Housing without Profit
| Author | R.D. CRAMOND |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1965.tb01606.x |
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
Housing
without
Profit
H
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C:
I<
A
M
ON
D
‘I-tiis
article is a shortened version
of
the essay which
won
the Haldane Silver
Medal for
1964.
The author is a Principal in the Scottish Development
Uetartment. Much
of
the
basic
material
for
the essay
was
gathered
during
visits
to
Scandinavia which were Jinanced
by
the author’s tenure
of
the
Sir
John
Mactaggart Fellowship in the Economics
of
Housing at the University
of
Gla.Sgou1.
With the virtual demise
of
private building for letting, consumer choice in
housing
in
Britain
is
very limited. Local authorities build houses for letting
at subsidized rents; private enterprise builds houses for sale without
subsidy; no agency provides modern houses on any scale for occupation
at cost rents.
The reasons for this increasing division of the British housing market
into
two
mutually exclusive sectors, and the potential advantages
of
having
a
‘Third Force’ in housing have been canvassed many times, and
it
is now officially accepted that housing choice in Britain should be
widened; two successive White Papers
and
three Acts of Parliament have
contained proposals for encouraging non-profit housing societies on the
Scandinavian model.
Institutions which have grown in one country may not, however, easily
tramplant to foreign soil. Would study
of
the framework
of
policy within
which non-profit housing has flourished in the post-war years in, say,
Sweden reveal the factors
-
other than sheer habit
of
mind
-
which would
be essential to their success elsewhere?
Could
non-profit housing associa-
tions become in Britain what they are
in
Sweden and other Scandinavian
countries
:
an essential part of an integrated housing policy designed to
cater for and raise the housing standards
of
all classes in the community?
In Britain there are houses rented at subsidized
or
controlled rents; there
are houses
sold
or let for profit; could there
also
be houses occupied at cost,
without either subsidy or profit?
HOUSING
POLICY
IN
SWEDEN
In Sweden government assistance to housing between the wars had a
limited, social basis: loam and rent subsidies ware made available only
to
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
certain groups of people with low incomes
-
pensioners, farm workers and
families with at least three children.
During the Second World War, however, an entirely new and compre-
hensive national housing policy was adopted, which went well beyond the
basis of poor relief, and aimed at
a
general increase in housing standards
for all income groups. The specific objects of post-war housing policy
included the elimination of overcrowding
and
in
particular of the use
oi'
one-room
flats
as family dwellings
;
the improvement of housing standards,
especially in rural areas; the provision of houses of good standards of space
and equipment at rents which would not take more than
20
per
cent
of
the
income
of
an average family; and the encouragement of non-profit house
building.
Housing policy is administered at three levels. The responsible central
government department was formerly the Ministry for Social Affairs, but
now
-
from
I
July
1963
-is the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry
prepares legislation and acts as the highest tribunal for appeals. The actual
administration of the housing laws is carried out by the National Housing
Board, a central agency which has
a
branch
-
known as the County Board
of Housing
-
in each of the twenty-four administrative districts. These
County Boards are directly responsible for the granting of government
loans and subsidies in their areas. In the localities the primary responsi-
bility for planning and initiating house building rests with the local
authorities, who draw up housing programmes for their districts, supervise
house building and management, assist in granting state loans and
suh-
sidies, and have power to grant subsidies themselves.
The chief source of municipal strength in housing lies in the ownership
of
land. Many towns have
for
years bought up great tracts
of
land
in
advance of requirements, and have leased them for agricultural use until
they were needed for development. In Stockholm almost
all
of the land
now being developed is owned by the city in this way and is leased to the
developers. The Swedes see this as
a
means of planning and controlling
development, preventing land speculation, and keeping down the cost
ol'
house building in urban areas. The provision of adequate reserves
of
land
is still, however, one of the biggest problems which face expanding com-
munities.
The Swedes are a nation
of
flat dwellers. Eighty per cent. of all
com-
pletions from the end of the war to
1960
were in blocks containing more than
two flats or houses? The proportion is even higher in the big cities. Again,
they have no slum problem as we know it. The industrial revolution came
late to Sweden
so
that even in
1870
only
10
per cent.
of
the population
lived in urban areas. By
1956
the figure had risen to
66
per cent. and more
than half of the dwellings in urban areas have been built in the last quarter
of
a
century.
As
so
large
a
proportion of their houses are relatively new, the
proportion of slums is low, and their redevelopment projects are inspired
'Housing
in
thc
North
Countries,
Copenhagen,
1960.
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