Law and localism: the case of multiple occupancy housing

Abstract

This paper investigates how planning regulation constructs the local, encapsulating a locality and prioritising local decision making over regional and national scales. It draws on a case study of the regulation of multiple occupation to make three interrelated points. First, the analysis emphasises the plurality of ‘locals’ and the interrelationships between them. Secondly, the paper explains how the juridification of the local is required to make a locality legally visible. This operationalisation and construction of the local (legally, spatially and socially) must take place before the political logic of localism, the prioritisation of local decision making over other scales of governance, can take legal effect. Thirdly, the paper explains how, once the ‘local’ is legally constructed and can make decisions, this prioritisation of apparently neutral local expertise and knowledge can act to enclose the spatial and social with sometimes powerful exclusionary and regressive effects.

Energy vulnerability in multiple occupancy housing: a problem that policy forgot

“…Secondly, HMO households are more easily missed in population surveys such as the Census (Simpson and Middleton, 1997). This is partly explained because both landlords and tenants may benefit from informality and thus want to avoid detection by authorities (Layard, 2012). With these caveats in mind, 2011 Census data suggests that nationally between one and three per cent of English dwellings appear to be HMO, with 0.1 per cent being 'bedsits.'…”

“…Negative perceptions and images of HMO are abundant in policies adopted by local authorities that aim to control and contain multifarious social, cultural, economic and environmental ills associated with HMO. Examples include anti-social behaviour, benefit dependency, litter and poor external maintenance of buildings (Layard, 2012;Smith, 2012;Rickley andHoughton, 2009), or "illegal immigration" (DCLG, 2012) and "studentification" -a term which is "used pejoratively to signify community destabilisation and decline" (Smith and Hubbard, 2014: 2).…”

“…Former 'use class' restrictions on HMO were lifted and landlords can usually convert ordinary dwelling houses into HMO under permitted development rights (House of Commons Library, 2013). In response to community campaigns against HMO development, Article 4 Directions were introduced under the Localism Act 2011, which local planning authorities can deploy to remove these permitted development rights (Layard, 2012). This regulation is effective in demonstrating how established (single-family housed) residents are able to reject multi-occupancy residents on the basis of perceived lifestyle: "owner occupiers, families, individuals and couples are allowed to move into the locality, while unrelated sharers are not" (Layard, 2012: 556).…”

Encountering energy precarity: Geographies of fuel poverty among young adults in the UK

“…"Young adults" (Haartsen & Thissen, 2014) living in rental housing under flat-share or multiple occupancy arrangements have been particularly affected by policy and research lacunae in the fuel poverty domain (Layard, 2012;Smith, 2012). They predominantly live in "non-traditional" social and housing arrangements (Buzar, Ogden, & Hall, 2005) that challenge the conventional normativities of the home-owning nuclear familyone of the main underpinnings of urban planning, housing and energy policies in the UK (Cutas & Chan, 2012).…”

Time, space, and the authorisation of sex premises in London and Sydney

“…However, zoning ordinances are only one of the many instruments associated with municipal law, which also shapes the city through development control, the licensing of premises, the enactment of local nuisance by-laws and health regulation (Valverde, 2005;Blomley, 2010;Layard, 2012). Significantly, such municipal laws tend to be enacted and enforced by 'minor bureaucrats' -planners, licensing officers and councillors -rather than the police (Brown and Knopp, 2010).…”