This is a guess post by Independent councillor Shahed Ali
I attended John Biggs’s first Mayoral Assembly held at Swanlea School on January 21 2016. Although a step in the right direction, it soon became obvious to me it was nothing more than a ‘talking shop’ which would achieve nothing more to deliver our greatest need – building affordable rented housing.
The Whitechapel Vision aspires to deliver 3,500 new homes over several sites identified for private development. Our local plan, which clearly dictates our planning policies, requires developers to provide a minimum of 35% affordable housing on-site, or 50% affordable housing off-site. Of this, a ratio split of 70/30 must be affordable rent/intermediate housing.
The latest developer to submit plans for development is ‘Sainsbury’s Whitechapel Square’. This proposes a mixed development including residential housing to provide 608 new homes including a now revised towering 28 storey building, originally pitched at 33 storeys in height.
However, if approved, it will only delivery 60 affordable rented homes [Note: Sainsbury’s has sent me the following comment: We are proposing to bring forward 89 social rent units, not 60 affordable rent units as Cllr Ali states. As I’m sure you’re aware, socially rented units are rented out at a cheaper level than affordable rent units.] So if we apply the same calculation to the total new homes Whitechapel Vision seeks to deliver, residents will get only 345 affordable rented homes of the total of 3500 new homes. If our local plan housing target of 35% was to be met, residents could get 1225 new affordable homes, of which 856 could be affordable rent.
Mayor John Biggs response to concerned residents’ questions about the Sainsbury’s site was: “Our hands are tied by planning policy, but we try our best to get a better deal. For example we managed to negotiate a reduction in height of the tower block from 33 storeys, down to 28 storeys.”
This is my view is a weak and defeatist response. For me, it raises serious questions as to the entire planning process and Tower Hamlets Labour group’s inability to challenge and get a much better deal for our community.
The question from John Biggs should be: “Is a viable development able to be built on this site?” And not: “Is this specific scheme viable?”
Anything can be made to look unviable, but it does not mean viable alternatives are not possible. Developers come with the attitude of: “How much could we get out of this site? How much profit are we losing as a result of following planning policies?”
So they start with packing as much as possible on to any given site and work back from there, instead of starting off with the local plan in the first place! Developers can still make a perfectly respectable profit by following the plan – because the plans themselves are viability tested.
I believe if developers feel they cannot do it according to our local plan, then they should not buy the land in the first place. Let someone else develop the site who will respect and follow the rules.
Whitechapel Vision
What’s left over is called the “residual land value”. The value of the site once development has completed, must be high enough to represent a decent return to the landowner. It is therefore in the developer’s interest to maximise its projected costs and minimise the projected sales values to make its plans appear less profitable.
With figures that generate a residual value not much higher than the building’s current value, the developer can wave “evidence” before the council that the project cannot be delivered if it has to meet our affordable housing targets.
A crucial failure of Tower Hamlets council is that developers’ viability assessments are hidden even from councillors and protected from public scrutiny on the grounds of “commercial confidentiality”.
Developers argue revealing the figures would compromise sensitive trade secrets. But I believe these reports do not tend to be scrutinised effectively by our planning officers either, and the confidentiality argument makes no sense because build costs are well-established in the public domain via the BCIS database, the industry standard tool everyone relies on.
Sales values are easily obtainable yet developers and local councils spend huge resources fighting to keep the figures in these viability assessments secret. I have requested viability assessment reports from the council myself, and it makes me wonder exactly what they are trying to hide?
Consultants know how to fiddle the figures in their client’s interest and planning departments are simply not resourced to scrutinise against the likes of specialist consultants such as BNP Paribas who have dedicated full-time teams working upon specific developments.
Many consultants are now paid bonuses for successfully reducing the number of affordable housing units on a scheme.
Local councils have lost the plot on this. All the things that are supposed to determine the best use of land – mix of uses, massing, density, social mix – have been trumped by finance. It’s a form of financial modelling that’s hidden from view, entirely determined by the developers themselves.
Southwark and Greenwich councils were recently forced to disclose viability assessments after the determination of local residents’ battle that ended in tribunals awarding landmark decisions in favour of releasing the documents for public scrutiny.
Greenwich council, to its credit, has recently proposed introducing a policy that would require all viability assessments to be open to public scrutiny following calls for transparency.
