RENEWAL CITIES
Renewal Cities are developments that use the wealth they create to sponsor grand and worthwhile projects.
Our first scheme - a city in North Kent.
The Hoo Peninsular Renewal Citywill be a modern carbon negative city where people from varying walks of life will want to live. Its predicted population is 250,000. This is much larger than any of the proposed ecotowns. As well developing carbon negative lifestyles, some of the wealth created by this development will finance carbon capture and storage at the neighbouring Kingsnorth power station. The city will be funded using the value inherent in planning permission.
The value of planning permission
Development creates value. In Britain, a large proportion of this value can be recognised as the value of planning permission. The values of land is greatly increased when planning permission changes agricultural land into building land. The difference is the value of the planning permission. A typical figure for the planning permission value of a house is £100,000.
3 million new homes - £300 billion to spend
The UK government is planning 3 million new homes. A reasonable estimate of the planning permission value of these homes is £300 billion. With the correct mechanisms in place this can be captured for good causes. One advantage of using planning permission value is that the source of the value is opaque - it needs a good understanding of the economics to see how the value is created.
Development trusts
One method that RenewalCities.Org advocate is the use of development trusts, bodies who use the wealth that development creates for beneficial purposes. Such mechanisms are already used. The Olympics Delivery Authority is using £1.8 billion of planning permission value for the 2012 Olympics. Universities and colleges often find funding in this way. This is discussed in more detail in our proposal for the Hoo Peninsular Renewal City.
Lifestyle changes
Another aspect of Renewal Cities is that the will be working examples of how we might live happy lives without causing environmental degradation. They have a more ambitious targets than the current proposals to develop ecotowns in Britain. Ecotowns are not geared to promote radical changes of lifestyles.
OUR FIRST SCHEME ...
The Hoo Peninsular Renewal City
Greening the Greenbelt
The Green Ration Book
Auntie Jayne Solves Your Poem