Ariane Burgess: Time for a better housing model to suit all our needs
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When I visit people in the region the housing crisis is an often-raised topic – mainly the lack of affordable housing for young people.
The knock-on effect is that they have to move away, with few returning later.
There are many reasons for the lack of affordable housing and there isn’t one single solution.
Another issue from older people is they feel isolated and lonely, which affects their mental and physical health. They live in homes too large for their needs now, with family all grown up, but fear if they downsize they will have to move away from the people and places they know and love.
What if we looked at these issues together and make places designed to support communities to flourish, rather than housing alone?
The way we’ve been building for decades has forced us into our own separate spaces; we can close the door on the world. But with that closing, we close off so much more.
Many people are beginning to realise this has been to the detriment of supporting or enhancing community and it must change. Not everyone wants to live with a sense of community, but the vast majority do.
Yes, it is important we have our own space, but we also need places where community and interaction can happen naturally, without having to drive great distances.
A way of living where we share spaces and our lives outside of our family has become unfamiliar to many of us, but it is in our recent history. Not long ago, people did things in community – worked, celebrated and grieved. Back then, it was how people survived. But it is also through these shared experiences we have a greater sense of aliveness.
Clustered housing with a range of house sizes and tenure models and shared spaces could keep people of all ages in the community they love. When they’re ready to downsize they can do so without having to move miles away. The way we build housing should do more than provide homes. It should also provide a sense of place.
Our built environment shapes our lives, and housing that includes shared facilities like a co-working office, a laundry, a common room and outdoor spaces – especially for growing food – could help alleviate isolation for many and help maintain that sense of community created during the pandemic.
Fortunately, there is increasing focus on place-making. The Scottish Government’s fourth National Planning Framework will emphasise place-making, encouraging planning decisions that help us meet our basic needs as locally as possible.
Highland Council should also be driven by place-making when planning their allocation for housing in the coming years.
And in fact, this is very much what I heard from Mark Rodgers, chief executive of property and housing at the council when he gave evidence to my committee recently.
He spoke of the need to put the right houses in the right place for the right need, but highlighted the challenge faced across the council area that very often the right land to build affordable housing is not available, nor the infrastructure.
Caithness has such tenacious communities, it’s time that the built environment allowed them to flourish instead of pushing people away.
n Ariane Burgess is a Green MSP for the Highlands and Islands.
