Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Poor Doors at Altitude N8 - It's the bins entrance for Harringay tenants
Tenant campaigners have written to the Local Government Ombudsman to object to Haringey Council officers who concealed Poor Doors from a Planning Committee.
The Altitude N8 development near Hornsey BR station has a tenants’ entrance turned away from the centre of the scheme, to be accessed by a separate side door from Hampden Road.
Dean Hermitage, Haringey Council's Head of Development Management, described the tenants’ entrance as ‘access to the refuse store for refuse collectors’.
Yet the Council’s Planning Report in September 2016 claimed that:
‘The architects have managed to achieve an exceptionally clear and equal approach to each and every core off the “internal street” with none in a significantly “worse”, less visible or less attractive location, than any others’.
‘The space between the blocks is treated as a street with… crucially all of the front doors to cores giving access to the flats’.
All untrue.
Council officers hid the facts from Councillors on the Planning Sub Committee.
The plans supplied with the Sub Committee Reports Pack were insufficiently clear for Members to see the detailed layout of the scheme, which was described so glowingly in the Report.
Haringey Council has since refused to do anything about it. Official complaints have been completely rejected. It looks like the officers would willingly do the same again.
Other new Haringey developments have poor doors too.
- In the Tottenham Hale Centre plan, the developers praise their architects for so well segmenting the market and shared ownership tenures, so that no Market resident has a shared owner as their neighbour, and with no social rent whatsoever. Planning objections are mounting to this development proposal.
- At High Road West, opposite the Spurs ground, the developers Lendlease (yes, it’s them again) promise a “tenure-blind” development. But the reprovided council housing would in fact be Invisible: hidden away behind the railway line. This scheme will be subject early next year to a residents YES/NO ballot on the demolition of existing council homes at the Love Lane estate.
Haringey Defend Council Housing meets at 6.30pm on Thursday 11 October at Café Life, North London Community House, 22 Moorefield Road, N17 6PY. Near the Bruce Grove BR station.
All are welcome.
Paul Burnham
Secretary
Haringey Defend Council Housing
07847 714 158
Tags for Forum Posts: hampden road development
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Burnham on
-
Plans attached. the Tenants' core (entrance to their block) is turned away from the internal street., despite 3 explicit statements to the contrary in the Planning Report.
The Tenants' care (entrance to their block) has a separate entrance to Hampden Road - all other cores (market and shared ownership) are accessed by the main entrance to the development. It's that bad.
-
-
Here is a viewpoint from a private tenant (not in Altitude) in North London.
>> I just viewed a flat with rich & poor doors. the Estate manager said “ HA [Housing association] have your own entrance at the back” . I asked if we may use front entrance to pass through courtyard if we feel unsafe (the poor door down dark side street ). she said “ no. if you feel unsafe, call the police” beyond rude!
-
-
No, that was a comment from a Facebook friend who is a homeseeker, just giving some context on tenure segmentation (poor doors)
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
I thought that might be the case. In the interest of fairness, I think that needs to be made clear. (So I've made a small parenthetical edit to your comment).
-
-
ok
-
-
The location of the children’s playground, in the corner of the development next to the tenants’ Core E, reflects the theory that social and affordable tenanted dwellings have a vastly higher child yield than market and intermediate dwellings.
This is based on the ‘Wandsworth’ child yield calculator used by planners and developers and included in the Mayor of London’s ‘Shaping Neighbourhoods: Play and Informal Recreation’ Supplementary Planning Guidance (September 2012), pp 85-90.
In the case of two-beds, it is supposed that social and affordable market properties would average one child under 18 years of age, while market and intermediate flats would average just 0.1 child.
So at Altitude, most of the expected child yield is in the tenants’ Core E.
In reality we expect most of the market properties to appear as private rented, mostly with children and many overcrowded.
I believe that the child yield for the market homes has been has been grossly underestimated, with the consequence that the developer does not have to make adequate provision for these children.
The location of the play area at Altitude is completely inappropriate for children from the market block – they are expected to access the play area via the back of the undercroft garages on the affordable side.
The location of the play area is partly to attempt to provide some flimsy justification for the location of the tenants Core, and the tenants’ side entrance.
What a bad design this is, based on bad policy research, and how socially divisive will be the outcome.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
There will be very few children in the private/rented block. Once you have two kids, say a boy and a girl, you need three rooms. What is there for offer is three double rooms and two bathrooms so you will be competing with professionals sharers.
-
-
Thanks John, some serious research is needed on this question.
Family household units develop over time, e.g. a couple move in (perhaps having left a room in shared housing), they have a child, then another child, etc. Children of opposite sex are considered okay to share a bedroom when they are young children only; but they get older. This is how overcrowding develops, and especially sharply at the bottom end of the housing market. The accommodation that is suitable today is not suitable 2, 5 or 10 years into the future, while the household may be unable to move to something more appropriate.
One countervailing point is that the poorest households will not be able to rent privately at Altitude; and you are right that professional house sharers are another demographic of private renters which will also be present.
However I do think that the GLA figures for child yields are wildly inaccurate - they say that there would and could be on average NO children living in market 4 bed and larger private apartments??
And that social and affordable child yields are 10 and 20 times higher than market apartments for the two property sizes (1 beds and 2 beds) which dominate every housing development these days??
That is ridiculous - but it has the effects of stigmatising affordable housing as a baby farm; and of letting developers get away with providing few facilities for children in market housing, and evading other planning obligations such as contributions to local schools - the assumption being that any such children are few and far between.
Memo: to ask the Housing and Communities Minister, the GLA and Haringey Council to research child yields properly, and tackle developer evasion of their responsibilities on this issue.
-
-
I have now as promised written to the Mayor of London, to all GLA members and to Catherine West (my MP) about the problem of defective child yield statistics, highlighted by the Altitude scheme amongst many others.
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
