Why not build directly if you own the land?
November 30th, 2016
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There was a time when the [London] borough or shire would employ their own architects, quantity surveyors, civil engineers, clerk of works and direct labour force and just get on with it. In London of course it would have been the LCC and later [from 1965] the GLC. Those days may have gone in most cases but we need them back.
I do not personally believe that the need for low cost housing across London has changed in 30 years. I think it’s still around 25-30% of all housing. If anything it’s grown. As low cost properties have disappeared from the boroughs’ stock and the PRS has moved in to replace it, but wages have not risen, then what is taking up the slack?
It’s two things. As Generation Rent will tell you it’s partly the percentage of net income going out as rent. What was 25% – 33% of net income in my day (the Seventies) can now reach and even exceed 50% of net income. But when people run out of money to pay the rent where do they turn? Housing benefit.
The housing benefit bill is over £20 billion a year about which Jules Birch has written in some detail.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/taking-the-strain1-26406
Of course Sadiq might equally claim “well so what, if these people are managing to pay the rent even at 2/3 of their income why should I worry?” but of course at that level it becomes a societal problem not just a personal one.
Sadiq should worry because the taxpayers money that ought to be building council houses on publicly owned land is going directly from the pockets of taxpayers into the bank accounts of some MPs and other buy to let owners, whose property consists of former council houses and flats sold under right to buy.
So when Peter John is saying the reason he got into bed with Lend Lease is because the Government withdrew £6 billion in 2010 leaving him unable to build social housing in any other way than with a developer you have to ask yourself how much council housing might have been built on public land with over £20 billion?
Then there is the quality of life issue. Are PRS properties as spacious and well maintained as council housing was traditionally and are the tenancies as secure? The answer is no.
Sadiq Khan sets out key plans for more “genuinely affordable” London homes
The truth is that both Peter John and Sadiq Khan are hamstrung by the Governments preference for paying large amounts of housing benefit rather than allocating grant funding to build low cost housing, because the Tories believe social homes create Labour voters.
As much as the criticism is levelled at the boroughs and shires for not building, it is in fact the Government offsetting the blame and leaving others to take the flak.
The one saving grace in the SK plan is the London SPG which in Para 3.5 sets out the space standards to be met by the developer for the 35% of housing he hopes to see built.
Actually what communities like Hackney need is for their local authorities to have more power and autonomy to provide social housing, not as a supplicant to the private sector but as the democratic and accountable expression of their communities.
http://www.jonestheplanner.co.uk/2012/11/hackney-hipsters.html
Today @sianberry has shown how even the promised London Living Rent does not fulfill its promise.
http://www.24housing.co.uk/news/living-rent-proposals-fall-short/
Housing First – homelessness
“there is ample evidence from many countries that shows it is always more cost-effective to aim to end homelessness instead of simply trying to manage it.”
In Helsinki, the situation is helped by the fact that the city owns more than 70% of the land.
“Wherever we build we are trying to make a good social mix,” says Matti Kaijansinkko from the City Planning Department. “As long as the city is the landowner, that is working quite well.”
http://www.innchurches.co.uk/lessons-from-finland-helping-homeless-people-starts-with-giving-them-homes/