The density of residential areas.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The density of residential areas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/86 (page 5)
    Occupancy Rate rises between 1:5 and 2:0, children under 1 year not being counted and children between 1 and 10 years being counted as half persons. 16. If a large number of dwellings were being built over a big area it would not be satisfactory to assume a maximum Occupancy Rate in each and every dwelling. A proportion of more spacious dwellings would be required, and allowance would have to be made for some of the dwellings being under-occupied some of the time. The average Occupancy Rate for the whole area (i.e. total number of persons divided by total number of habitable rooms) would therefore in all probability stand at less than 1-0. This is the case already over large parts of England and Wales. On the other hand there are considerable areas of large towns where the average Occupancy Rate stands well above 1-0, and where this is so it is almost certain evidence of a shortage of accommodation. 17. There is no guide to the average Occu- pancy Rates suitable for various circumstances. One survey has shown that for areas of local authority housing, where a strict attempt is made to keep the accommodation full, then the average Occupancy Rate stands at about 1-0, and for areas of private housing that the Rate stands at 0-8. In any particular case it would seem that a planning officer will need to study existing Rates for various classes of property before deciding upon new figures for use in planning. It is very likely, however, that as more information becomes available it will be possible to make valid generalizations about the Rates applicable to various cases. In the various examples given later in this handbook an Occu- pancy Rate of °89 persons per room has been assumed. 18. The preceding paragraphs have estab- lished the habitable room as a convenient unit for the bulk measurement of accommodation, and Occupancy Rate as a means of measuring the density of people within accommodation. The two together enable the physical planner to say how much accommodation in bulk a given number of people will require. For the planner to say how much land is required for the bulk quantity of accommodation he will clearly have to consider the way the accommodation is arranged, that is to say the way the rooms are allocated to dwellings and the way the dwellings are themselves arranged on the ground. It is evident that a serious difficulty arises here, for, as already shown, the planner is seldom in a position to be precise about such matters. There is no straightforward way out of this difficulty. The best the planner can do is to be knowledgeable about the kind of dwelling requirements likely to arise, and to have a good idea of the possibilities in dwelling arrangement at various stated ratios of accommodation to land. Thus if the planner wishes to know how much land would be needed for 5,000 habitable rooms and he knew that a ratio of 100 habitable rooms per acre would give roughly suitable living conditions, then he could quickly calculate the area of land required. Fortunately, as will be shown later, the range of building possibilities at any particular ratio, or density, of accom- modation to land is considerable and this gives the planner a useful factor of safety. 19. In this section a study is made of the practical possibilities that exist in the way of arranging accommodation, with a view to building up an idea of the significance of various densities. It should perhaps be re-emphasized that what is being considered at this stage is the arrangement and spacing of dwellings inclusive of their immediate surroundings but excluding other uses such as shops, schools and major open space. It is, in fact, the density of areas consisting of dwellings only that is being con- sidered, to which has been given the name of ** Net Accommodation Density ”’.* 20. Dwellings can vary from bed-sitting- rooms in hostel blocks at the one extreme to * See Appendix 3 for definition of the area of land to be included.