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Guides

Development, Viability & Planning

This is my basic guide on what drives development and developers. It includes a guide to viability appraisals. This latest version has been drafted to support the forthcoming RTPI online course on viability and also includes numerous corrections and updates.

Viability Podcast One (Basic Principles)
Viability Podcast Two (Development & Developers)
Viability Podcast Three (An introduction to Appraisal)

NB These audio podcasts are not currently available online. (My advise is don't ask PlusNet to do your web hosting!). I will send copies if you e mail me; beaman@regenerate.co.uk. They are summaries of the talks on development viability appraisal that I gave in Autumn 2010 as part of the Planning Advisory Service course on viability for Planners. They are in mp3 format and downloadable (righ click and select 'save as') and should also play in your browser if you simply click on the link. At present the sound quality varies a bit; my apologies for that.

Viability Podcast 1 Transcript
Viability Podcast 2 Transcript
Viability Podcast 3 Transcript

These are transcripts for each podcast.

Delivery Strategies for Masterplans and Area Action Plans

I was commissioned to write this by the RICS and trust that it does what is says on the tin although it is now a little long in the tooth.

Developing Space for Small Business

This is my guide to the economics of providing space for small businesses

Simple example commercial model
Simple example residential model
Alternative example commercial model

Two simple appraisal models that were used on the PAS course on viability skills for planners and tidied up for me by Phil Wallbridge at Roger Tym & Partners plus a variation on the commercial model using a wider range of variables.

Does Good Design Increase Development Returns?

This is a review of some of the various reports and papers on this topic together with some personal conclusions.

Infrastructure Costs Ready Reckoner

This runs through typical requirements and costs for a wide variety of types of social and open space facilities, the main exception being transport. It also indicates funding sources although this has not been updated to take account of the outcome of the 2010 Spending Review.

How much does it take to get a landowner to release land?

This covers assumptions about the price that it is assumed will need to be paid for land in appraisals for policy studies, a commentary on negotiating when a developer seeks to ensure that development plans allow him to recover the full price paid for a site and notes on the evidence of the impact of levies on land supply since WW2.

Sources of Data for Appraisals

Valuation Office Agency

The VOA Property Market Reports provide a useful snapshot of market movements and an indication (no more than that) of typical land prices based on historic data. Check under 'Property Market Reports'

IPD

This is the best source of statistical information on the investment market. Most of this needs tio be paid for but there usually some open articles on trends under 'news'.

HCA 'Economic Appraisal Tool'

This is the HCA appraisal model. It is useful for smaller scale and short term projects with a significant affordable housing content.

EGi 'Propertylink'

This free service from Estates Gazette's 'EGi' service provides details on many commercial properties on the market together with asking price etc.

Jones lang LSalle Research

Authoritative general market research focusing primarily on the major centres. You have to register to download the various reports but this is free.

Allsop

The UK's largest auctioneers. Their back-catalogue provides a great repository of information on the prices obtained for less fashionable commercial properties across the UK which are very useful when trying to establish existing values, or gauging competition from existing property to a new scheme. There is also a residential auction site but I find this less useful.

Smart New Homes and New Homes for Sale

These sites aggregate details of new homes on the market. Their details, or the details on the websites of the various developers they link to, usually give you enough information to work out the asking price on a per square metre basis for comparison puproses.

RICS Market Surveys

The RICS Surveys are useful because, being based on a poll of agents who are active in the market, they provide a forward looking survey of market conditions. The navigation within the RICS site is notoriously bad, so don't stray too far!

Davis Langdon Everest Research

This site includes a valuable collection of cost studies and budgets for various sorts of standard and unusual schemes.

Gardiner & Theobald

G&T provide data on trends in construction tender prices, regional variations etc.

Franklin & Andrews

This company provide a good, free guide to build costs on request. It is called the 'Littlke Black Book'. The only snag is that it is not always obvious what their budget figures do and do not include. My assumption is that the basis is comparable to Spons.

Bank of England data on Interest Rates

For London Interbank Borrowing rates (LIBOR).

English Partnership's Guide to Remediation Costs

This Report provides useful information on typical costs for remediating of contaminated sites. I have posted it on my site because the search facility for docments on the HCA site is so utterly useless.

Dataspring

This online service from the Cambridge Centre for housing & Planning Research provides data on rents for social and market rental property across the UK plus access to wealth of general reasearch on housing and planning.

BBC House Price Data

The BBC now offer an easy way to access local land registry data on house prices.

Other Interesting & Useful Stuff

Cultures of Development: Property and Urban Regeneration

This piece written in 2000 by John Henneberry and Simon Guy for the RICS 'Cutting Edge' series of papers makes the case for cultivating local development firms to offset the negative effects on development of remote investors systematically over-estimating risks and missing opportunities.

Assessing the Assessors

This article by Pat McAllister & Peter Wyatt of Univ.of Reading appeared in RICS Business in June 2010. It summarises (accurately in my view) the shortcomings of the traditional approaches to appraisal in the planning context.