It is a step in the right direction but simply making the information public so people know why the council is conceding its policy on affordable housing levels is not good enough. The fundamental basis of viability itself has to be challenged effectively. It is not simply an issue of transparency.
Braeburn Estates is a consortium led by Canary Wharf Group and Qatari Diar, developing a scheme known as the Shell Centre. That council’s planning policy aims for 50% affordable housing, but the Shell Centre will provide just 20%. It is the result of another viability assessment that pleads poverty to the council, while trumpeting the scheme as a lucrative opportunity to potential investors in the same breath?
This viability assessment was only disclosed when the project went to public inquiry. To the council, flats were listed with an average sales value of £1,330 per sq ft, while a presentation aimed at investors suggested they would sell at an average of £1,641 per sq ft, representing a disparity of £234m across the scheme!
I was gobsmacked to sit and watch as Tower Hamlets incumbent planning committee gave approval for the huge Wood Wharf site neighbouring the Canary Wharf estate, outline planning consent with a requirement to provide only 25% affordable housing, for a development which will only come to completion in several years’ time, if not at least a decade away?
Surely house prices will have increased significantly, especially with the arrival of Crossrail at Canary Wharf?
These viability assessments conclusively prove that we cannot rely on developers to build affordable housing, and they are standing in the way of other groups who want to build it – the community land trusts, housing associations, co-housing groups – by preventing them from getting access to the land.
Instead the industry is wilfully inflating land values and forcing ill-resourced local council planning officers to recommend permission for schemes that fail to meet our local plan.
I get astonished by either the absolute silence, or silly questions that some of the committee members come up with at planning meetings.
It is obvious some do not bother reading the committee reports, nor has the knowledge or experience of being in a position to make such important decisions which will affect our generations to come.
It is a complete mockery.
These failures are actively contributing to the pace of ‘social cleansing’ being accelerated to the point of no return. As a parent of two young girls, I am seriously worried about their future inability to remain living in Tower Hamlets. However instead of allowing opposition members to actively contribute to these committees, the Labour group pitifully chooses to use its majority to effectively reduce and ‘take-out’ members who challenge such planning applications. I myself have become such a victim.
Coming back to the Sainsbury’s scheme, it seems likely that Barrett’s will be the development partner as they have worked in partnership with Sainsbury’s on other schemes.
The Mayor has set-up what he calls the ‘Housing Policy and Affordability Commission’. Opposition councillors are excluded from this forum. However developers are most welcome, including Barrett’s’ Regional Managing Director, Alastair Baird.
Clearly this is a conflict of interest as I cannot imagine Barrett’s would be pro-active in championing the demonstrated flaws contained within viability assessments?
The Mayor needs to seriously take immediate action and engage the expertise required to comb through the viability assessment figures in detail when developers argue they cannot meet our policy requirement on affordable housing provision.
Viability is completely destroying the ability to build mixed communities, all on the grounds of spurious financial models, a legalised practice of fiddling figures that represents “a wholesale fraud on the public purse”.
It is critical that Tower Hamlets council develop the expertise in-house to tackle it now.
(I am now an excluded member of the Strategic Development Committee. Due to changes to the political composition of group members, the council’s proportionality reduced a committee member. However instead of affording the Independent Group the (good practice) opportunity to choose and decide which committee they would like to reduce a member within, the Labour group leader decided that the SDC committee should lose a IG member, which now gives Labour members an increased two-member majority on the SDC. Never has the SDC had a political group with a 2 member majority on the SDC.)
Trial by Jeory 
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have published a guidance note ‘Financial viability in planning’ that is explicit that
“Site Value should equate to the market value subject to the following assumption:
that the value has regard to development plan policies and all other material planning considerations and disregards that which is contrary to the development plan.”
Unfortunately few local planning authorities have read the guidance note, and even fewer have understood it, and continue to regard the price paid by the developer as the site value, which encourages developers to pay over the odds safe in the knowledge that planners will let them reduce s106 / affordable housing contributions accordingly.
I have commented on it
On 7 February 2016 at 18:52, Trial by Jeory wrote:
> trialbyjeory posted: “This is a guess post by Independent councillor > Shahed Ali I attended John Biggs’s first Mayoral Assembly held at Swanlea > School on January 21 2016. Although a step in the right direction, it soon > became obvious to me it was nothing more than a ‘talking ” >
I don’t know anything about Shahed Ali’s background. On this issue, though, I do agree with him. I live in Southwark (work in Tower Hamlets) and I also believe that council’s are bending over backwards for developers/investors and the results are profits for them and others involved in the industry, and very few truly affordable homes for most Londoners.
