and how it is used and managed.
I don't see how having booked private time can work though. That would be a recipe for falling out.

Shite idea.

Laughable.