Social housing policy

[Octoman]

If those schemes in Canada really are representative of the sort of quality that is generally delivered there versus those boring little brick boxes surrounding a pointless yard in London then it says it all.

[PadArch]

Originally Posted by potto

like there are not enough houses in London with 'greenery' and unused front gardens, unless the sole purpose of a front garden is to store a bulging dustbin ready for landfill

The clear emphasis here is on the street, indicating it as a communal shared area, maybe for children playing there. The suburban sprawl style showed in Canada by contrast has no clarity, no one is going to use that green space, likewise no one will be using the 'street' either.

I guess they do look a bit pokey, why not build an extra storey? Or have a roof terrace? I guess those are more a matter of profit margin and market positioning.

The point is also that there are planters in front of the houses and some trees planted.. it looks bare because they haven't had a chance to grow in yet. The dustbin thing is a criticism made through ignorance of the fact that there is dustbin area concealed behind a small door (these are the coloured sides to the entrances on the oblique shots). In my opinion this is a much better solution than having dustbins cluttering the street. All I can say about the windows is that they actually look pretty good, and the brickwork seems to be really well laid out and executed. Now, I'm not saying the scheme is perfect, but the criticisms anamaria made were way off the mark.

[DarJoLe]

The Canadian schemes look like something out of Desperate Housewives or The Truman Show. Fake film-set nonsense.

[Officer Dibble]

Originally Posted by Octoman

If those schemes in Canada really are representative of the sort of quality that is generally delivered there versus those boring little brick boxes surrounding a pointless yard in London then it says it all.

Yep, and It's not just Canada - I just chose that example because it's where I happen to be. But look in France, or the Netherlands (a whole country as densely populated as the south east of England), or Sweden (where there's a lot more space), or really more or less any developed country. New housing is far more generous in size than in England, and developers compete for custom by making the homes as attractive as possible. The producers are aiming to give the customers what they want, because that's how they'll sell most of their goods and turn a profit: it's exactly how any market works.

The housing market is special because land is a finite resource, and most of it is rightly protected. That pushes land prices up, which provides an incentive for developers to build dense (terraces of townhouses and apartments rather than detached or semi-detached suburban houses) and tall (blocks of condos - I'd always give Pan Peninsula as a decent London model), especially in the most populous areas, as London of course is.

If only market forces were freed up, we'd see lots of attractive new homes being built, improving people's quality of life and making London (and the rest of the country) a less ugly and more pleasant place - and then people would become less anti-development. I really hope today's white paper is a step in that direction.

[Core Rising]

Originally Posted by DarJoLe

The Canadian schemes look like something out of Desperate Housewives or The Truman Show. Fake film-set nonsense.

They imitate old European styles. It is what people want and aspire to, it is what they believe a home should look like, so they build it as such in the Americas. Here developers decide what people ought to live in, emphasising on profits and disregarding the thoughts and feelings of the general public.

[Officer Dibble]

Originally Posted by DarJoLe

The Canadian schemes look like something out of Desperate Housewives or The Truman Show. Fake film-set nonsense.

What's nonsensical about them?

They're attractive buildings in traditional styles. I quite understand that makes them boring and obnoxious to those like yourself who exist on a higher plane of architectural understanding - and you're welcome to build something more avant-garde for yourself (or at least you would be in the US or Canada, good luck getting it through planning in the UK), but it doesn't in any way make them fake or nonsensical.

There's nothing fake about building in an existing tradition: indeed all architects are informed by tradition, whether they're following it slavishly, imitating it playfully, pastiching it clumsily, alluding to it wittily, moving it bravely forward or rebelling against it. There's no escaping the existence of the past, other than through ignorance of it, which presumably we can agree would not guarantee good buildings.

It happens to be the case that most people's taste in domestic architecture is conservative. They may very happily work in a glass and steel office building, they may love visiting the Eden biodomes or the Bilbao Guggenheim, but they prefer their own home to be in a traditional style. You can look down on them for that all you like; it doesn't change the fact. In places like the US and Canada and France and Sweden and the Netherlands and Austria and Germany, where the housing market functions properly, that means that most people get to live in such houses, and that traditional building styles have never gone out of favour for new developments.

