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
This is how I feel... do the units you own have planning permission for residential use and if so when was that granted? Thanks
Was that a yes or no? Do you have planning permission for residential use?
If you do not like the situation then stop renting the units out, or limit the use to normal working hours..
Once again Do you have planning permission for residential use ?? If so when was it granted ??
I ask you because, as the landlord, I hope you will be able to tell me and the other users of this site easily. I do not work for the Council.
Thanks for taking the time to clear that up, Hannie - I had a feeling it was not an entirely clear-cut case wrt taxation.
Can I please repeat what I hope are practical proposals for moving things forward constructively. And also add a new suggestion about looking into the future.
1. Stop waiting for the Council staff to solve these problems. There are some good council staff who've been working on this. They will assist; but what they can do is constrained by the legal frameworks they have to work within. (Planning; Licensing; Noise Nuisance; Building Control etc.) Also these staff and their resources are shrinking. And they are constrained by the overall political "steer" they may be getting.
2. Local residents - both inside and outside the "warehouses" - can and should ask Haringey staff for information. But it's also possible for residents themselves to become "players" in this game; subjects who decide their own moves, rather than pieces moved about the "board" by others.
3. If people haven't already done so, get offline and meet one another face-to-face to try clarifying and resolving problems. Having got only part-way down the list of all the trades in the "warehouses", the only one I didn't spot was saggar makers bottom knocker. But I'm sure there must be residents with groupwork/mediation skills who could help - without fee - to facilitate discussion and information sharing leading to finding solutions on common interests and problems.
4. The common interests depend partly on how far people are thinking into the future. In other words, different participants in this process are operating on different timescales. For example, some people may be thinking of this area mainly as their home now and for many years to come. While others may be more concerned about keeping their live-work space say, for the next few months, or a year or two.
5. This is especially important in the context of plans for property development, privatisation, demolition, and social cleansing across the eastern part of Haringey. Plans backed by Boris Johnson, and our Tory Pretend "Labour" Council. (And jokingly described by them as "regeneration".)
If you think I'm exaggerating please take a peek at the networking event due to take place tomorrow on board "Clara One". No, I'm really not making this up! The good ship Clare One is a yacht located on the Albert Edouard Jetty Cannes, "one of the most sought after spots at the Palais des Festivals".
I'll bet you're way ahead of me! Yes, it's the closed private Tottenham lunch. And actually I'm miffed that my invitation seems to have got lost in the post. I'd have slept overnight on the bus at my own expense and brought my own thermos flask and sandwiches. (Not a spa in sight.)
So perhaps long term residents in the area need to aim beyond the end of noise nuisance and waste dumping. Vital though this is. And "warehouse" residents might want to think beyond their wish to be left in peace to run their creative businesses for a little while longer. And maybe both could discuss a possible common interest in resisting the machinations of property speculators, developers, and 25th rate on-the-make Haringey politicians. Those people are playing the short, medium and longterm games. In which most of the the rest of us are the patsies who lose out.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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