Housing

INTRODUCTION

Most Londoners can’t afford to live here. Market rents are far too high. “Affordable rents” are not affordable. The supply of council housing has been deliberately run down for forty years. The price of buying a home is prohibitive. The financialisation of the housing market means that London properties are worth more as financial assets than they are as homes. Some investment properties are kept empty. Social housing is not being built. Reductions in temporary accommodation fail to meet ever-increasing homelessness, including 74,000 children. People who need a council home are forced into expensive, insecure, and poorly-regulated private rented housing. Far more is spent subsidising overpriced rents than on building social housing.

The housebuilding model is predicated on property values forever rising, plus an imperfect market and a cartel of housebuilders who control the supply. Developers over-pay for land and then, due to the ‘flexible’ planning system, claim they cannot afford to provide social housing. 300,000 council homes have been lost to Right To Buy across London. Estate regeneration has proved a painful delusion, resulting in the needless demolition of council homes and the destruction of communities. Shared ownership homes are a dreadful trap. London’s development is distorted, as housing has been built on a quarter of our industrial land rather than being integrated into coherent communities, harming economic activity. Huge amounts of public land have been lost.

Local government is not fit for purpose (accountability, transparency and finance) and starved of funds. The relationship and priorities between government departments, the Mayor and local authorities is muddled.

Solutions in our MANIFESTO

A major programme of public investment in public housebuilding in co-production with communities who will be living in them, prioritising family-sized housing
Public land should be used for not-for-profit rented homes (including community forms of housing), provided for free as a community asset transfer or long lease. This means land owned by public bodies including Local Authorities, government departments, NHS, Transport for London and Network Rail
Abolition of Right to Buy. Support the buy-back of ex-council stock
Tenancy reform: the Mayor of London must be granted the necessary powers to effect the Blueprint for Reforming Private Renting including the control/regulation of rents; the basic standards should apply equally to temporary accommodation; and the rights of council tenants should apply to housing association tenants
A presumption against estate redevelopment schemes unless they significantly benefit the health and well-being of existing residents, and communities are kept together throughout; and where refurbishment – the circular economy – takes priority
A presumption in favour of retrofitting and upgrading all rented housing and the training of architects, engineers, developers; a dedicated core of trained construction specialists in local authorities working with residents in situ, and planners in low-carbon technology and materials
Abolish viability testing and the flexibile approach, which encourage hope value and land value inflation. Viability mustn’t trump planning policy: land value must reflect planning policy
Establish a transparent register of residential property ownership and usage, eg identification of second homes, to help ensure that property is used and taxed appropriately, including the introduction of a Vacancy Tax
Councils and the Mayor must take effective, timely action on London’s empty homes, with new powers to requisition homes and commercial properties that are empty for more than six months, making use of Empty Dwellings Management Orders, CPOs, tighter regulation of Airbnb
Reinstate community participation in the identification of housing need and available sites, for the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) and Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA)