(Con)temporary Values
Procuring Alternative Measures of Urban Success within London’s Meanwhile Developments
LiveSpace is a community interest company providing a service to re-visualise and procure London’s vacant sites through meanwhile use development. Acting both virtually, as a digital platform, and on the ground within London’s neighbourhood, our interface is predicated on making London’s unused spaces visible. Working with local communities to identify and develop temporary urban projects, LiveSpace aims to expose current systemic problems within meanwhile use developments and propose alternative modes of reoccupying the city’s unused real estate. As part of LiveSpace’s company proposal, this research will interrogate the potential for meanwhile use programs to develop community projects that support social values in contrast to monetary measures of success. In addition, it will delineate possible subsidy strategies, and build an argument for the mutual benefits of cultural meanwhile use programs in London Boroughs.
Meanwhile Use development is defined by its temporality. Meanwhile sites come into existence between the programmatic events of a building’s life: its initial assembly, its decline into vacancy, its renovation into housing, its complete demolition… Between these long stages of urban redevelopment, the aching slowness of the construction industry opens up momentary sites ready for temporary occupation. The relevance of these spaces comes as no surprise amongst the dense fabric of England’s capital city. The economics of London’s property market has inhibited homeowners, entrepreneurs, and artists residential opportunities within the centre of the metropolis (Ziehl et al. 2012), and slowly the next generation of workers in the city are being categorised as ‘Endies’, “without disposable income or savings” (Leadbeater et al., 2014). In this context, meanwhile-use development presents a novel typology for temporary occupation, which — if cultivated with the right principals — can offer the prospect of lower rents and subsided urban access for socially motivated initiatives.
The fundamental critique of meanwhile proposals is evident in their lifespan: projects cannot maintain a long-term influence over a neighbourhood, nor can businesses build a permanent home. In addition, projects are often developed without community engagement, coercing local neighbourhoods into commercial gentrification (Scafe-Smith, 2019). The intrinsic turbulence of short-term occupation ensures a meanwhile site’s eventual demise, resulting in a hierarchical debate between temporary civic space in opposition to pending housing developments. Furthermore, economic incentives to protect investments prevent landlords from opening unused sites to meanwhile redevelopment (Bosetti and Colthorpe, 2018). The cost of property in London suffocates any motivation for the construction of more emancipatory projects that might propose alternative goals outside of financial gain. From this perspective, monetary value risks eclipsing all other measures of urban success.
At this moment, reimaging ways to promote meanwhile use plans that emerge out of local interests is essential. Central to successful procurement strategies is the communication between neighbourhood councils and residents, wherein the realities faced by Authorities, in addition to community ideals, can form a legible proposal to construct the positive renovation of unoccupied spaces. As an example, a recent study conceived by Eli Hatleskog, at the University of Bristol and University of the Arts London, with Flora Samuel at the University of Reading, argues for the necessary rethinking of how the planning sector represents social value. Their ‘Mapping Social Value’ project develops community led cartographies to clearly spatialise local experience and aspiration. This research states:
“Social value is high on policy agendas in the UK but there is little agreement on the definition of social value in the context of the built environment or on how the gathering of social value data might be spatialised.” (Hatleskog and Samuel, 2020)
Apart from influencing schemes, the legible representation and publication of social objectives can additionally help to prevent detrimental urban developments (Hatleskog, 2021).
To outline the research of LiveSpace’s company proposal, this article is divided into 4 parts: Section 1 examines the influence of time over meanwhile use projects. Section 2 identifies the contemporary mechanisms that define their development throughout the city of London. In Section 3, the LiveSpace database is described, proposing the implementation of a 4D live cartography of London’s vacant sites, whilst integrating an archive of community consultations to inform social objectives for meanwhile use. Lastly, Section 4 explores how a funding scheme initiated by LiveSpace can use community led research to support the financing of culturally significant meanwhile projects.
01 — Space, Time, and Money
Over the last 100 years, the phenomena of globalization and technological advancements have undeniably altered the state of the contemporary metropolis. The scholar Ali Madanipour explains in his book on temporary urbanism that the economics of the 21st century, in combination with modernism’s project to intensify consumption and growth, have positioned the city in an accelerated state of redevelopment (Madanipour, 2017). From this perspective, London presents a model context of vast reconstruction and urban expansion, harbouring endless examples of latency between developments, or sites simply left to decay without intention for reuse — where land value alone maintains a stable investment.