The blog below:
http://35percent.org
makes many of the same points made by Mr Ali. I was a bit shocked to hear this as I had expected more from our current mayor, who in other areas I think is doing a good job.
The ordinary people of Tower Hamlets absolutely do need people who will speak out and criticise where the council is not doing it’s utmost to secure affordable housing. Yes, all viability assessments should be in the public domain as part of the democratic decision-making process, and yes, the whole concept of viability should be questioned – yes, if a profit-making developer can’t make a profit by following the local plan, then by all means this land could be bought from them and given to a community organisation to build there and provide affordable homes which would benefit the community.
I also don’t expect my young children to be able to live in London, with the issues such as mentioned by Mr Ali and the current government’s planned changes to social housing in this country (pay to stay etc.).
I would be interested to hear a response from the mayor to this blog post, one that addresses the issues, unlike the post above which I didn’t find very useful.
Londonmum, thank you for your sensible comments. I sincerely believe housing development is the highest most important issue if we as a council want to seriously address the vast development taking place in Tower Hamlets, which sadly fails our residents/community by allowing developers to get away with nothing short of ‘daylight robbery’.
The last paragraph you refer to relates to a comment that was left by another comment, which has now been removed due to inaccurate malicious allegations against me. I am more than happy to accept criticism, but I do hope that readers will judge my post based upon its content, the issues it raises, rather than divert away from its core concerns.
Shahed Ali raises a number of valid points but also misses a number of points;
1. The Council employ’s its own consultants to analyse the viability plans. BNP Paribas one week might have a team working for a developer and the next week have a team working for the Council on a separate development. In effect the consultants are negotiating with each other but for different sides. The consultants I have spoken to also think the situation is slightly mad but that does not mean that the plans are not professionally analysed.
2. As far as I know Officers do not get involved in those negotiations, which is a mistake.
3. I understand the Council are considering employing people with more expertise in this area to review applications, something I fully support. I have told them to employ some accountants ☺
4. He does not take enough account of cost. Yes, sales prices have gone up but so have construction costs, cost inflation in the industry has been shocking but in part this is due to the loss of capacity and trained workers in the recession. Building in London is not cheap; difficult transport links, difficult tight sites, contaminated land, building above tunnels etc. We are not building on virgin land but on top of centuries of previous developments, that means different sites may have very different cost profiles i.e. the London Olympics had to wash all of the soil on the site and still had to buy in ‘clean’ soil from elsewhere for the park.
5. There is no training for Councillors on the economics of development, you might think that the bigger the development the more economies of scale will bring down cost but you lose that the higher you go. The cost of constructing the Madison on Marsh Wall is about £354,000 per apartment, that excludes the cost of land, architects, tax, fittings, equipment, profit etc but it is 53 storeys tall.
6. As an accountant I could build you a financial model that proves that 2 + 2 = 5 so although having the viability analysis publicised would help you need to understand how the model works to fully understand them.
7. House prices do not always go up, twice in Tower Hamlets history major developments in my ward have stumbled as they finished in the middle of a recession i.e. Cascades in the early 90’s and Pan Peninsula around 2009/2010. The developer of Landmark almost went bankrupt at the end of construction and the Jemstock building in my ward has been left partially complete for years as its Irish owner went bankrupt.
8. Developers profits are not the 20% that you see in the model. A number of major developers have lost money in the last ten years although recent years have been more profitable for them. These buildings are huge financial gambles with no guarantee of success.
9. I do not think we can deliver 35% to 50% affordable homes unless you build smaller cheaper buildings or drive down the value of land. It is no accident that the highest social housing % of any new development on the Isle of Dogs is the Telford Homes 7 Millharbour development at 35%. But it is also among the smallest new buildings at only 29 storeys. The Madison nearby on a similar size plot of land delivers almost twice as many social homes as 7 Millharbour even though it only delivers 25% social housing. So you could deliver higher % of social homes but fewer of them then at 25%, is that what Shahed wants? This is why the Isle of Dogs has so much development because the Council wanted the highest possible number of social homes and his colleagues waved through at SDC ever bigger and bigger towers in order to deliver more and more social homes but without the schools and GP surgeries to support them.
