Neil Garratt and Luke Robert Black: Stop building affordable housing – build subsidised instead
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
Neil Garratt AM is the Conservative Assembly member for Sutton and Croydon. Luke Robert Black MBE is the Chairman of the LGBT+ Conservatives and running for Newham Council.
If we ever want to have a sensible debate about making housing affordable, we must start by banning the phrase ‘Affordable Housing’.
Because on a leaflet, on a billboard or in a housing brochure, the word, ‘affordable’ conjures up visual images and unrealistic expectations – the most unrealistic of them all being that it’s housing that locals can actually afford.
The problem is, when normal people hear “affordable housing” they think it means “housing that normal people can afford on normal wages”. But it doesn’t mean that. It means is housing that one person is living in but where someone else is paying part of the cost.
So, really, affordable housing is subsidised housing. This either comes from the taxpayer, whose taxes are used to arbitrarily lower the cost to build a house – forcing developers to remove beauty, density and quality in the process. Or this is levied as a cross-subsidy, where those who pay the market rate for their property pay slightly more, chipping in a bit to subsidise someone else’s living room.
It’s like trying to get a table for a Sunday Roast at Guy Ritchie’s London pub. You still have to wait a year to get a table, and, you’ll still get an incredible roast, but you will be asked to pay 25 per cent extra to cover half the cost of the complete strangers sat next on the table next to you.
Would a name change upend the laws of supply and demand in London and suddenly emancipate hundreds of thousands of millennials priced out of Zone 5? Plainly, no.
But it would mean all future discussions, objections, reviews and, yes, Dante’s final circle of hell, planning committees, were done with more honesty, more transparency and more accuracy to the chronic need for housing in London.
Too often lack of ‘affordable housing’ is the reason councillors, activist groups, and even celebrities try to stop a development from going ahead. Very often residents are misled with what we believe is a deceptive phrase: “affordable housing”.
We think that this matters because the more who people who understand this, will help us to win over the necessary conversations on the door. We need to ensure that voters understand how ‘affordable housing’ can drive up planning costs and timelines, lose momentum with endless consultation and result in either less housing or more expensive housing. Neither of this helps affordability.
Furthermore, when incorporated into a London housing market where land costs are up, construction costs are up and housing delivery is through the floor, the viability of building almost anything is exceedingly low. In fact, house-building in London is …
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
Neil Garratt AM is the Conservative Assembly member for Sutton and Croydon. Luke Robert Black MBE is the Chairman of the LGBT+ Conservatives and running for Newham Council.
If we ever want to have a sensible debate about making housing affordable, we must start by banning the phrase ‘Affordable Housing’.
Because on a leaflet, on a billboard or in a housing brochure, the word, ‘affordable’ conjures up visual images and unrealistic expectations – the most unrealistic of them all being that it’s housing that locals can actually afford.
The problem is, when normal people hear “affordable housing” they think it means “housing that normal people can afford on normal wages”. But it doesn’t mean that. It means is housing that one person is living in but where someone else is paying part of the cost.
So, really, affordable housing is subsidised housing. This either comes from the taxpayer, whose taxes are used to arbitrarily lower the cost to build a house – forcing developers to remove beauty, density and quality in the process. Or this is levied as a cross-subsidy, where those who pay the market rate for their property pay slightly more, chipping in a bit to subsidise someone else’s living room.
It’s like trying to get a table for a Sunday Roast at Guy Ritchie’s London pub. You still have to wait a year to get a table, and, you’ll still get an incredible roast, but you will be asked to pay 25 per cent extra to cover half the cost of the complete strangers sat next on the table next to you.
Would a name change upend the laws of supply and demand in London and suddenly emancipate hundreds of thousands of millennials priced out of Zone 5? Plainly, no.
But it would mean all future discussions, objections, reviews and, yes, Dante’s final circle of hell, planning committees, were done with more honesty, more transparency and more accuracy to the chronic need for housing in London.
Too often lack of ‘affordable housing’ is the reason councillors, activist groups, and even celebrities try to stop a development from going ahead. Very often residents are misled with what we believe is a deceptive phrase: “affordable housing”.
We think that this matters because the more who people who understand this, will help us to win over the necessary conversations on the door. We need to ensure that voters understand how ‘affordable housing’ can drive up planning costs and timelines, lose momentum with endless consultation and result in either less housing or more expensive housing. Neither of this helps affordability.
Furthermore, when incorporated into a London housing market where land costs are up, construction costs are up and housing delivery is through the floor, the viability of building almost anything is exceedingly low. In fact, house-building in London is …
Neil Garratt and Luke Robert Black: Stop building affordable housing – build subsidised instead
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
Neil Garratt AM is the Conservative Assembly member for Sutton and Croydon. Luke Robert Black MBE is the Chairman of the LGBT+ Conservatives and running for Newham Council.
If we ever want to have a sensible debate about making housing affordable, we must start by banning the phrase ‘Affordable Housing’.
Because on a leaflet, on a billboard or in a housing brochure, the word, ‘affordable’ conjures up visual images and unrealistic expectations – the most unrealistic of them all being that it’s housing that locals can actually afford.
The problem is, when normal people hear “affordable housing” they think it means “housing that normal people can afford on normal wages”. But it doesn’t mean that. It means is housing that one person is living in but where someone else is paying part of the cost.
So, really, affordable housing is subsidised housing. This either comes from the taxpayer, whose taxes are used to arbitrarily lower the cost to build a house – forcing developers to remove beauty, density and quality in the process. Or this is levied as a cross-subsidy, where those who pay the market rate for their property pay slightly more, chipping in a bit to subsidise someone else’s living room.
It’s like trying to get a table for a Sunday Roast at Guy Ritchie’s London pub. You still have to wait a year to get a table, and, you’ll still get an incredible roast, but you will be asked to pay 25 per cent extra to cover half the cost of the complete strangers sat next on the table next to you.
Would a name change upend the laws of supply and demand in London and suddenly emancipate hundreds of thousands of millennials priced out of Zone 5? Plainly, no.
But it would mean all future discussions, objections, reviews and, yes, Dante’s final circle of hell, planning committees, were done with more honesty, more transparency and more accuracy to the chronic need for housing in London.
Too often lack of ‘affordable housing’ is the reason councillors, activist groups, and even celebrities try to stop a development from going ahead. Very often residents are misled with what we believe is a deceptive phrase: “affordable housing”.
We think that this matters because the more who people who understand this, will help us to win over the necessary conversations on the door. We need to ensure that voters understand how ‘affordable housing’ can drive up planning costs and timelines, lose momentum with endless consultation and result in either less housing or more expensive housing. Neither of this helps affordability.
Furthermore, when incorporated into a London housing market where land costs are up, construction costs are up and housing delivery is through the floor, the viability of building almost anything is exceedingly low. In fact, house-building in London is …
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