The given timeframe of a meanwhile use development influences the viability of its purpose and procurement. Whilst vacant sites can in theory accommodate any urban program, the period within which they operate often impacts economic incentives to realize commercial uses. One the one hand, this relationship between time and value can be seen as the defining factor negatively impacting the wider implementation of meanwhile use sites, yet on the other hand, it opens our understanding of temporary occupation as a potential typology able to realize more emancipatory projects governed by social and cultural values. To elaborate on this further: A widely referenced paper written by Tom Colthorpe and Nicolas Bosetti, describing the potential of meanwhile sites for urban regeneration, identified in 2018 that 24,400 commercial units in London were uninhabited, with “three million sqm of commercial floor space” (Bosetti and Colthorpe, 2018) left empty for over two years. In an interview with Bosetti, he explained:
“meanwhile use developments are not generally that profitable, because you don’t have that long of a time to breakeven over the investment that has been made. The site isn’t necessarily ready for your intended use, because it may not have been design perfectly for it, and therefore you need to invest in a change of use, and because you only have a couple of months (or hopefully years) to hold your activity, it is rare for landowners to generate a profit. Especially for social value users, or users who aren’t commercial. I’m sceptical of saying that meanwhile sites are easily monetized”. (Interview, 2021)
The meanwhile window of opportunity no doubt controls who can achieve what, and during which period of time. The consensus surrounding meanwhile use can prevent the wider implementation of such schemes, as Bosetti’s observation illustrates, meanwhile use developments do not always favour commercial application, instead their temporality can provide an opening to create spaces with diverse forms of social value. To understand how social value can be procured through meanwhile use developments, we need to identify the factors inhibiting short-term typologies and articulate the interaction of London’s stakeholders that are crucial for the successful implementation of these spaces.
02 — Meanwhile Mechanisms
As time is of the essence, the speed at which vacant sites are identified, the acquisition of funding for community-oriented schemes, the period taken to approve meanwhile use planning applications, and the sustainable deconstruction of impermanent facilities are instrumental stages in successful strategies for temporary occupation.
Meanwhile use proposals depend on the availability of unoccupied sites, from long-term vacancy to temporary windows between redevelopment, and at present there are no standards or databases that provide a city-wide view of these conditions. For example, the Planning London Datahub, previously the London Development Database (LDD), maintains a record of all planning applications throughout the capital; however, the interface is updated within three months of proposal submissions (London Development Database, 2015), generating a lag in planning data feedback, and therefore distancing the tool from meanwhile users who need fast identification of available sites. Considering the accessible studies provided in the interest of housing development, the Mayor’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) lacks any user-friendly interface to give clearer insight into emerging opportunities for urban redevelopment. Whilst the Brownfield Site Register (used in part by the SHLAA) offers an online mapping service to depict known sites,
the SHLAA’s incredibly thorough study remains difficult to navigate, most of the relevant material is published in PDF documents or as raw data files unable to provide easy viewing for local communities in search of available sites for meanwhile use. In addition, London’s borough authorities have up-to-date records of vacant commercial property identified through business rate exceptions, however this data remains unstandardised and many councils avoid its publication. (Bosetti and Colthorpe, 2018)
At present, the procurement of meanwhile use projects follows no linear path, as we have seen in the case of the Nomadic Community Gardens close to Shoreditch Highstreet station, whereby land was spontaneously provided by the developer with a small budget for community redevelopment between lengthy planning applications. Or the Silver building — a workshop amongst London’s Royal Docks temporarily occupied by artists and gallery spaces — that was spotted by the mixed-use developer Nick Hartwright on a chance cable car trip over the Thames. Whilst these anecdotes offer unexpected procurement strategies, it is apparent that without the easy identification of obtainable plots, local communities require more comprehensive tools to enable meanwhile use projects, outside of developer philanthropy.
This is not to say that more progressive initiatives are entirely non-existent. For example, the organisation ‘Meanwhile Space’ is a community interest company (CIC) based in Lambeth, providing an archetypal service to “unlock underused sites” for young professionals in need of temporary residency. I was able to interview Natalie Record, who is currently leading the Housing Innovation team at the Connected Places Catapult, and, in 2010, began her charity start up Givey within ‘Meanwhile Space’s’ Lower Marsh Market development:
“Meanwhile Space put me in contact with the Lambeth council — their partner in this development — because council members were also keen on supporting the technology coming out of our temporary site. They wanted to create a tech cluster in Lambeth, it was like their testbed for innovating and they were even going to let us test our technology on the building.” (Interview, 2021)
Authority owned real estate, as in the case of the Lower Marsh Market development, can provide a fertile context for beneficial temporary projects that have mutual advantages for Council and local residents alike, through the subsidy of rents and the cultivation of innovative industries. In general, Councils have a wider awareness of possible development funding resources and the requirements of the planning system; and are able to implement institutional knowledge to help community led schemes.
Whilst more flexibility has recently been established in the government’s Use Class system, introducing a new Class E as of September 2020 to create more seamless usage changes for commercial properties, the relationship between the planning system and designated uses for properties makes it difficult to get fast consent for meanwhile developments. Meanwhile use occupation remains lacking in quick planning turnaround times due to complex proposals containing a multitude of new uses and would highly benefit from more relaxed change-of-use allowances in addition to existing ‘permitted development’.