10. But the higher the social housing %, the higher the cost of the private units to compensate so to solve one problem you create another problem, pricing out middle & even upper income households from an area.
11. The only real long term solution to this problem is to build many more homes but which are also cheap to construct as we did in the 1930’s. We are only doing the first of these right now and failing on the 2nd.
12. I have encouraged all of the developers I meet to start providing high level summaries of the economics of their development so that Councillors start to get an idea of what it costs to build these towers.
An impressive posting passionately written. I will revert to it.
Its a lot to reconsider and digest. My initial reaction is its 100% true but not only in Tower Hamlets Wonderland but also in other boroughs too.
The planning system is corrupt and against the wider public interest. People need a roof over their heads and a dry place to lay-down and sleep yet many are paying exorbitant rents to ruthless bastards – private landlords intent on extorting as much as they can possibly get, often for sub-standard accommodation with the ubiquitous damp mould that is so expectedly covered for a few months with dazzlingly fresh white paint.
Maggie Thatcher was off-her-rocker when she stopped councils building council homes and created generously-funded-by-central-government Housing Associations with much higher than council rents. Some Tory councils transferred all their housing stock to housing associations which have since been eaten-up by even bigger housing associations that also sell homes at high commercial prices whilst paying their directors hundreds of thousands a year.
Councils have been able to build council homes for about 10? years yet they seem to adore the private sector with it’s deliberately misleading claims of “local homes for local people” whilst offering most of those homes to anyone, anywhere in the world, with lots of money.
Homes built on council land should be 100% for council tenants. Elsewhere in the borough, if there is a social housing need then private sites should provide a minimum of 80% of homes for council tenants at council tenant rents.
The public interest should always be superior, not inferior, to private profits for the wealthy when clearly many ordinary and decent people, especially families, are suffering because our society accepts greed as an acceptable good thing – especially when the greedy lobby government and councils – and I mean it pay bribes or ‘donations’ to political parties or supply free trips, holidays etc.
Tower Hamlets needs a mayor with genuine balls – someone who can encourage the whole council to demand 80%+ of new homes are social homes because the evidence of an urgent chronic shortage is clearly there for everyone to see.
Time for some CPO (Compulsory Purchases Orders) or even a court case right-up to the English (and Wales) Supreme Court to legally assert the fact that the unmet demand for affordable to the low-waged poor homes must have priority as a matter of public policy.
Anyone with just a few brain cells knows society needs the dustmen, the bus drivers, the nurses, the school teachers, the cleaners, the dinner ladies, the shop assistants, the office workers, the low-paid newspaper reporters et cetera, et cetera. – So why are these people constantly in need of suitable decent accommodation, that they can really afford, near where they work ?????
Nationally, neither Labour nor the Tories care; neither do UKIP. But in the real world, I frequently see the cramped slum-like accommodation and the far too-expensive rip-off rents and the homes-renting estate agents cashing-in on other people’s misery.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the public need decent homes with genuinely affordable rents. Is anyone listening ?
Curious Cat.
The “elephant in the room” when it comes to strategic housing policy in London is what the politicians never even consider or talk about.
When are politicians going to grasp the nettle relating to the fact that it simply is NOT feasible for boroughs to continue to plan to meet their own housing need within their own borough boundaries. No matter how many brown field sites are released.
Exponential population growth within a borough’s boundaries will not happen continuously into the future. Not least because housing also requires all the social infrastructure of schools, doctors and hospitals to go with it – and when was the last time this blog discussed the shameful lack of school places in LBTH? Or the waits for attention within the NHS?
Go to the schools bit of the website and as a parent you’d simply never know the huge percentages of school places which are lacking in Tower Hamlets relative to its current and predicted school populations. The borough already has more children than school places for them. However this borough is NOT transparent with parents when it comes to the shortfall.
You have to go to another document “Do the Maths” https://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/download/file/fid/16331 (published September 2015) to realise that this is a problem right across London.
Put simply councils and developers are trying to cram more and more people in without:
* making the necessary payments for the capital infrastructure required for additional facilities (S106 agreements are way beyond a joke!)
* or considering the social implications of what they are doing
All I’m seeing in Tower Hamlets is more and more crowding, more and more high rises and the disappearance of more and more green space and play space around housing developments where children have no gardens. It’s a comprehensive recipe for gang warfare over territory.
