Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
New HMO Licensing Proposals Get Green Light
Last night the Council's Cabinet approved a plan to begin the process for re-establishing Additional and Selective Licensing Schemes for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)
This is good news, and certainly not before time. The link to the report is HERE
Currently the Council has a mandatory scheme in place which covers the whole borough, with another scheme for parts of North Tottenham still running. The selective scheme for Harringay ward, which was the first in the borough led to many HMOs being licensed. As I understand it, Government rules are that selective schemes can only run for 5 years and then you have to reapply and go back to the beginning. This means mapping areas, providing loads of very detailed evidence and also having a consultation period. The government have made it even more difficult to get effective licensing in place as they will not now approve borough wide selective schemes like the one established in Newham. The new rules are that only 20% of an area can have the selective (that is more rigorous scheme) at any one time.
I have been to two presentations about the proposed schemes for Haringey and all the ground work has now been done. Harringay ward will benefit from this as we have more HMOs than any other ward in the borough and twice the London average. It has long been my view that these schemes are not only essential foundations for managing private sector renting, but they make a very positive and helpful contribution to regeneration of any area. In the current push for demolitions and development this work, and other aspects of regulation are often undervalued.They just aren't very glamorous, and don't involve lunches with developers!
Income from the schemes will be ring fenced this time, providing funding for more enforcement staff who are sorely needed to deal with all the problems and violations. If all goes according to the timetable, which involves central government, the schemes should be up and running in September 2018. Can't come soon enough!
The experience from Newham was hugely positive and I hope it will be here. The consultation has started now so please do respond. This is very important for residents everywhere.
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, Harringay ward
Tags for Forum Posts: Houses in Multiple Occupation, Licensing Schemes
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Sadly true Mavic
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Families compete with young people sharing. Both groups completely blameless but fighting for the same accommodation with completely different proposed uses and potentials to pay. I like that when they built social housing in the past there was such a thing as a single room and now investors are demanding that new accommodation has double rooms and en-suite bathrooms.
I think the single occupier of a bedsit in Kensington would now be a banker who called it a pie d’terre.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Are there any plans ever to build hostel-type housing for people not with special needs for it eg DV refuges and young people coming out of care? If people are prepared to live six to a room at £200 a week- I may be getting too much info from Channel 5 - then why not build non-LuxuryFlat multiple occupancy dwellings, with shared facilities but single private rooms, and, crucially, a warden/concierge? There are houses in my road with ten single men in a three-bedroom space. I'd rather their rent was being paid into a social housing scheme than into the pocket, in cash of course, of an absentee 'entrepreneur'.
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This can be made to work apparently. Property developers are curious as to where they can find such tenants but I've even heard one talk about a proposal for student housing where as long as they could guarantee the tenancy for five years they could even give the "tenant" a deposit for going on into further renting. I think he was presuming that he could build very low quality housing though. The trick is you're allowed to do that if it's temporary accommodation (e.g. students), not sure about "temporary migrant workers".
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside) on
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Good news indeed, as stated before I hope this can be administered, many homes belong to foreign buyers that just let the homes fall into disrepair e.g two near me that are owned by landlords in Iran & St Lucia who couldn't care less as long as the rent is paid. HMOs must be costing the council dearly, extra rubbish, school places, local healthcare etc etc with no extra council tax to compensate for it.
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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I am told the consultation on the new HMO licensing proposals will commence tomorrow. It will be running for several weeks to ensure ample time given the Christmas holidays. Can I urge everyone to respond. This is vital to ensure the government approves the LBH proposals. I will check on the Haringey website tomorrow and post the link when I find it!
Zena
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, Harringay ward
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The public consultation was launched on Monday December 11 for both HMO licensing schemes. The consultation runs to 5th March 2018. Please see below link to the consultation page and questionnaire:
www.haringey.gov.uk/private-sector-property-licensing
As I said previously the aim is to introduce an Additional Licensing Scheme for all Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in the borough and a Selective Licensing scheme for all other private rented properties in 29 smaller areas. There are maps on the website showing these. The 29 areas were selected because they meet certain criteria so some streets are in and others out in the same ward. Because of government restrictions, the selective licensing will only cover 20% of the borough in one go. However, I have heard that Newham's 100% scheme was renewed so there may be hope to extend after all.
Please do respond to the consultation - it is really important that these schemes are approved.
Thanks and happy holidays
Zena
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, Harringay ward
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Permalink Reply by warren miller on
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hi - any idea what the criteria might be please? They don't seem to make a whole lot of sense looking at our area.
thanks
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Bizarrely the Wards Corner site is included. Makes no sense, regardless of whether we win the CPO or not. It will either be a boring slab of 200 private rentals, or the small flats above the shops where Grainger has already decanted the tenants.
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Permalink Reply by JoeW on
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The criteria are described in one of the consultation docs: www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/property_licensing_-_...
It's a complicated model - based on analysing various data like reports of rising damp, pest control, flytipping, crime, fire brigade callouts, electoral roll and council tax records etc, done at ward and census "super output" level (groups of about 700 households), designed to target the top (or bottom) twenty percent of super output areas which might benefit most from HMO licencing. No doubt you could argue about some of the criteria, or weighting given to them in the model, but it probably balances out and it seems a reasonable approach overall.
Some interesting stats in the evidence by ward (from p29 of that evidence document):
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I agree that it’s a good approach to take. It’s not HMOs per se that are the problem, it’s the combination of badly managed HMOs and the impact high concentrations of that housing type.
Having said that I do think that it will make an HMO licensing and enforcement regime difficult to manage if there are geographical pockets of properties not subject to new arrangements within areas that are.
I think it's right that Haringey are using an evidence based approach to define where new arrangements are needed but the geography of the proposals needs refinement and that’s where we come in as consultees.
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In defence of the reputation of Tottenham Green (and Noel Park) crime rate - it's the tube stations. Phone snatches as people come out of the tube (xref another convo about scooter thieves) means our crime rates sound like it's The Wire, I'd like to see a bit more breakdown of that. It screws up my insurance premiums no end.
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