03 — Representing Vacancy
Advocating for easier community access to vacant urban sites, this study proposes a not-for-profit social organisation named LiveSpace. The enterprise provides a digital platform to aid the procurement of meanwhile use projects, in combination with locally active researchers contributing free consultation for meanwhile initiatives. As a response to the factors constraining meanwhile use occupation, LiveSpace maintains a four-dimensional online map of London, providing a live-feed plan of the city, updated with locations of available sites and community led research. The LiveSpace system is informed in three ways: firstly, through using available government resources to map urban vacancy; secondly, through community consultation carried out by our organisation via locally held mapping workshops; and thirdly, through a public interface where additional data and local knowledge can be uploaded onto LiveSpace’s temporal model.
The impetus for a digital platform is supported by the current lack of online resources visualising unoccupied property in London. It is LiveSpace’s belief that this interface will catalyse awareness and action to unlock vacant urban sites. Through digitising local knowledge, LiveSpace’s cartographic interface aims to map social interest not only to devise wiser meanwhile schemes but also to prevent negative developments that could jeopardize these values.
In communication with the government’s Geospatial Commission, LiveSpace will employ VU.CITY’s existing model of London to map unused urban sites horizontally and vertically, providing a comprehensive representation of vacancy. Influenced by Hatleskog’s and Samuel’s methodology of a ““A novel asset-based spatial approach to social value” (Hatleskog, 2021), the online mapping interface aims to spatialise local ideals. Maps are drawn with local residents at both the regional scale of the borough and at the level of the community, covering multi-scalar formats to enable precise documentation of public interest and in turn influencing planning consent for meanwhile use developments.
“Knowing which neighbours can provide temporary storage, who in the area can lend certain materials, and where existing community activities are focused is essential.” (Scafe-Smith, 2019)
In addition, LiveSpace aims to represent the temporal quality of meanwhile occupation through the adaptation and continual updating of their model. As the LiveSpace system develops, vacancy periods of registered properties are recorded and monitored. Properties with registered vacancy for more than 5 years can be seized from landowners by borough authorities for free temporary occupation upholding the land’s current use class.
04 — The LiveSpace Fund
Building on the possible procurement methods that the LiveSpace platform can offer, this research proposes a new funding scheme to aid meanwhile use developments with strong social value criteria. It does this in two ways: firstly, through a LiveSpace initiated government subsidy scheme and secondly by maintaining an online crowdfunding interface. Drawing on contemporary references currently implemented by the Mayor of London, such as the ‘Make London’ fund, LiveSpace proposes to work alongside London’s financial board to claim resources for a LiveSpace fund, portioning a specific annual allowance to catalyse meanwhile use developments initiated in dialogue between borough councils and local communities. In order to sustain public ideals, the LiveSpace fund is predicated on the following criteria:
Firstly, the division of government expenditure is currently established to support appraisals fulfilling fundamental environmental, social, and monetary values. The Treasury Green Book provides guidance for the assessment of these critical incentives; however the report admits unmonetisable values remain challenging to quantify, proposing the use of “Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)” (Treasury Green Book, 2020) in an attempt to calculate immeasurable social and environmental consequences. Without a standard for the evaluation of cultural values, the computation of economic gain often drives state spending. In an attempt to overcome these obstacles, LiveSpace’s database of community led research will inform the allocation of government funding to worthy meanwhile use sites, helping to visualise and sustain existing and future neighbourhood qualities.
Secondly, the LiveSpace fund is maintained through an online bidding system, whereby residents can use our platform to propose meanwhile use developments — with guidance from the LiveSpace team — exclusively for council owned land. Whilst LiveSpace provides a public database for common use, this proposal argues that the most effective way of increasing the impact of spending is to subsidise community-initiated projects that work in close dialogue with borough authorities for council property. Through this model, the fund aims to increase communication between councils and neighbourhoods, drawing from LiveSpace’s archive of local research to inform the financing of proposals. The LiveSpace team offers advice on specimen intermediary meanwhile use leases provided by the central government and hopes to speed-up planning consent by creating a funding model that requires the collective partnership of meanwhile initiatives and the council to complete LiveSpace’s sponsored temporary use developments. Lastly, LiveSpace approved subsidies cover up-front costs, meaning projects can be initiated without fear of investment losses for ventures initiated by young businesses and neighbourhood collectives.
In conclusion, LiveSpace brings together public led research, local stakeholders, and Authorities within a single model. This community interest company hopes to democratise access to meanwhile use developments, to promote cultural values, and offer temporary, subsidised space, for people in need of early career support. Meanwhile use developments can provide a sustainable means of constructing new spaces through the renovation of existing unused sites, re-animating previously empty areas amongst London’s neighbourhoods. This proposal aims to illustrate ways in which we can provide a transparent path for Londoners during critical periods of career and community development. At present, the city awaits an unsure future in light of the COVID19 pandemic, meanwhile use occupation can serve a vital role for young businesses and boroughs during this period of recovery.
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With many thanks to:
Nico Bosetti, Natalie Record, and Cleo Valentine
