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?

You might just as well live in a purpose built flat with communal gardens. Young people who like a bit of outdoor space but don't want the bother of a garden might well go for it as they do now, with flats.

It won't catch on with families or older people who enjoy their gardens and their privacy.

I have a communal garden and hate it! We could use it during lockdown though as plenty of space to stay 4m apart when in front of own back door.

@JinglingHellsBells

Market forces will dictate.

People who want them will buy, other people won't, plans will change accordingly.

No one will be forced to buy a house with a shared garden.

But look at it another way- some of the poshest homes in London used to share a garden square, where all residents had a key to the garden. (An ex of mine lived in one like tha in South Kensington.)

I'm more concerned about people who end up privately renting them, as there's typically less choice to be had when you're in that position. That's not to say this isn't a problem when it comes to those who can buy either: a general driving down of standards and normalisation of objectively crappier housing situations potentially has a society wide effect. It isn't as simple as don't buy it if you don't want to live in it, you've opted out of any effects, job done.

When those Kensington houses were built, all the residents also had a country pile.

I'd love to have the European lifestyle where you have a flat in the city with lots of nice communal facilities and a little dacha/basic hut in the country where you can go for peace and quiet, but I don't.

In the meantime I'm grateful for my little corner of the communal garden where I can hang my washing and have a few pots, while understanding that it's not "mine" and if someone wanted to smash my pots and cut down the washing line there's realistically bugger all I could do about it - I wouldn't even know who it was given that 36 flats share the space, many of which are HMOs.

The cynic in me suggests that this initiative seems one way of ensuring house prices of existing stock keep their value as the new builds come onto the market.

Cui bono ?

You miss my point about "owning" a "house". We're not talking about flats where you have a leasehold and there are communal areas such as landings, stairs, roof, etc. that are jointly owned so the communal land can be just an "add on" to the rest of the building. We're talking about individual freehold homes where the owner looks after their own property, liable for repairs etc. If you add communal areas, then you're getting into some kind of twilight zone with a mix of freehold/leasehold for the same property, i.e. freehold of the house but leasehold of the communal garden area somehow bound together in the deeds. Sounds like a recipe for confusion and conflict to me

Actually this is quite common. I own my freehold house and pay a service charge to a maintenance company, as do about 90% of people i
n new estates. I also have a shared garden but I don't own any of that land, I just own the actual house and front garden area.
No one really gets confused, it's not overly complicated.

@DGRossetti

The cynic in me suggests that this initiative seems one way of ensuring house prices of existing stock keep their value as the new builds come onto the market.

Cui bono ?

Indeed, and I say this as a homeowner sitting on some unearned equity.

@PiataMaiNei

Can't help but notice that a number of the people saying they know of instances where it works well then give examples of situations where houses have their own small private garden as well as communal access to a presumably larger space. It isn't the same thing at all.

Yes, I noticed that too. The more successful "communal" properties abroad have private space AND communal space, i.e. where you have your own private balcony/terrace/garden area AND your communal gardens, lawns, pool, etc. That gives you the choice. What is proposed here looks to be a way of getting even more homes into small spaces - all about profits/awards for the developers/architects rather than realistic places for people to live.

I think everyone needs to take a step back and think how housing has changed over the years depending on the economy and needs.

In many areas where the economy was mining, most houses owned by the working classes did not have their own back gardens- they had a yard. As did some of the poshest houses in London.

Where I grew up, there were and are, hundreds of thousands of people with kids living in Victorian back to back houses with no gardens.

I spent my first 3 years in such a house with no garden and a shared yard at the back.

Not suggesting we go back to that, but there are millions of Victorian homes with no gardens.

I know someone with a house in London worth £3million and they just have a yard out the back.

Well we have communal gardens for our flats and feel really lucky to live here compared to those with tiny ‘typical’ London gardens. The kids can run off with their friends and play out for hours, there are trees that give the whole place a green feel, there are a few dogs but none which are badly behaved, and there is some limited opportunity for gardening in front of ground floor flats and on balconies. In general there’s a really nice community and although there’s the occasional noisy summer barbecue that goes on too late it’s no more than you’d get on a terraced street. Residents range through early 20s, families with kids and retirees. It’s not for everyone but can work beautifully and be a much better use of space, so should definitely be considered for new builds.

It wouldn't suit me, but gardening is our big thing, a lot of people hate gardening. I could forsee huge problems, but folk seem to manage in flats with communial gardens. Where we live, there are areas outside some of the houses, quite big pretty "greens", with trees, they have to pay everyone of them for a maintenance company to keep them looking nice. Where we used to live, modern Georgian style houses, they had an area, like a lot of the large London Strees, fenced off in the middle of the square. There are still some of the "back to back" houses, up north, who have no garden, or even a back yard to speak of, so I think it will suit some

Awful idea.

People need space and privacy, not least because some other people are so bloody badly behaved. Booking to go outside? Fuck that. It would be hard for anyone, but impossible for people with health problems etc. What if you miss your slot because you are ill?