The intelligent Councillor is the one who does the maths beyond the calculation of affordable homes.
The intelligent Councillor is the one that tells the developers how many homes can be developed within the borough for the capacity that exists within the current infrastructure for education, health and transport and what will be built in the next 3-5 years.
The intelligent Councillor is the one that gets the Greater London Authority and the government to grasp the nettle associated with proper strategic planning forward for housing and associated services over (say) 50 years.
So when is somebody going to get totally transparent and work out the date when there will be NO SPACE LEFT and the politicians at central, regional and local levels have to come up with a new solution to housing need in Tower Hamlets?
Anybody?
In November 2014 at SDC residents were able to mathematically prove to Councillors that the local DLR station at South Quay would run out of capacity in about 5 years time if they approved a new development. Planning officers told Councillors to ignore the cumulative effect of development! At every SDC the Council’s expert on social housing attends ready to answer questions. Only once has an expert on transport attended when I pointed out that the transport calculations were wrong (it turned out that something called PTAL had been mis-calculated for years on South Quay). When Galliards Millharbour scheme went to SDC with a new state primary school not one question was asked about whether this school was ideal (it will be at the base of a 42 storey tower). Every new development except one does not deliver the 10square meters of child play space that is required, most say that will be OK the older children can go to the nearest local park (the same 2 small parks).
In summer 2014 I asked TfL for the maximum population of the Isle of Dogs based on current transport capacity but did not get an answer.
The GLA belatedly though have launched an Opportunity Area Planning Framework for the Isle of Dogs and South Poplar. It is meant to bring in the resources of the GLA, TfL and the Council to produce a masterplan for the area but should have started 5-10 years ago. The Isle of Dogs needs 10 new primary schools, 2.5 new secondary schools and 36 extra GP’s to cope with the 33,000 new apartments somewhere in the pipeline, my calculation but I have yet to see the Councils own calculation.
We started the Isle of Dogs Neighbourhood Planning Forum in September 2014, we submitted our application on the 1st Dec 2014 and 14 months later we are still waiting to be recognised despite government guidance in 2015 saying this should happen in 13 weeks. So increasingly the Forum are having to realise that our ability to influence new development is disappearing and we need to focus on how we make Hong Kong in Europe work better.
London can support higher densities of development but my personal view (unpopular with some in my party) is that we also need to sensitively build on the green belt. If my ward can have 75, 68, 67, 63 storey residential buildings surely other parts of the Borough can cope with a few more ten storeys.
These are the sorts of figures which should be in reports to Committee – but very rarely see the light of day.
I wonder who is voting down Cllr Woods comment? It’s got to be either a developer or somebody who can’t read!
I agree with you, especially about the cross council boundaries issues. After all, the buses, tubes, roads, police, fire, ambulance and even the pizza delivery man work across council boundaries, so why not – as you pointed-out – housing too ?
I have always advocated Regional Housing Authorities. Immediately after the Second World War, the LCC created London-overspill housing sites as far away as Swindon in Wiltshire. Unsure about Milton Keynes but Essex has some, Buckinghamshire (now partially Berkshire) has them too.
I continue to regard Shahed Ali’s posting as brilliant and timely. Yes, lets start with housing but don’t stop there as there are many other equally urgent and important issues too. Both Labour & Tories “build on any bit of grass” policy is wrong. If London, like other places too, is full-up, then new over-spill towns need creating in other parts of England, perhaps even reclaiming land from the sea and build on that. (the south of England is slowly sinking into the sea whilst the north of Scotland is slowly rising from the sea – its the after effects of the ice age).
Curious Cat.
A development led Authority such as TH will always proceed like this. In fact with the substantial revenue stream from development how could it not ?
While the Member has a political agenda of his own, its important to recognise the skilled planning officers who are often overlooked and overruled by elected members at all levels.
These developments will go ahead regardless of the affordability debate, after all who can afford to live in Tower Hamlets on Local Government wages unless you happen to live in a Tower Hamlets Homes property as many people do ! Especially those involved with local politics.
The reverse is true, yes there are some very good planning officers but too often they recommend poor buildings which are then not over ruled by SDC. It is fascinating to look back at different SDC decisions and see how different the % approvals are depending on the mix of Councillors on the committee. Pre-2014 the committee rejected as much as they approved, from May 2014 to May 2015 they approved everything.
