You have to ask the next question, in that in a village that looks like this:
…allowed construction of houses that look like this:
…that question being: “How much was the local planning committee bribed?”
I think we should be told.
14 comments
Comments are closed.
Let me quote His Majesty: ‘A monstrous carbuncle’.
Article behind a paywall…
The monstrosity you show looks to be a government construct, possibly a “migrant housing facility”. In which case the local council (dung be on their boots) has no say whatsoever.
Barracks!
The primary difference is that while the newer buildings cost $500k to build, the older buildings would cost $5mil to replicate.
There’s a host of other issues that enter into the equation but basically, comparing what was, with what is, will always be a disappointment.
Same with cars, and everything else these days.
The new buildings don’t look all that bad. I have seen far, far worse on a regular basis in the US. There is a big development of shops and condos being built a few towns away and it is big, cold and strerile. Another condo complex of similar nature was built near a mall and all of it looks the same. How do people tell the buildings apart?
If it was private construction, why should any committee have a say in approving the design?
Welcome to Britain.
In many if not most European countries every town and hamlet has an “esthetics commission” that needs to approve any and all new construction, including modifications to existing buildings, to ensure that they “match the historical character of the area”.
In theory it’s a good thing (should prevent the building of eyesores), but more often than not these boards are highly corrupt and petty, blocking building permits because the applications weren’t accompanied by cash bribes and/or were applied for by people to whom someone on the board has a personal dislike.
I have built uglier housing and I did it because our local Planners, aka commie fascist swine, pretty much forced me to do it.
They allowed me to build only if I made the whole project “energy efficient” and left 20% of the rental units for “low income tenants” aka worthless, destructive, drunken scum.
What does a cheap, strong and easy to repair building look like, of necessity? A soviet gulag of course.
Anyway, the commies fucked up. My low income tenants were clever dodgers who simply sublet their units to good tenants at a much higher rent, but still less than market. I turned a blind eye to the illegal subletting, the new tenants received and forwarded mail to the dodgers, Pogey cheques no doubt, and I was treated correctly by both. Only the commies could be unhappy but they knew nothing. They never do.
This scam has been going on for years here in Boston. The Low Income Housing is doled out though a lottery system. Somehow, magically, the winners of these “lottery’s” turn out to be relatives and friends of local politicians. Who then sublet them at market rates. So, yes of course the commissars know, but they need to fill their campaign funds somehow, so everyone wins. Well …….. except actual low income citizens, who the Pols need to keep protesting about the need for more “low Income Housing.”
I’m sure you’ve noticed the proliferation of sterile, dystopian apartment/townhouse buildings going up around the DFW area. Municipalities love to stack ’em and pack ’em for the tax base.
Looks like a low security prison in Denmark.
Bingo.
Bureaucrat-committee warehouses for illegals and other colonizers.
The trend is paving farms, but who needs food anyway.
.
Colonizers.
There goes the neighborhood.