The Shock Of The Nice

It’s amazing. Every day, I am astounded. When I meet people here in Nice Heights, we say hello and share a smile (although the lads who giggled when they saw my tiny, Palaeolithic telly the day I moved in are bastards.) Other than that, I greet every morning like Pollyanna: “Hello neighbours! Hello cleaners! Hello…carpets!”
Sickening, isn’t it?

One girl struck up conversation in the lift, where we discussed how much we both enjoyed living here.
“It’s really quiet, isn’t it – like a posh hotel.” she said.
We had both lived in Dovecot standard newbuilds, and Nice Heights is a revelation.
“Our flat’s lovely,” she continued. “I’ve never heard a peep from the neighbours - and the rooms are ever so bright.”

Another woman stepped into the lift. Dressed immaculately, the interloper admired her own expensive shoes, and sneered as we shared memories of all the nasty places we’d lived previously while the lift loitered on the ground floor (my Dovecot tales won, of course.) Stylish woman pressed the button for the penthouses, and left without looking back. Of course she did. It’s interesting that the storey-based system denoting social-class I recognised from Dovecot Towers (higher=richer) is repeated here in Nice Heights.

I suspect that the predominantly friendly atmosphere is down to the varied nature of the inhabitants. I’ve seen people who are older. Shocking isn’t it? One elderly man said he had downsized, helped his children buy their own homes and moved to Nice Heights to enjoy the city. He liked going to concerts, museums, and the theatre. He also liked exploring, and was off for an urban adventure in sturdy hiking-boots.

Or is it the fact that people own their flats? I’ve noticed just a few people staying temporarily (the wheelie-cases are a giveaway) but mercifully, Nice Heights has no online presence as a party apartment-hotel. The guests here dress in suits – computer specialists and accountants in town for a short contract, and they make a refreshing change from stag-parties.

Does this sound boring? Perhaps my enduring memories of the chaos in my former home conspire to make the peace hereabouts seem remarkable. People with larger flats have terraces, useful for barbecues. No forty-eight hour parties, no squealing girls and boys bellowing like bulls. I’ve heard neighbours say:
“Time to head inside; don’t want to annoy the neighbours, do we?”
Crikey. Consideration.

Nice Heights is an upmarket design, but still lacks anything encouraging a sense of community. I’m not expecting a common room, but we have no communal areas, like gardens, or a seated reception (even in high-spec buildings, entrances are stark.) Encounters take place beside the rubbish bins, which, since they are located underground, gives a simple chat about the weather an illicit appeal.

But right now I am sitting in the sunlight lounge, with birds singing daintily in the distance, as ‘In Paradisum’ from Faure’s Requiem drifts faintly and beautifully into my room. I can almost imagine that behind every front door, there lives a reasonable person. No thumping techno. No random screaming. Is this what normal life is like?

(NB: Recently, there were two burglaries in here. The management company have kept us informed – another improvement on Dovecot Towers. Gangs are targeting city flats. Even our robbers are posh. CCTV footage shows smartly dressed thieves ‘tail-gating’ their way through the (very) secure main door. But at least we have a main door. And also CCTV.)

Talk To Us

All across the land, those ubiquitous cranes, which once bestrode the cityscape like robotic daddy-long-legs, have vanished. Weak building firms are insolvent or merging with rivals. Construction has all but stopped, but with developers currently so quiet, I’m wondering what they’re up to. What are they plotting? What evil plans are they dreaming up?

Property development is in a holding pattern, but investors still own land, ear-marked for future use. These brown-field land-banks remain in stasis, often covered in advertising hoardings. Eventually, property developers will wake up their dormant assets, and building will begin again. But what will they build? More of the same? We can’t let that happen. We have an opportunity here. We must stop them while we can.

Here’s a crazy idea. Why not ask tenants how they want to live? Many buy-to-let investors never see the finished product, although I hope that by now, landlords have grasped the stupidity of buying off-plan and then wondering why the end result is a hovel. Then again, if common sense ruled the world, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

Buildings must not be constructed solely for the ease and profit of developers, allowing them to wriggle their slimy way out planning regs and common decency. Landlords should only invest in property they could imagine living in themselves. The flat I live in now has, fortunately for me at least, managed to make humane, civilised use of the allocated space and materials. It can be done, and doesn’t cost so much that managing accountants will splutter and die. So once again, why not ask the tenants how we want to live?

Just gather round those who do, have or in certain cases are destined to live in newbuild flats aimed at buy-to-let, and buy some wine and nibbles. Focus groups can easily distort questions, so none of this ‘…how much do you love your flat,’ and then reporting how these ‘dwellings are adored by all’ business; we’re on to you. And yes, I’ve heard the joke about a giraffe being a horse deigned by a committee, but this is different. We pay for these buildings, and as for the worst examples, well, we’re united in one thing: need better build quality.

Architects, builders, councils, planners, mortgage providers and investors would benefit from accurate research on attitudes to quality, layout, size, numbers of (separate!) rooms and storage. You could be forgiven for thinking that at similar meetings in the past it was decided that tenants actually want to pay extortionate rents for (ooh, yes please!) tiny Spartan matchboxes.

Oh, and soundproofing. In my new home, we can play music at a fair level without noise seeping through. I can’t hear my neighbours cough, or fart (worryingly I could in Dovecot Towers.) If anyone bothered ask us, we’d have told you how important that is. Tenants deserve some consideration, choice, and control over how they live, without orthodoxies like open-plan living being foisted upon them. Developers, builders and architects: are you paying attention?