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
Greening the Greenbelt highlights the unfair transfers of wealth from needy to affluent and from young to old caused by green belt policy. It also discusses certain environmental myths associated with green belts.
The Green Ration Book
The Green Ration Book is a checklist of carbon footprints with a visual index showing the impact of everyday goods and activities. Behind each entry is a discussion topic to allow visitors to add their own judgements and correct mistakes.
Auntie Jayne Solves Your Poem
Auntie Jayne is an agony aunt that only responds to poems. Rather down on her luck, she has agreed to work on themes that interest us.

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