In England, where the housing market is dysfunctional, many people instead have to live in ugly, tiny, ludicrously overpriced boxes with no architectural merit whatever. I really fail to see how anyone benefits from this. It's a travesty when just a century ago we were still building the best domestic architecture in the world. And it has created a nationwide hostility to any and all development which you, I and most other SSC forumers find infuriating.

Your two stage-set examples are interesting. Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives is really Colonial Street at Universal Studios in Hollywood, a set which was built to resemble a typical American suburban street, and which is regularly used as such in TV shows and movies. That's how much of suburban America looks - the houses really are that big; the lawns really are that neat. It's a stage set, but a realistic one.

The Truman Show was of course filmed in Seaside, Florida. So, ironically, the moviegoers seeing a big-screen portrayal of the world's greatest fictional TV stage set were in fact looking at a real town. Seaside itself was an experiment in setting a building code for a town so that architectural consistency would be achieved - and that makes it a rather unusual place, no doubt too samey for some people's taste, a bit twee, even a bit unreal. But there's nothing unusual about the homes there - they're perfectly standard American timber-framed houses of the sort you see all over the continent.

You can hate them all you like, DarJoLe, but most people in England can only dream of living in such spacious and (to their eyes) attractive accommodation, and in such pleasant neighbourhoods - and what's preventing people from living like that is a planning system that doesn't respond to local people, overregulation of the housebuilding industry, and massive, well-intentioned but counter-productive state intervention in the "affordable" housing sector which has buried the competitive pressures that should be acting on developers.

[Officer Dibble]

From the Guardian's "cuts" blog, an incoherent article about social housing policy:

Cuts: the strange death of social housing

The coalition's housing strategy outlines how social rents will be replaced over time by "affordable" rents. But benefit caps mean in some areas social housing will be anything but affordable.

Patrick Butler
Tuesday 22 November 2011 12.22 GMT

The curious thing about "affordable housing" - the government's reinterpretation of what used to be "social housing" - is just how unaffordable it is in many parts of England, particularly London and the south east

I spoke to the CEO of a small London housing association recently. Many of its properties had been acquired in the 1980's in what are now regarded as highly desirable patches of north London. The homes - many were then run-down and unloved - were effectively rescued: bought and renovated with the explicit social aim of proving low rent accomodation for local young unemployed men.

These days, some of those properties are worth well north of £1m. The market rents for some of these appartments, often in what are now considered to be highly fashionable addresses, are upwards of £2,000 a month. In a typical property, a long standing association tenant might pay £130 a week. Put onto the private rental market, it would fetch at least £500. Under the "affordable" rent scheme, tenants would pay £300 a week.

So who can afford this "affordable" rent? Not the local unemployed and low-paid young men for whom the property was originally acquired. Once, housing benefit might have helped, but from January, benefit caps mean many of these "affordable" inner-London properties will be, in theory, out of reach even local "hard working families" who can't get on the property ladder.

In practice, the association's existing tenants have protected social rent. When they move on, the housing association can redefine the rent as affordable for new tenants (though it says will resist this temptation). But it also knows that if it wants to build new properties for social tenants, it has just two options: to raise its own investment capital (by selling off a couple of its million-pound properties to bankers or city lawyers); or to apply for investment under the affordable housing programme.

If it does the former, it knows it risks abandoning its social mission to help provide homes for low-paid young people in the areas in which it operates. It fears the mixed communities it once helped, in a tiny way, to guarantee will become even more exclusively the preserve of the wealthy.

If it does the latter, it knows that any homes it builds or acquires in its core north London areas will never be rented by the people it was set up to help. Because "affordable housing" investment is now part funded by private finance rather than just the state, it would be required to set rents at up to 80% of market levels to repay the loans. And if it did that, it asks itself, what would be the point of its existence as a housing association?

