Placemaking Two – a stewardship approach to creating communities

In 2024, ADAM Architecture co-produced a report with the leading UK law firm Farrer & Co, which found that focusing on adding value over generations rather than chasing quick sales and returns, produces greater rewards for investors, developers and the local population alike.

Read the full report

Authored and researched by Future Places Studio, Placemaking Two – a stewardship approach to creating communities is a follow up to Placemaking: a patient approach to creating communities, which was published in early 2020, and outlines what it terms the Patient Development Model as the way forward for the provision of future housing.

Contributors to the report include the King’s Foundation, the Duchy of Cornwall, Knight Frank, Savills, Smart Growth Associates, and Stockbridge Land and Redtree.

Towns for the future from the past
Placemaking Two examines the challenge of meeting the government’s targets for 300,000 new homes annually, cautioning against the creation of “sleepy mono-use commuter towns”. It also questions the prevailing system of the release of land to volume housebuilders seeking a quick return on investment in a single-use product, instead advocating opportunities for smaller regional bespoke builders to play their part, given the right economic and planning frameworks.

The report also recognises the increased interest in living locally and the desire for sustainable, walkable neighbourhoods – a return to 19th century planning approaches that gave birth to the garden city movement, characteristics seen in communities such as Poundbury, Nansledan, Stamford and Derwenthorpe.

Eight steps to sustainable development
The report contrasts modern volume housebuilding with successful community developments in the post-COVID era, focusing on innovative schemes that could be replicated nationally and identifying eight shared approaches, including taking a long-term view at the outset of a project; measuring success through a social and environmental lens rather than just profit; long-term masterplans and design codes that prioritise design and community; and re-thinking the approach to social housing, streets, mixed-use, green spaces and social infrastructure.

Land stewardship and legacy
Land stewardship asks landowners to retain an interest in land offered for development, in exchange for a share of the profit on the sales price. It transforms landowners into custodians of the land but requires them (as well as developers) to accept a slower return on investment.

To work effectively, this should be incentivised, financing offered and tax and planning systems updated. The report calls for stewardship models to be tax neutral compared to the short-term land trading system prevalent today, with incentives introduced to include beneficial tax treatments, rollover of certain tax exemptions and relief for receipts under lease arrangements, and capital gains tax deferral to a point of future sale.

The availability of affordable, long-term funding from government to finance regenerative development is also a necessity. In addition, public land could be offered to developers through joint venture arrangements, and options to finance larger-scale developments should be explored.

A more flexible planning approach for uncontentious sites would also be beneficial, as it would allow for development over longer time periods, the use of Local Development Orders, and a presumption in favour of future development.

Read the report

This is a follow-up to Placemaking: a patient approach to creating communities published in early 2020. This report can be read here.