In 2009 HAPPI, the Housing our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation, launched its first report on older people’s housing, bringing many new ideas and a very welcome emphasis on design quality to a sector where such things have previously been the exception rather than the rule. In particular, the HAPPI report included studies of some excellent schemes in northern Europe which provide a fertile source of new thinking for extra care schemes and care homes in this country.
Since then, Lord Best, the panel’s chair, has spoken of the profound importance of older people’s housing for the country as a whole. The essence of his argument is that, with the growing shortage of housing across the UK exacerbated by widespread under-occupation of family homes, the construction of a single purpose-built unit for older people will release a much larger unit onto the open market – a particularly effective strategy in terms of land and cost.
To quote Lord Best: “If 2% (84,000) of older people presently under-occupying (having more than two free bedrooms) moved into retirement housing then their former homes could serve the needs of 400,000 people as well as meaning that the older people themselves are in housing appropriate for their needs. This could potentially help lift the economy out of recession, provide employment and meet our housing needs.”
This is all fine stuff but there is one glaring anomaly: the type of housing needed in response to Lord Best’s clarion call is not at all the same as that with which HAPPI is primarily concerned.
To explain, we need to consider first that under-occupation starts to be a factor once children leave home and, even with today’s catastrophic graduate unemployment, this means that couples in their late 50s are likely, using Lord Best’s definition, to be under-occupying their houses. But looking at figures for the biggest single provider of specialist housing, McCarthy & Stone, the average age for moving into its “Later Living” apartments is 78 and for its “Assisted Living” schemes that goes up to 83. This is probably typical for the sector. Fine though the ideas and schemes in HAPPI are, I would suggest that they too respond primarily to the needs of those aged 70 or more.
"Under-occupation starts to be a factor once children leave home and, even with today’s catastrophic graduate unemployment, this means that couples in their late 50s are likely, using Lord Best’s definition, to be under-occupying their houses."
I’m not suggesting for a moment that the HAPPI recommendations should not be pushed very hard, but when it comes to saving the economy, it is initiatives aimed at those in “extended middle age” which have a wider importance.
In the US there has for some time been a significant trend towards early downsizing with many very large senior communities, particularly in Florida and Arizona. Phoenix, for example, is now a huge city, made up largely of such communities, each with a golf course (often more than one), pools, tennis courts and a country club. These attractions and the tax advantages of living out of town make it easy to understand why this part of the US housing market is so different from that in the UK.
What is also clear though is that these large US schemes thrive in a context where very large greenfield sites are available at low cost. In addition to the land-take of the facilities themselves, the high capital and maintenance costs only become affordable when shared by many households.
So far, Anchor’s Denham Garden Village is probably the largest purpose built retirement community in the UK with almost 400 units on a 30 acre site. The units, a mix of bungalows and flats, are all for private sale and the concept is that most levels of care and support can be provided to individual dwellings so there is no care home on the site. The facilities, including a pool, fitness suite and bar, are at times shared with the general public which helps to create a lively atmosphere. Generally the scheme has been judged a great success.
Earlier this year McCarthy & Stone sponsored a competition for the design of “Baby Boomer” housing in a drive to find new ideas which may appeal to the younger market. For the purposes of the competition the target age range was given as 57-69. The competition produced some fine schemes, but clearly the given site, at 2.4 acres, was nothing like big enough to provide the facilities which will tempt the target age range, of whom I am one, into trading in the family home and it is now to be used for 36 conventional retirement flats
An additional reason why only larger sites are likely to work for this age group is that persuading 60 year olds of the merits of high density apartment living outside cities will be very problematic. Schemes for this generation are likely to need a lot of two and three-bed houses, stylish and highly specified, and with ample parking for owners who may well still be working.
Is there then a UK solution for this major problem of under-occupation? It is not an easy road, but the market is potentially huge and the rewards correspondingly large. A few possibilities come to mind:
- McCarthy & Stone, among others, can demonstrate that many of its completed schemes would have been unviable with Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) in place. Viability is even more of an issue for older people’s housing than it is in general and incoming CIL policies should certainly take this into account.
- Authorities proposing major urban extensions should be obliged to include a requirement for a major component of retirement housing on the basis of its particular effectiveness in dealing with housing shortages.
- As a suggestion, on rural sites where only short-term let holiday housing is currently permitted, retirement housing should be allowed instead, opening up the possibility for retirement villages to be attached, for instance, to new CenterParcs venues.
- Highways guidance should be revised to reflect specifically the very low traffic generation of retirement schemes. Some authorities still fail to recognise the realities of this.
Lord Best is, of course, correct that encouragement for all forms of older people’s housing is crucially important. This applies across the board; high quality HAPPI housing is needed for those in the 80+ range and classic retirement housing will benefit those in their 70s but most importantly of all, planning initiatives are needed to facilitate the bigger, more spectacular schemes which will finally persuade UK 60-year-olds that downsizing is a real lifestyle choice.
Richard Morton, runs his own architectural practice, Richard Morton Architects. Before that he was a partner at Sidell Gibson Architects for 12 years
