Love thy neighbour?
Published 18 June 2009
Mixed tenure developments have been held up as a model for promoting social cohesion. But new research has found that residents are often unhappy about sharing their area with people in different types of housing tenure. Joanne Bretherton reports.
Housing associations are having difficulty selling market price and shared ownership units in new mixed tenure developments. But new research by the Centre for Housing Policy at York University shows that the problems confronting mixed tenure sales are deep-seated – and not simply the result of the collapsing housing market.
New forms of high-density, mixed tenure, affordable housing have been advocated as a way of addressing the housing shortage, and promoting social cohesion and a renaissance in inner cities. But sales of shared equity and market price properties on new developments have slumped. Recent estimates suggest of the 21,538 low-cost homes built last year, 9,655 (44 per cent) remain unsold.
But our research has raised a number of important questions about the long-term viability of high-density mixed tenure communities as a model for the development of strong and diverse communities.
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