UK Edition
As many as 41,000 homes could be built on London's roofs, research finds
As many as 41,000 new homes could be built in central London using rooftop development space, new research has found.
Property agency Knight Frank found that developing homes on top of existing buildings could results in an additional 28m sq ft of residential space, with a potential value of £51bn.
The research was prompted by the Government’s housing White Paper, which was published in February and which aimed to set out measures to tackle the country’s housing crisis.
Among other things, the paper suggested that buildings could be extended upwards in urban locations in order to increase the density of housing with minimal disruption.
Knight Frank has developed a tool called Skyward which analyses data from the Ordnance Survey, cross referencing Land Registry data to assess ownership and data from Historic England to filter out listed buildings.
It allows developers to see the 3D impact of making buildings taller, such as light and view restrictions. The tool also only identifies buildings which, if they were made taller, would not tower over their neighbours, meaning the skyline would not be altered.
It found that some 23,000 buildings could be suitable for rooftop development in zones one and two.
Charles Dugdale, residential development partner at Knight Frank, said the research allowed for the first time a comprehensive look at where there were opportunities for rooftop developing.
“It’s very common for someone to extend on to the roof and there are a number of specialist developers across London working particularly with modular homes to build off-site and then move the structure in,” he said.
“What we’ve lacked up until now is a way of mapping all the places where this is possible.”
He added that developing on the tops of existing properties could provide a way of developers funding improvements to the rest of the building.