Housing Employees on the Roofs of Tesco
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.18.07
Our UK sources tell us that Tesco is sort of the Wal-Mart of the UK and is not beloved by all. We have found websites and Guardian articles that are less than charitable. However, they do one thing that we wish a lot of big boxes would do here: They build affordable housing on their roofs and dedicate a portion of it to their employees. A spokeswoman for Tesco said they hoped the scheme would be "beneficial for staff retention" in London, where they suffer from a high turnover of workers. She added: "It is being led in London because there is more need for affordable housing... the sites in London are more constrained so you need to be a lot more imaginative." One could be nervous that such an arrangement would be like the old company houses rented to miners that locked them in for life, but no, Tesco says that the flats will be sold to a housing association and staff will not be treated any differently to other tenants, retaining the right to stay in the property even if they stop working for the supermarket giant. I magine if all those big flat roofs throughout America had residential units for their workers built on top. They might even become a good place to live and work. ::BBC
A really fine idea. Those opposing big box retail development may want to try to implement zoning that requires housing above all retail. That would discourage some retailers and make the others more useful to the community.
As a potential social tenant, I once viewed the flats in question. They were lovely and had a *gorgeous* roof-top view over London.
However, it must be pointed out that in all likelihood, Tesco didn't build those flats out of the goodness of its heart. That store was built on prime inner-city urban residential land, right next to a key road junction. In all likelihood, building those flats was a key condition the local council imposed before granting building permission.
A version of the "company town". The implementations start out ok then deteriorate. It's a human trait.