Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey's Warehouse Districts Under Threat?
An item at tonight's Council Cabinet meeting has thrown into question the future survival of Haringey's two warehouse districts and the artistic communities who live in them.
Both the Harringay Warehouse District and the Fountayne Road community now face an uncertain future following the publication of a Haringey Council report, "Tackling Unauthorised Living in Industrial Areas". (Report attached)
The report, which was discussed at the full cabinet of the Council today, recommends a two-year project costing £600,000 which will seek to deal with "the growing problem of unauthorised residential and live work uses in and around (the) Industrial Sites" in Haringey. The recommended process is "to establish a special multi-disciplinary team to fully investigate and address the problem through a combination of regulation, improvement, enforcement and, where necessary, prosecution".
The alarm bells were ringing for me since earlier in the week I had discovered that these areas are earmarked as being amongst those that will "will accommodate the majority of development in the borough over the next 20 years".
In Facebook and Twitter conversations this afternoon, warehouse residents shared their fears that the vibrancy their communities bring to the borough will be overlooked and their communities sanitised and destroyed.
In response to my Twitter requests to Council Leader Claire Kober this evening to protect these communities, Cllr Kober sought to offer some reassurance:
@harringayonline some people in unacceptable conditions. My concern is for safe, decent properties. No intention to undermine communities
@harringayonline no intention to damage what's good. Priority is to go after rogue landlords just as we do elsewhere in borough
When I asked if she would ensure that warehouse residents will be involved, the Council Leader replied:
@harringayonline don't see any problem involving residents. Will ask officers to consider how best to achieve
I very much hope that the approach the Council takes in this project will support these communities rather than beginning the process of whittling them away.
Tags for Forum Posts: local plan, local plan 2014, site allocation plan, warehouse district
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Permalink Reply by Tom Jubert on
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I'm not sure that will be true in all cases, but there is a lack of clarity there.
Can you tell us which areas are particular concerning re: rubbish? The only ear I have is on Arena, where I know we have not enough bins, but where I think they are safely hidden round the back inside our compound.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Tris, I was talking about the 700 places in the warehouses. You got me good keeping the fact that you don't live in one of those from me :)
I genuinely don't care what people do for a living, many of my friends are abhorred by what I do. I care that rubbish is not being collected properly. I care a little bit that there are noisy parties keeping people awake but this is mostly jealousy that I am not invited to those kind of parties (Ketamine!, different kinds of fish!?). And I care that the tax system is being undermined by lack of universality, possibly condoned by the people who collect it.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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John, It's likely some people in the former Factory buildings will be paying Council Tax. Apart from anything else, they've begun to establish legal rights. Good pieces of evidence of that are documents including Council Tax bills; leases; and utility bills.
With an address, anyone can look up the Council Tax banding on the website of the VOA (Valuation Office Agency). it should show whether a part of a property is even recognised as occupied.
Another useful fact is having names on the Electoral Register. Local councils are required to compile Registers of Electors and they too are public. Haringey Electoral Registration is one of the parts of the Council which - in my experience at least - seems to work well. So I'd guess that they've supplied forms and asked residents to register so they can vote. Although it's not compulsory.
All this and much more publicly available data is now online, and various businesses collate and sell it - perfectly legally, by the way. No hacking needed. These are the sources which David Browne and Zena Brabazon used to track the "members" of St Ann's ward who live and are registered to vote elsewhere.
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Permalink Reply by 0yrew1fm3wfo4 on
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"...I'll just assume that none of you pay residential council tax..."
You can assume that if you want, but you would be wrong. As one of the people living in a residential unit of Arena I can happily inform you that we are in Bands D or E for council tax. This can be confirmed on the Valuation Office Agency's website (http://www.voa.gov.uk/).
From the same website, units in Omega Works on Hermitage Rd. are also paying council tax (in Bands C through F).
This doesn't stop the council from occasionally deciding to just not bother emptying the bins every so often and then complaining about the build up of rubbish...
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Permalink Reply by Takaokagiejin on
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I think the issue of social cleansing is why I feel so uncomfortable about the difference in attitude to the warehouse residents and the HMO residents elsewhere. If you look at posts relating to HMOs on the ladder they often refer to people housed by the local authority and how this is causing problems for the community. While the residents of the warehouses are referred to as arty and vibrant. The area has provided social housing in the private rental sector for decades. I have had many vulnerable clients housed along Green Lanes in the last 20 years, the accommodation is dire and the landlords making a fortune hence my slightly rabid opposition to dodgy conversions. It feels like there is a rush to push out the socially housed residents of HMOs while encouraging the yuppies.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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I certainly see your point Takaokagiejin. There are people who will of course claim that they are only 'concerned' that if conversions do happen on the 'ladder' that they are done 'properly'. We all lived in flat shares once upon a time and this area should be encouraging a mix of people. Btw, at least the house conversions have walls for each room, not necessarily the case with the warehouse conversions.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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What I don't understand then, is why is the council NOT clamping down on the crappy behaviour of the landlords that take advantage of your clients in HMOs all over the borough? Isn't that where there efforts should be focused?
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My Labour colleagues voted like sheep to reject that LibDem amendment. I expect it's not their fault and that some big boys and girls came along and told them to.
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Great. JJ. A wider perspective for people willing to click-read-and think.
And not a perspective I as a councillor have ever heard from the ignorant excuses for politicians who pretend to be leading and "regenerating" our borough and Tottenham especially. Nor can I recall hearing these ideas or alternative perspectives from our Planning and Regeneration "experts". In fact I learned most of it from students coming to do research after the riot.
Special thanks for the link to the New York Times. Made me wonder where black Brooklyn families move after selling their brownstones. Interesting too, that many years ago, Ed Miliband's hero Saul Alinsky supported campaigns against "red-lining" which denied mortgages to black families in neighbourhoods which the banks and gentrifiers were targeting.
I have to admit that in my own case, gentrification was very positive. Some 31years ago I had to leave two rented rooms in Highbury. No payout. But it did me a big favour as I moved in with Zena. It was also an upmarket move to sunny Tottenham. In Highbury the bathroom water heater no longer worked and the toilet window had fallen out - frame and all.
JJ, have you read Loretta Lees? "Mixed Communities" especially? She and other researchers are making it plain that what we're seeing is largescale Tory social cleansing. Of course, it's eagerly espoused by Kober and the Muswell Hill colonial regime and its flunkies like Alan Strickland. To clear people out they have to pretend that we don't have a "mixed" community in Tottenham. When, as you know, that's exactly what we do have.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Have to agree with this - it just seems odd that Haringey wants to focus on this 'problem' when there are so many other people living in poor quality housing that isn't safe or pleasant to be in and the council just don't seem to want to do anything about it. Equally there have been horrible conversions going up all over the borough for years, which people have complained about. Are these going to be dealt with too?
Some people in my area, often with kids in rented accom are in some cases living in appalling conditions are constantly appealing to the council to do something and nothing is done to help. Why not focus on those who are asking for help, not those who don't want it?
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