Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Hawes+Curtis plan breaches Mayor's need for affordable housing
Just had a look at their plans, for the Planning Meeting this Thursday.
I would have thought that the plan is disqualified as their provision of anything but private sale is inadequate. The mayor's manifesto says 'I’ll work with boroughs to deliver on my target of half of all new homes being genuinely affordable'. I don't know how much of his manifesto has been confirmed as policy but that is his target.
"The viability assessment submitted with the application sets out that no affordable housing can viably be provided [the usual starting position]. The independent viability assessment that was commissioned by the Council did not agree with this position and subsequently the provision of 12%, equating to 16 shared ownership units with the NHS facility or 17.3% equating to 26 shared ownership units if a commercial unit is proposed has been proposed. This is confirmed to be the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing."
So where is the genuinely affordable housing in this scheme?
Tags for Forum Posts: 590-598 Green Lanes, hawes & curtis
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Labour Council. Ha ha ha. Nick Walkley. Ha ha ha. Labour.
As for "Build the Tories out of London", perhaps that's me vividly remembering something I read in a book that Wikipedia says is disputed so I withdraw that allegation. I do know for a fact that Islington council own a lot of Georgian Houses that they bought up in the 80s when they were led by Margaret Hodge though.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher Fowler on
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John - There are some people on this thread trying to have a rational discussion over the appropriateness of an eight-storey block of flats in an area where most of the existing buildings are two/three storeys. Perhaps, before you throw in some unsubstantiated and, frankly, ludicrous conspiracy theory related to post-war housing policy in London, you might consider how unhelpful it is, and what it does for the regard which people have for your opinions. Did you consider that the policy to which you refer (which, in any case, was in the 1930s, not after WW2, which, in case you've forgotten, ended in 1945) and which you claim to "vividly remember" from "a book", may all be part of your delusional love of conspiracy theories? As for Islington Council buying up Georgian houses - what is your problem? If the Council bought them to house people in, surely that is all right. There are, after all, quite a lot of Georgian houses in Islington. Or perhaps you think that council tenants or homeless people don't deserve to live in Georgian houses? Perhaps you also think they don't deserve to have bath-tubs, because all they will do is keep coal in it?
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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Hi!
Have you seen any accurate data on the current Haringey social housing situation that I could look at too?
Can there be any on what could be achieved here?
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Also, the housing policy in Greater London after WW2 was about moving working class families (in particular) out of run-down, poor quality (slum) housing in London, and into the "new towns", where high quality new homes were built, with access to green space and fresh air. The population of London was in decline from 1939 until the mid-90s, as many people wanted to live in suburbs or new towns, rather than in the city. The population of London has increased due to a much greater desire for city living, and London's population now is probably as great as it has ever been.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Hodge's policy in the 80s was to mix up housing, so she bought, on behalf of Islington's citizens, hundreds/thousands? of individual private houses, to be let as social housing. The road I lived on was a typical example, 100 or so Victorian 3 and 4 storey houses, mostly split into flats. No-one knew who was an owner and who was renting and from what. Those houses are now 'worth' £1m+ so I doubt that many are left as socially owned.
Islington's gentrification was/is patchy, remember the borough goes from the City edge to Archway and beyond. The Blairs got in into Barnsbury before the mad surge I think.
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They do still own a lot of them. Not just flats, whole houses.
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So, a London council, in the 1980s, when it was getting harder to build new social housing, bought existing houses in their area, so as to let them as social housing - what is the problem? Also, you have now switched from claiming the housing was "Georgian" to saying it is "Victorian". Of course, "Georgian" sounds a lot more posh than "Victorian", but maybe you still think that social housing tenants don't deserve to live in Victorian houses? Or maybe they don't deserve to live in an area which has been gentrified, like Islington? And, from my own reading about gentrification, I can tell you that Islington was one of the first areas where it happened, and it was well on its way in the late sixties. Yes, it took longer to spread as it has now, but I'm not sure there is much of either the borough of Islington, or the area that most of us would call Islington (a smaller area), that has not been gentrified. As for Barnesbury (where you claim the Blairs got in before the mad surge ... you think ... not bothering to check your facts), it always was pretty up-market, and has some houses which pre-date the Georgian period. Oh, and in two successive posts you say "I doubt many are left as socially owned", and then contradict yourself by saying "they do still own a lot of them".