Some London councils are worried about this and have threatened to veto newbuild "affordable" schemes (as I've written before, some Tory-led shire councils are concerened too) but they also know that the "affordable housing" programme is for now the only game in town. As one housing consultant put it:
"Councils have to choose whether they want expensive [housing association] homes or no homes."

For now, the London housing association I spoke to is sitting tight, but it fears for the future: both for itself, and for the people it once provided a home for, who as the scarce supplies of social housing deplete further, private sector rental levels rise, and and housing benefit caps begin to bite, will be forced to move out of most areas of the capital.

Here's a piece I wrote about the government's housing strategy for Guardian yesterday about which attempts to put these changes in some sort of context (it was heavily edited for the paper, so here's the "directors cut"):

Some are calling it another chapter in the strange death of social housing: the shift from the belief that the bricks and mortar branch of the welfare state is there to protect society's poorest and most vulnerable, to one where it exists essentially to help working families locked out of home ownership.

The change, outlined in the government's housing strategy, is characterised by the replacement, over time, of social rents with so-called "affordable" rents. This shift will shake out England's social housing stock, and revise dramatically our notion of what social homes are for and who lives in them. It also raises the question, as Grainia Long of the Chartered Institute of Housing puts it, as to whether social housing is "welfare or reward".

The main beneficiaries are what politicians like to call "hard-working families" in the south-east of England being squeezed by spiralling private sector rents. In London private rents can be as much as 72% of gross weekly wages for the lowest earning quartile of workers. These families – because they do not qualify under the needs-based allocation system – have practically no chance of accessing social housing.

But families lucky enough to be rewarded with an "affordable" home to rent will not enjoy the advantages of old-fashioned social housing, however. Because such homes will be part-financed by private lenders, and costs of repaying building costs will be higher, they will pay more than established social tenants - in London the difference will be hundreds of pounds a month. While existing social tenants have (and will keep) homes for life, affordable tenants will have five year tenancies, with the expectation that they will move on if they need to relocate for work, or are able to get on the home ownership ladder.

Tory and Labour councils have explicitly embraced this "reward" agenda. In Conservative Westminster, priority will be given to working families when it allocates its scarce social housing. In Labour-run Newham, in east London, rewarding working families with affordable tenancies is seen as a way of rebuilding community "resilience" which it feels has become blighted by "benefits culture".

It also aims to head off resentment among its core working class Labour vote over the perceived "something for nothing" culture, where immigrants and single mums "jump" the housing queue.

Critics fear, however, that affordable housing will be knocked off course by soaring private sector rents and draconian government caps on housing benefit. In large areas of London and the south-east even "affordable" rents will be will be out of the reach of many working households, even those with housing benefit help.

As one housing expert explained: "If you get a new social home at affordable rent in Tower Hamlets, say, even at 60% of market levels, it will take you above the housing benefit cap".

Although the government says it expects councils to prioritise social housing to those with medical conditions or hardship, in high rent areas housing benefit caps mean many vulnerable and disabled people will be forced to move to cheaper areas. Homeless people, refugees, the long term unemployed, and single mothers will find in future they will be directed not to social housing but dumped in the unregulated private rented sector.

For working households needing a leg up, affordable housing offers potential rewards. For families needing welfare, say critics, the consequences will be overcrowding, homelessness, social upheaval and the return of the Rachman-esque landlord.

And from the comments section:

OfficerDibble7
22 November 2011 3:40PM

Ah, the "cuts blog", proof if any were needed that the Guardian is now beyond parody. We should probably remind ourselves that government net expenditure is higher now than it was in any year under Labour.

