Newsnight: Housing shortage the biggest social justice crisis of our times

IveSeenTheLight

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Excellent post.

I don't expect Graham will post a detailed rebuttal.:(

Probably not, but hopefully he may think a little more about the consequences of the path options

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

So before you react and ask people which routes they're going down, try to think what may lie further ahead on the path options.

stuffcrash

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Just seen a trailer for Newsnight tonight, and it was surrounding the Housing Minister suggesting the housing shortage was the biggest social justice crisis of our time.

There was also a bit about giving cash to locals communities if they accept new housing. Were not talking small fry here. He expects this levy to bring in £1bn.

The cash will have to be spent on local infrastructure, and will come from a levy on housebuilders.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20957422

In other words, its a cash incentive, aimed directly at NIMBY's. (in a way).

However, this policy has got to be one of the worst yet. Housebuilders first response is that this will push the cost of land, and the price of houses up. Probably because THEY will be the ones with a levy imposed on them to fund this.

In the meantime, the very same housebuilders, get taxpayer funded backing in the form of newbuy to build more houses.

So this appears to be somewhat bizarre. Charge the builders a levy, to incentivise NIMBY's to allow house building, while incentivising the very same builders via newbuy....in the meantime, allowing them to sit on large swathes of landbanks, with full planning permission.

We need someone with a clue!!!!

And why the ..... should local housing opposition groups get cash!??!

they are just ripping of the tax payer, the local government should just hire them to build, but this will never happen. I have looked at the data on social house building and if in the past they could build 200,000 plus homes 35 years ago every year then why cant they build it now. If they want the economy to move rents really need to drop, and fast otherwise we'll have these recession rebounds.

GeorgeHowell

If new developments were all sensibly located, aesthetically acceptable, practically viable, and infrastructure supported then the power of the nimbys to block them would be severely curtailed. Developers propose cheap and nasty monstrosities, where you can't get a sofa into the living room via the front door, and often in stupidly unsuitable locations, in the hope of making a killing. When there is opposition they say, "Oh well if it's going to cost us any more we won't do it then." Faced with that our illustrious public servants usually blink first and pass it. The nimbys may or may not win the ensuing battle but it makes them all the more determined to fight the the next one.

Make the developers blink first -- they have to build something somewhere or they'll wind up.

stuffcrash

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

If new developments were all sensibly located, aesthetically acceptable, practically viable, and infrastructure supported then the power of the nimbys to block them would be severely curtailed. Developers propose cheap and nasty monstrosities, where you can't get a sofa into the living room via the front door, and often in stupidly unsuitable locations, in the hope of making a killing. When there is opposition they say, "Oh well if it's going to cost us any more we won't do it then." Faced with that our illustrious public servants usually blink first and pass it. The nimbys may or may not win the ensuing battle but it makes them all the more determined to fight the the next one.

Make the developers blink first -- they have to build something somewhere or they'll wind up.

or bring back the regulations of the min size like they had 20 years ago.

GeorgeHowell

stuffcrash wrote: »

or bring back the regulations of the min size like they had 20 years ago.

That would certainly be a good start.

Graham_Devon

stuffcrash wrote: »

or bring back the regulations of the min size like they had 20 years ago.

Funnily enough, what George states is deemed enough of a problem for those very regulations to be bought back.

But ONLY for social housing. It hasn't been extended to private dwellings. So theres a somewhat bizzare situation where we appear to have gone full circle, and social housing is now to a bigger (and better?) standard that what can be sold to the desperate public. For example....all the new social housing here has to have a higher quality of products in bathrooms, kitchens etc. This aliviates the damage which can be done by tenants, such as breaking the thin plastic bath, and creating an insurance water damage claim.

However, the private dwellings get a lower standard (or did up until around 2006 when my family were involved in the game.....lot of higher quality home family homes being built now as builders have changed their game).

Far cry from social housing being substandard and new builds being of a higher standard and quality.

michaels

ash28 wrote: »

http://drpetermatthews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/housing-and-planning-week-later-but-has.html


Housebuilding and the financials and risk surrounding it are quite complex, here is an extract from a blog which explains it far better than I ever could.

I would add to the analysis that as well as the plot being developped the building co may own several other plots going through the process of planning application etc so a reduction in selling prices will hit the value of all their plots hence if they do have any opportunity to exert pricing power by controlling the rate at which new supply becomes available to prevent prices from falling they will do so.

In a market where supply of building land was not restricted this would not work, a competing new company could buy some cheaper land locally (cheaper because house prices are falling/lower) and build to this new lower price point and still make a profit. however building land in most locations is strictly limited allowing builders to drip feed supply to maintain prices and thus their own profits/book valuations.

IveSeenTheLight

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Far cry from social housing being substandard and new builds being of a higher standard and quality.

I'd like to see the statistical evidence for this.
Last time I recall this being discussed, it showed that private rentals was a higher standard than social housing (probably as the better social housing sold off)

Let me see if I can find a link to previous discussions, but would still welcome the link showing the reversal of standards between social and private lettings.

michaels

Mr._Pricklepants wrote: »

As a NIMBY, I find the idea that we can be bribed into allowing undesirable housing quite offensive.

A couple of years ago, we lobbied successfully against a new development nearby us and if someone would have offered us money to change our minds, we would have told them where to shove it.

You can't put a monetary value on several things, and a liveable environment is one of them.

Now if you could build in your own back garden and say generate a profit of 800k (profit on sale of new property 1m, loss of value to your property 200k due to smaller garden) I bet you would do so and then move to an equivalent house that has not had its garden built on a bank the profits.

However if it was the bit of land opposite you and your 20 neighbours and the increase in value of the land from planning permission being granted was only 2 million (some of which the land owner would want) you would probably decide that 50k each would not even cover your moving costs and thus not be worth it.

So it is not that you couldn't be incentivised to accept new development but more that the sums just wouldn't add up.

IveSeenTheLight

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I'd like to see the statistical evidence for this.
Last time I recall this being discussed, it showed that private rentals was a higher standard than social housing (probably as the better social housing sold off)

Let me see if I can find a link to previous discussions, but would still welcome the link showing the reversal of standards between social and private lettings.

There was this picture showing that both social and private housing had increased in the percentage between decent and not decent rental properties



The gap appeared to narrow in 2004