If these architects and ministers think it is so great, I suggest that they and their family give it a test run with some random strangers and see how they get on. I guarantee they wont be able to get out of it fast enough.

Community housing initiatives vet people really well and it only works if people have the right attitude and skills are committed to cooperation.

You can't force people to get on with each by having them compete for scarce resources - that is the problem we have now.

I agree with a lot of the eco ideas and with having more communal areas and community assets, a shared workshop/craft room for example, and allotments etc, which increase feelings of abundance and choice, eg it allows people to choose not to have their own tools as well, (and have to have somewhere to store them)but there must be areas of privacy and autonomy too.

These muppets just don't understand how people tick.

This is so upsetting and infuriating for me particularly as we are already living through lockdown/covid with no garden, while all our neighbours have one because this flat is all we could get. And with disability/illness too so its not at all easy to 'just go out'. Life is pretty fucking miserable and its hard to live with the realisation that this situation might be for life.

The smallest garden of your own at least allows kids and pets a small amount of freedom without you having to hover over them in case they get snatched/ get into danger/ bother other people.

This.

I had a great fully enclosed garden with a bloody awful neigbour who didn't work and had a tantrum everytime we used our own garden and made it as hard as possible. Even that garden - just so you could open door while you got washing up done knowing the';d be safe made life easier - though we'd often then go out to groups and park and be out most of the day.

.

It’s a shit idea, have you ever known an architect design their own house like this?. Probably not.

I would hate that, I don't even feel like I can go in our fenced garden as the fence is short! I want as privacy as possible, indoors and out!

Would be my worst nightmare.

i.e. freehold of the house but leasehold of the communal garden area somehow bound together in the deeds. Sounds like a recipe for confusion and conflict to me

It really isn't complicated and freehold houses with requirements on the deeds are commonplace. We had a house once which required us to paint the front door black every three years, as well as setting parameters for use of the tiny back garden (private) and maintenance of the shared front courtyard.

Private estates of very expensive houses have similar for road maintenance. There is nothing new or radical about this model and it exists at every level of housing.

I know someone who lives on a newish development, the back gardens are tiny but they all have a gate onto quite a large communal space. The space is completely enclosed by houses on three sides and a wall on the fourth side, so children can't wander off and people who don't live there can't access it. I think it works quite well in a few ways, firstly it's great for families of young children because they can play together and also good for older people who want to look at a green space rather than be very close to a house on all sides but don't necessarily want the work of looking after a bigger garden. The houses themselves are quite small so if the developer hadn't put in the communal space then everyone would have had a very long, very narrow garden.

@KizzyWayfarer

Well we have communal gardens for our flats and feel really lucky to live here compared to those with tiny ‘typical’ London gardens. The kids can run off with their friends and play out for hours, there are trees that give the whole place a green feel, there are a few dogs but none which are badly behaved, and there is some limited opportunity for gardening in front of ground floor flats and on balconies. In general there’s a really nice community and although there’s the occasional noisy summer barbecue that goes on too late it’s no more than you’d get on a terraced street. Residents range through early 20s, families with kids and retirees. It’s not for everyone but can work beautifully and be a much better use of space, so should definitely be considered for new builds.

This also sounds like quite a different setup from the one being proposed in the article. They're evidently reasonably spacious and you aren't having to book them.

No doubt these Architects would be extolling the virtues of these homes whilst residing at their million pound houses! We are lucky enough to have a 100 foot garden and appreciate the fact it is private! Honestly some of these ideas are truly ludicrous!

You know the worrying thing about this is that the "trendy architects" have been given a brief by Homes England to work to.
Homes England is a quango under the Ministry for housing and local government tasked with building as many homes as possible for all.

This isn't some naff competition organised by the RIBA for up and coming architects.

The idea has been shortlisted to put to and encourage developers to implement. I hope they resist FIRMLY!

Yes small private spaces with larger communal areas I am sure work well in lots of situations , but this is not that - it's a communal, bookable, courtyard garden shared between 4 houses,

It just sounds like something to make that wealth divide even bigger tbh.

The done thing should be making sure everyone has their own private space outdoors.

Unless you want to continue building on green belt, then some compromises have to be made

Well we could start by building the million odd houses which already have permission and are being land banked.

Yes, I agree. And we've also got building areas in my town where the building has stopped. These need completing before we start granting more planning permissions.

I used to live in a flat that had a shared garden area between four blocks of flats making a square. The flats were owned by the council and they did up the whole area blocking off the corners with gates that had keypads so only residents could get in. At first it was great having a secure area to sit out and watch my toddler and other parents did that too. But within a couple of months it was ruined by a couple of families who broke the gates so their friends could get in and invited half the estate to parties in the square. It was awful. Not to mention one family who just left their kids outside ripping up the plants and trashing the place all day.

Most Northern miners cottages do have a private yard. I have lived in a back to back and it had a yard.

My mining family have continually occupied the same Victorian terraced house since it was built. My great grandfather kept chickens in it. Many miners had larger gardens and those with only yards often also had their own allotment.