Campaigning for 35% Affordable Housing in The Elephant regeneration

From my inbox just now:

"Please see below a link to the 35% Campaign - a campaign to secure the 35% affordable housing promised by Southwark Council in its Core Strategy for the Elephant & Castle regeneration. The largest planning application in the regeneration has just submitted - Heygate Masterplan ref: 12/AP/1092. It proposes no minimum level of affordable housing, hence our campaign. "

http://www.35percent.org/

I thought the page detailing the slow whittling away of the affordable housing % in the Elephant regeneration was pretty stark!

Affordable housing in zoon 1, London… why do I need to subsidise people leaving that centrally… I will nether get this.

Merlin Rouge wrote:

From my inbox just now:
"Please see below a link to the 35% Campaign - a campaign to secure the 35% affordable housing promised by Southwark Council in its Core Strategy for the Elephant & Castle regeneration. The largest planning application in the regeneration has just submitted - Heygate Masterplan ref: 12/AP/1092. It proposes no minimum level of affordable housing, hence our campaign. "

http://www.35percent.org/

I thought the page detailing the slow whittling away of the affordable housing % in the Elephant regeneration was pretty stark!

YNB79 wrote:

Affordable housing in zoon 1, London… why do I need to subsidise people leaving that centrally… I will nether get this.

Get real! Why shouldn't the government subsidise/provide 'affordable' houusing for those who don't earn £100,000+ a year? In any event, isn't it the developer that bears any cost associated with this rather than the taxpayer.

YNB79 wrote:

Affordable housing in zoon 1, London… why do I need to subsidise people leaving that centrally… I will nether get this.

Words fail me...

Polite words, that is!

" why do I need to subsidise people leaving that centrally?"

Because you want to take a bus, use the tube, pop to the shops for a pint of milk, grab a coffee on the way to work, walk through clean streets, to a clean office etc...

Not difficult with more than half a seconds' thought, this.

Gavin Smith wrote:

YNB79 wrote:

Affordable housing in zoon 1, London… why do I need to subsidise people leaving that centrally… I will nether get this.

Get real! Why shouldn't the government subsidise/provide 'affordable' houusing for those who don't earn £100,000+ a year? In any event, isn't it the developer that bears any cost associated with this rather than the taxpayer.

The cost is born by people buying flats as the developer has to increase the prices of the rest of the development to breakeven. Moreover, this lowers his profitability and thus the taxes he pays (which hurts all of us), there are no free lunches (except if you are lucky enough to get to buy an affordable home in SE1 that is!)

MikeC - you can commute in from a zone 2-4… and if you can’t, then I trust market forces will increase wages so you afford to commute/rent etc.. .

Can the free market respond to the full spectrum of housing needs?
Discuss

For 90% of the spectrum yes, maybe at the extreme you have market failures and you need some intervention but 35% is not the extreme of the spectrum it is trying to dictate a reality based on political point of view.
We have more social hosing than any other borough n London and now we are adding more affordable homes in new projects while complaining about building tall skyscrapers... you can’t have it all.
In the end, north SE1 has become and extension of the City/West End, in 15 years we will only have office blocks, hotels and tourist traps next to some super rich individuals… we need to recognise that and move on, not waste energy and $$$ to stop this. There are better uses for this money.

YNB79 wrote:

The cost is born by people buying flats as the developer has to increase the prices of the rest of the development to breakeven. Moreover, this lowers his profitability and thus the taxes he pays (which hurts all of us), there are no free lunches (except if you are lucky enough to get to buy an affordable home in SE1 that is!)
MikeC - you can commute in from a zone 2-4… and if you can’t, then I trust market forces will increase wages so you afford to commute/rent etc.. .

The word you are looking for is 'borne'.

No, the developer takes all of that into consideration when deciding that he wants to build there. If there is no profit to be made, then he will not build there. This is how business operates.

I have lived in the area all my life. I was born here. I work and contribute to society just as much as you do, if not more. Why should I, as a tax-paying citizen (bearing in mind, proportionately at least, I pay just as much tax as you do), have to move away from where my family lives and where my roots are just because I don't earn £100,000 per annum?

YNB79, I don't know if you are aware of the fact that decades ago many small communities were destroyed to create the Heygate Estate. Over the decades another community was created. Many families lived side by side with friends they had made. I am not sure now how many people were ' decanted' or basically told they were going to be forcibly moved from where they may have lived all their lives, and off the top of my head I can not remember how many flats there were.

I know that 2,500 were supposed to be re-built, but with the financial restraints that have happened in the last few years it seems to me that even that tiny re-build number will take many years to achieve.

I would be devastated if I had to move under those circumstances , even with the promise of moving into a sparkling new property with all the mod-cons, apart from which what do the tenants do with all their furniture as I have been told the new properties in Walworth Road are very small?

Gone off the subject there a bit, as is my wont! I blame the heat :-)