So today's complaint is that social housing has been rebranded "affordable housing" and that it's not affordable. Well "affordable housing" is what the last government called it, as they sensibly stopped creating council estate ghettos and encouraged instead mixed-tenure developments. It was only affordable then because housing benefit was effectively unlimited - and as house prices rose inexorably (cheered on by the Daily Mail moron club, who hadn't noticed that their tax pounds were being invested in this bubble, a massive state intervention propping up unsustainable prices), a bigger and bigger proportion of the population were dragged into the "affordable" sector. The Labour vote grows the more people are dependent on the welfare state, and Labour were buying themselves future votes. Surprised Labour weren't wiped out at the 2010 election, when Brown was almost universally despised? Look no further for an explanation.

What the current government is doing is a) trying to ensure that more homes are built so that the supply-demand imbalance is eased and more people can afford to buy or rent their own homes without recourse to state handouts or "affordable housing" wheezes. They're also capping benefits so that a) the national debt stops growing so fast, and b) people on benefits can't earn more than people who go out to do an honest day's work.

Yes, that means that the Guardian will have to get over the tragedy that people who don't work may find it very difficult to live in large Victorian houses in Islington or Highgate. They won't be homeless; they'll still have their big TVs, their people-movers for their many kids, and enough to spend on groceries to ensure the obesity epidemic isn't halted in its tracks. They may just get an inkling that the world doesn't owe them a living, and therein lies their only chance of salvation from themselves.

Meanwhile social housing might start to be used for those in actual need. But don't expect the Guardian to celebrate that.

I went a bit further than I meant there in the bit about Labour buying votes - oh well.

[lancelot000]

I would like to see the £20 billion spent on paying Landlords housing benefit spent on building new homes.

I find that the fact money being spent on private landlords has gone up massively in recent years, while at the same time their mortgage costs have fallen massively, morally reprehensible.

I wouldnt cut HB, i'd get rid of it completely and immediately plough all the savings into new council housing.

A lot of people would see rents fall massively without the landlord subsidy forcing the minimum price up, coupled with increased supply.

[Octoman]

Housing benefit and child support payments are socially destructive and should be scrapped entirely IMO.


Your response to the Guardian is well written Officer Dibble but I am afraid it will fall on deaf ears. The Guardian and the Daily Mail are as bad as each other reflecting the views of mouth frothing swivel eyed nutters at opposite ends of the spectrum.

[tripleseis]

Originally Posted by Officer Dibble

It happens to be the case that most people's taste in domestic architecture is conservative. They may very happily work in a glass and steel office building, they may love visiting the Eden biodomes or the Bilbao Guggenheim, but they prefer their own home to be in a traditional style. You can look down on them for that all you like; it doesn't change the fact. In places like the US and Canada and France and Sweden and the Netherlands and Austria and Germany, where the housing market functions properly, that means that most people get to live in such houses, and that traditional building styles have never gone out of favour for new developments.

The Dutch tend to embrace more modern rather than traditional houses. You only have to look at the good quality stuff going up around Amsterdam etc.

[kerouac1848]

Actually I'd say the picture from the link below is typical of housing stock for average-wage earnings:

http://g.co/maps/j9qct

This is from a suburb of The Hague called Voorburg (ignore the Rotterdam bit). There are streets like this all over Holland, including new towns and suburbs around Amsterdam.

This is in The Hague itself, in the south about 2km from where I lived and a more working-class area:

http://g.co/maps/qqa7v

If I remember it's like that for a large chunk of the street.

Obviously there are variations, but basically brown-brick terraces are the most common and still being built. Modernist designs do seem more welcome, common and of a better standard than here though, that's def true.

[Officer Dibble]

Both those street views remind me of SE16 actually! I take the point that there's plenty of modern stuff built in NL too - easier to innovate in sensitive and interesting ways when people are more relaxed about development generally - in England so much new stuff has been terrible that people instinctively oppose everything.

I don't find Dutch new builds the most attractive of the various countries I've mentioned, personally, but the quality of new homes is far better than in the UK from what I've seen in person, and I know the average size is considerably bigger. I've included it as an example mostly because it's such a densely populated country - I'm aware that comparing SE England with Canada or Sweden is open to criticism as being an unfair comparison in that respect.

