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RE-SCALING THE PLANNING PROCESS The process of securing planning permission for a development is long and complicated, and delays can be prohibitively expensive. While large speculative companies and wealthy individuals may be able to absorb this difficulty, most households could not. Because of that slowness, the system has a natural bias towards handling fewer, larger developments, who incur less administrative strain. On top of this, planners may find it easier to work with professionals than ‘amateur’ self-providers. We now need a planning process that is proportioned to accommodate not just large developers, but the mass-micro nature of the self-provided housing industry.
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