So-called wages and pension perks and cushy relaxed jobs for those at the top are over-generous with our money. Its been a disgusting gravy train for years. Now central government is slowly limiting the worse excesses.
The councillor was metaphorically speaking from his heart and deserves public congratulations. It is misleading to ascribe a “political agenda” to his publicly spirited comments, but then some of us know only too well the hidden agendas of some local authority staff.
Would be nice if LBTH was actually people or councillors lead rather than staff-lead.
Don’t forget folks, some of us genuinely do believe the council should be serving the public instead of serving themselves and serving the commercial interests of property speculators (politely called property developers).
Curious Cat
I am more concerned for those on medium income who don’t qualify for affordable housing and have to pay over the odds for private units.
Rich don’t live in Tower Hamlets. It is those on middle incomes that are hit most having to subsidise others. In my opinion 15% is fine. 35% or even 50% is not.
Don’t know why 3 nutters negatively voted against Kay’s concerns. We live in ripe-off England.
Can not understand why Tower Hamlets arrived at the miserly 35% target when the demand for genuinely affordable social homes is 100%.
Perhaps closeness to developers influenced those in favour of pitiful 35% ? We know how local government works.
35% is so low it is not helping the needy public.
Curious Cat.
The 35% to 50% targets come from Boris’s London Plan and apply to all London Boroughs. I believe the 35% to 50% targets were also in Kens London Plan.
If local government councillors genuinely dedicated themselves to serving the public, whom they are supposed to ‘represent’, then its about time some start a legal challenge to those woefully inadequate targets.
Doing nothing is just a slap across the faces of London’s needy.
Oh, no one has got the balls, the interest, the desire or even the motivation to improve the borough for the benefit of the people ? One never ever gets things done by sitting on one’s hands.
Everyone knows of the chronic housing shortage yet, ineffectively, nothing ever improves so the problems persist but some wealthy property speculators get richer – I wonder why ?
Time to start the London Social Homes weekly lottery. Tickets just £1. First prise is a council run social home with AFFORDABLE rent. All profits go towards building more social homes. Millionaires, MPs and property speculators excluded.
Curious Cat
You can increase the target level if you’d also care to explain:
1) how that increased level is going to be financed and
2) how you would sell the subsidy – and associated taxation – to the part of the population / community that would be paying for it.
Thanks Cllr. Andrew Wood. Just to correct you, I aspire 35% as per our agreed local plan, not the 25% you quote me upon.
I have never agreed with other THF councillors who voted in favour of developments you mention, in particular the Millharbour, Meridian Gate and South Quay applications. In fact I always found myself vigorously speaking and voting against and I certainly always interrogated officers with some of the other valid concerns you raise i.e. GP surgeries, transport infrastructure, school places, child play spaces etc. One point we also missed was density levels.
There is so much more to talk about but I decided to limit myself and the focus upon viability assessments. It is obviously of concern why developers produce one set of depressed figures to the council relating to sales values, and another much more appealing set of figures to investors with much higher sales values? Like you say Andrew, accountants such as BNP Paribas can tell you 2 + 2 = 5!
I would encourage you to examine the following findings of schemes across London in the link provided:
http://35percent.org
This may sound a little too draconian, but the council has actioned CPO (Compulsory Purchase Powers) powers to other matters of concern. The council perhaps should consider using CPO powers to purchase land at existing land use values in order to accommodate building local plan compliant housing by other options such as community land trusts, housing co-op’s etc. who will respect our local plan to build the % of affordable housing our planning policy dictates.
At the moment, developers are competing and buying land at higher purchase prices with the knowledge they can offset their overpaid margin against giving us lower % of affordable housing – using the viability toolkit assessment.
I would like to see Tower Hamlets council immediately adopt the policy to allow viability assessments to be accessible to elected Councillors and public. Other boroughs have already been forced by the courts to allow such, so the futile argument of ‘commercial sensitivity’ falls. But this is not the answer, nor good enough to address the problem. Until and unless the council engages in-house expertise to comb through the figures developers produce to us, we will continue to allow to lose the much needed 35% of affordable housing from under our noses.