[kerouac1848]

Yeah, they're bigger than here, although places in Germany and Belgium are bigger than the Netherlands I think. High cellings are still the norm as well so flats and houses feel more spacious.

Holland probably has a housing market which most resembles Britain's, after Ireland perhaps. Planning is strict and development is led by developers rather than individuals. Terraces and, to a lesser extent semis, still rule with tower residentials still quite rare (probably more common here). Detached homes are seen as belonging to quite wealthy people, although I noticed nearer to the Belgium border there were more.

The country most interesting is Belgium. It's more densely populated than the UK and Flanders is more crowded than England. At 800km2, the region around Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp is likely more packed than the SE (if you define it as London plus the HCs). Yet, detached and quite large homes are the norm for new builds in suburbs surrounding the major cities.

http://g.co/maps/svzeu

I must have cycled past dozens of places like this between Antwerp and Ghent and Ghent and Lille, although this is just off the ring-road around Brussels (maybe 9km/5 miles from the centre). I think prices are between €200-300k, so homes for median income households. Older suburban housing stock seems smaller and less attractive, mostly red-brick terracing, quite similar in design to here (close to Lille some of the terraces look like they belong in a Northern mining town).

It was achieved by opening up agricultural land and allowing individuals to buy plots which they then built on, resulting in streets a bit like in the US where houses all look different. The price is an 'urban countryside', so I don't know if people would accept it here as it would involve opening up significant parts of the greenbelt. Personally I would only do very small sections within the M25 and also it would have to be packaged with other elements.

[london lad]

Originally Posted by Officer Dibble

I don't find Dutch new builds the most attractive of the various countries I've mentioned, personally, but the quality of new homes is far better than in the UK from what I've seen in person, and I know the average size is considerably bigger. I've included it as an example mostly because it's such a densely populated country - I'm aware that comparing SE England with Canada or Sweden is open to criticism as being an unfair comparison in that respect.

Telling statistic that says a lot about the state of housing market in the U. Shame the big housing developers are so effective at lobbying for no change.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...?newsfeed=true


How depressing. We have become accustomed to paying ridiculously large amounts of money for poorly built and tiny homes. In the Netherlands the average size of a new-build dwelling is 115 sq m and in Japan it is 92.5 sq m, while in the UK it is just 76 sq m. England and Wales are the only countries in the EU with no national space standards. That is the simple reason why we build the smallest homes with the smallest rooms.

[PadArch]

As far as I know, we do have space standards.. But I'm not sure how well regulated they are.

[potto]

there is no minimum space standard

[Officer Dibble]

I think minimum space standards are needed for any social housing that is built specifically for that purpose.

But the best way to increase home sizes generally is to free up the housing market so that developers respond to what consumers want. But I'm starting to repeat myself here and will try to be quiet now.

[delores]

Originally Posted by Officer Dibble

I think minimum space standards are needed for any social housing that is built specifically for that purpose.

But the best way to increase home sizes generally is to free up the housing market so that developers respond to what consumers want. But I'm starting to repeat myself here and will try to be quiet now.

Minimum space standards should be applied across the board not just social housing.Interestingly Richard Rogers is doing a social housing scheme in Deptford which looks fun. http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/richa...028176.article

[kerouac1848]

Minimum standards in size and quality; encourage more suppliers in building development; more suppliers in the rental market, not just individual landlords (e.g. co-ops, commercial renting outlets, developers, etc); more powers (including borrowing perhaps) for councils/GLA to build; an LVT; opening up of certain sections to individuals by selling them land plots directly lessening the reliance on developers; huge drive to either bring empty buildings into use or, in areas of oversupply, to speed up sales to release capital for councils; a competition to develop a common design for mansion blocks (min 6 stories) and terracing/townhouses (min 4 stories) which can then be built across London quickly, saving on design costs (quick variations allowed); tax-breaks/grants in areas like the Royal Docks to encourage building.

[PadArch]

that rogers scheme looks crap.. stick to what you know dick: office buildings with funny vents outside and external lifts