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Permalink Reply by Charlotte A on
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I lived in one of those terraces for a while and our house (split into 2) was the only one whose flats were privately owned, out of 10+ houses. Noticeable when the rest of the terrace was shored up for subsidence but our landlady didn't want to pay for it. This was in the nether reaches of Islington though.
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Here is some _actual factual information_ from a report from Islington Council:
3.1 Shortlife Housing Generally
3.1:1 Shortlife Housing supported by Islington Council dates back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Council had, supported by Government at that time, embarked upon major acquisition programmes purchasing street properties for refurbishment to provide Council Housing in the borough. By the early 1980s, over a quarter of the homes (10,000 dwellings) in the Council’s ownership comprised Victorian ‘acquired’ properties.
3.1:2 In the late ‘70s and early ’80s, whilst the Government had encouraged acquisition, they also tightly controlled expenditure levels per property through various mechanisms. As a result, a small proportion of the Council’s acquisitions were never ultimately included in the rehabilitation programmes of the period. This together with subsequent reductions in public finance available for municipal housing left a significant problem with these properties. They were already the subject of squatting, in many cases by organised groups. Shortlifing was in effect a means of regulating or controlling this through the granting of recognition to some
groups and through licensing their temporary accommodation/ use. This created ‘short life’ as a legitimate housing option in the borough and elsewhere, particularly in inner London.
3.1:3 By the mid 1980s, it was clear that the Government was not going to finance the refurbishment of the properties in short life use for their intended acquisition purpose of providing ‘general needs’ affordable housing. By the late 1980s, the Council was introducing modest schemes to utilise some shortlife housing and agreed a policy that where households/individuals in shortlife had registered on the Council's’ waiting list by the beginning of 1988, they would be rehoused if the homes they occupied were recovered by the Council. In effect the Council agreed that all ‘new’ occupiers after that date would have no rights other than their statutory rights to future rehousing when properties were taken back, and that those who legitimately were licensees or tenants of shortlife organisations before 1988 and had registered on the waiting list, would be rehoused.
3.1:4 This policy decision determines the obligations that the Council has in relation to shortlife residents. As properties are taken back from shortlife use, this results in pre 1988 occupiers being rehoused in either Council housing or via nomination to Housing Associations.
3.1:5 Through the early 1990s, the position with shortlife was relatively uncomplicated as the Council at the time withdrew very few properties. Indeed it increased its use through extending shortlife on to a number of Estate based schemes including Naish Court and New River Green.
3.1:6 In March 2000 the Housing Committee and the Policy Committee agreed proposals that commenced the planned withdrawal of shortlife properties from such use for disposal to raise finance to use as dowries for various planned stock transfers and estate regeneration schemes including Naish Court; the Tollington Estates; and the Market Estate. These withdrawals have also supported PFI I and are planned to fund the dowry for PFI II.
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Or maybe someone - like the Mayor - could find a way to stop the thousands of flats that have been built over the last few years in London being sold off as "investments" to people from the Middle East, Far East, Russia etc. salting away often ill-gotten gains.
A property tax on anyone who doesn't live and work in the UK and keep taxing them every year until they realise that it's not the "investment" they thought it was and then they'll sell back to the people who do live and work here and actually want somewhere to live.
Where are all the development proposals to build tall blocks in Haringey Heartlands?
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They're waiting until they get the green light for the CrossRail 2 station at Wood Green and are currently in negotiation with (I think) LendLease to take over the building of those new houses, as well as the land around the station (Wood Green Library & River Park House). The proximity of that land to such a good transport hub will allow them to build more densely than they can at the moment. It takes time to do this stuff too, for example they're only now demolishing the old gas holders.
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I'm not sure what is so terrible about this policy. The policy to build high-density, high rise, housing near major transport interchanges in London was introduced by Ken Livingstone; though Johnson didn't much care where tower block went up, so long as his pals the developers, were happy. I think that the policy, to build high-density near Wood Green tube, or (if it comes there) a Crossrail 2 station, is probably a good idea, will give a boost to the shops in Wood Green, and encourage people to use public transport, rather than private motor cars, whose exhaust fumes are poisoning us all. Also, we can already see this policy in action in Tottenham Hale, where a lot of new housing, in high-rise blocks, is going on around the transport hub.
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