If I had the power to do so, I would demand that any developer who insists they cannot deliver our local plan contributions is obliged to automatically factor in costs the council will have to deploy to carry out its own viability assessment. This should be mandatory for any development proposal which fails to meet our 35% affordable housing target. Any proposal which meets our local plan policies would obviously not be subject to such costs.
The point I was trying to make would you rather have 25% of a 50 storey tower or 35% of a 30 storey tower because that delivers more social rent homes? You cannot have 35% of a 50 storey as they are so expensive to build that the economics do not work. The Council and your colleagues have consciously or unconsciously chosen to have 25% in lots of really tall towers.
Another key question is that you could have higher % offsite but the Council generally prefer on site provision of social housing for political reasons. But if that onsite social housing is at the base of 67 storeys towers in areas with no parks, where service charges are necessarily high, with forced air ventilation is that really the right solution for families?. If the developer provides cash instead you can give that to Poplar Harca / Swan Housing etc to help build more appropriate family size accommodation elsewhere in Tower Hamlets. I think some buildings in my ward should have no family sized social rent homes i.e. Hertsmere whereas others should have a much higher % as better family locations i.e. Westferry Print works.
But none of these issues are getting dealt with and the Affordability Commission is only looking at a part of this problem. I personally think we should have Overview & Scrutiny Committee dedicated to planning issues like this. In 2014 Tower Hamlets Council had more planning applications then the rest of London combined if measured by the square feet of developments!
I can assure you that elsewhere in Tower Hamlets the brown field sites have mostly been built on. They’re now building on GREEN SPACE!
In relation to Compulsory Purchase, the Council that does that in any significant way when it involves people’s existing homes will be the Council that loses the trust of the people and the next election.
Andrew, I think its important to clarify that we both share equal concerns and I am not attempting to create a conflicting argument with you on this subject.
In response to your questions, I, personally, would prefer to have 35% of a 30 storey as opposed to 25% of a 50 storey for two clear reasons. 1. The number of actual affordable rented units delivered would not be differ much between either scenario. 2. Most importantly, the additional pressures created by more units in taller blocks means more residents, which cannot meet the associated need for school places, access to GP services, child play space and open space requirements, and of course, transport infrastructure. Furthermore families who mostly require a car are disadvantaged as most of these schemes are car-free developments to the social rented ratio, whereas the folk that can afford to buy a private parking space still will continue to enjoy their ability to own, use and park their cars at the premiums they can afford to pay!
Sadly the council is even taking a massive hit in off-site provision where it has been considered. For example, the McDonalds site (Trafalgar Way, E14) is off-site but the planning committee failed to achieve the 50% off-site affordable housing provision.
Let us also not forget that the councils ‘The Affordability Commission’ can be mistaken for some kind of independent body that is working towards finding the right solution. It is a body set-up by the Tower Hamlets Labour group which excludes councilors from other political groups such as yourself and me. But it welcomes and includes developers to provide advice including Barrett’s who work with Sainsbury’s on other housing developments. This is the same Sainsbury’s that now wants to build a 28 storey tower on Cambridge Heath Road that will only deliver less than 10% affordable rent units, a mere 60 out of the 608 new homes proposed. Clearly a conflict of interest which the Labour group chooses to ignore in the name of ‘Affordability Commission’!
Shahed we broadly agree on the criticisms especially on parking we just differ to some extent over the solutions. I do not think publicising the viability analysis although useful would actually solve the underlying problems of building the wrong types of buildings in the wrong place.
Also CPO powers should only be used in extremis, as a last resort and only when there is a very clear public interest. Since new homes are being built in there thousands I do not think you can legally justify CPO powers.
I increasingly think that the planning system is part of the problem. Since 1947 we have either not built enough homes or built homes which have not lasted the course.
I absolutely agree Andrew, publicising the viability assessment will not solve the problem. But like I said, if I had the power to do so, I would demand that any developer who insists they cannot deliver our local plan contributions is obliged to automatically factor in costs the council will have to deploy to carry out its own viability assessment. This should be mandatory for any development proposal which fails to meet our 35% affordable housing target. Any proposal which meets our local plan policies would obviously not be subject to such costs.
Although I agree totally. Why is it that he waited until he was booted out of the commitee before he brought this up. Gravy Train derailed?
=> Mo
Perhaps he got tired of waiting for an opinionated poster to this blog, raising these important Tower Hamlets issues ?
Curious Cat
Mo, Thanks for your comment. Whilst I do not wish to try defend myself, I think it will be fair for me to clarify that I have always raised these very same issues very vocally at the planning meetings I have sat upon. I have also raised the same with council officers who have always advised me that viability assessments cannot be examined by me due to ‘commercial sensitivity’. Those that have attended SDC meetings will know this to be the case. I feel this is the reason why the Labour group have engineered the committee structure so as to ensure I cannot make my opinions heard within these decision making meetings which gather public support and put Labour members in embarrassing situation. Furthermore it is important to clarify that only the chair of the committee receives an additional allowance for attendance. I have never received any additional allowances for my regular attendances at these meetings since being elected in 2006.
I do get frustrated and angry due to the absence of effective challenging questions and concerns not raised by some Labour members at these meetings. Rather than read reports and have the experience to put forward relevant questions, the best they seem to come out with is a question just for the sake of asking a questions such as “How any family homes in the proposal”? For God sake, it’s already illustrated in the report!
Why anyone would be remotely interested in the views of Shahed Ali is beyond me.
That is easy. He has, certainly on this occasion, lots to say about a very important Tower Hamlets topic.
No need to be jealous ! You could have raised the same points before he did, but you didn’t.
Curious Cat.
Is he still winging about Rich Mix?
I didn’t hear this lot squeal when Lutfur gave £20 million of our money to the saudi east London mosque
Good question.
Which is more important for ‘humanity’ ?
Places to worship a man created ‘God’ or places offering shelter from the cold, the rain, the wind, the dark in which people can sleep safety and warmly, cook their meals and “live” ?
Should Tower Hamlets priorities be religious worship or homes for people independent of their religious belief, or non-belief ?
Some say it is possible to worship ‘God’ in very unlikely and in very suitable places. Bring-up a family in unlikely and unsuitable places is extremely stressful, difficult and inhumane. So my choice is on homes.
How many Tower Hamlets people or families could have been housed for the GBP 20 million ?
Shame the extremely wealthy Saudis couldn’t fund their mosque. Wonder why the mosque accepted GBP 20 million from a deprived part of London which needed that money to help needy residents or is the mosque competing in the Social Housing market ?
Just goes to show how the public often can’t trust politicians to serve the most demanding needs of real and ordinary citizens. Perhaps they have no concept of caring for anyone except for themselves ?
Curious Cat.
I heard Councillor Rachel Blake interrogated a developer quite strongly about affordable housing contributions on the Olympic area planning committee (LLDC) which she sits on. It sounded like she was on the same side at Cllr Ali re developer contributions. Cllr Ali should be in a position of scrutiny in the council, not excluded.
We need people like him on the planning committee who have valuable experience and ask good questions: some members have a poor grasp of the process and are not properly trained (so the officers can get things passed more easily….).
Yes, its shocking the inetitude of some bewildered councillors.
Time for a qualifying examination to ensure councillors can
Ali for Scrutiny + Ali for Planning
Curious Cat
Sorry
Ineptitude
Curious Cat, thanks for your comments. Whilst I do not wish to divert from the important subject in discussion, I really have no idea where this figure of £20million has come from? To my knowledge, the East London Mosque have certainly not been awarded any grants of funds anywhere remotely near to the tune of £20million. That would be very wrong and I certainly would not endorse this council or any local authority to this kind of expenditure.
As a current ‘member’ of an exclusive establishment not normally open to genuine members of the public, can you please make enquiries ?
Thank you.
Curious Cat.
What are you talking about Shahed Ali? This was going on whilst you were in the cabinet. Did you not pay attention at meetings? Uncle Lutfur gave millions of taxpayers cash to the IFE are their many front organisations. They got almost as much off Lutfur as they get from the Saudi’s.
If the Police bothered to get off their arses and arrest Lutfur the Saudi’s would probably grant him asylum if he fled in time. That or he would hideout in his flat in Dubai
How about this application Cllr Ali? 29% affordable housing and you spoke out in support at committee. It was even recommended for refusal, party due to the following reason:
‘Insufficient information has been submitted to demonstrate that the
proposal would provide the maximum amount of affordable
housing that could be achieved on site. ‘
Click to access Fieldgate%20Street-%20committee%20report%20final%20rev%202%20agenda.pdf
http://moderngov.towerhamlets.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=360&MId=5368&Ver=4