London Mayor torpedoes Barnet's Grahame Park regeneration citing loss of affordable homes

From Construction News LINK

Sadiq Khan has rejected plans for a housing estate regeneration project in north London on the basis that affordable homes will be lost.

The mayor of London said the scheme in Barnet is “a classic example of how not to do estate regeneration”.

The project at the 1970s Grahame Park estate in Colindale includes plans to demolish 692 homes available at social rent and replace them with 1,083 units.

But only 435 of the new homes will be available for social tenants within what is Barnet’s largest housing estate.

Barnet Council approved the scheme, which is being developed by Genesis Housing Association, last month.

However, Mr Khan said after considering the evidence, the council must now work with City Hall planners to redesign the project.

It is the second time this year the mayor has intervened in Barnet, having called in the council’s decision to refuse Barratt permission for 462 homes in May.

The mayor said: “I fully support improving social housing on this estate and across the capital, but this scheme falls far short of what I expect of London boroughs.”

Mr Khan pointed to his London Plan, published last month, which said estate regeneration projects must replace homes for social rent on a like-for-like basis.

He added: “Londoners so urgently need more high-quality housing, not less, which makes this scheme completely unacceptable in its current form.”

Housing estate regeneration is a major issue in the capital, with Haringey Council facing fierce opposition to its £2bn plans to regenerate part of Wood Green in north London.

A Barnet Council spokesperson said: “We are clearly disappointed by this decision. We will now be reviewing this with our development partner to agree the next steps.”

A Genesis spokesperson said: “We are very disappointed to hear this decision and are in close dialogue with Barnet Council and the mayor’s office to review next steps.”

NOTE

Genesis Housing Association is associated with the Brent House development where only 30% of units are 'affordable' (ie unaffordable to most local families at up to 80% market rent) and the controversial Minavil House development where  'affordable' is 60% of market rent but only 13% of the units.  It is also facing a campaign by tenants over the merger with Notting Hill Housing Trust and its move away from its original remit of providing housing at social rent.

It will be interesting to see how Mr Khan treats applications from Brent which don't offer Londoners more high quality homes at social rent.

Genesis & Notting Hill Housing merger threat to residents - 16th August meeting

MEETING FOR ALL RESIDENTS OF NOTTING HILL HOUSING AND GENESIS HA.

All residents very welcome - tenants, shared owners and leaseholders.

WEDNESDAY 16 AUGUST 2017

6:30-8:30 pm

Westbourne Grove Church

Westbourne Grove

London, W11 2RW

(The venue has wheel chair access)

From Genesis Residents

What are the real reasons for the proposed merger of Notting Hill Housing and Genesis Housing Association? Why are the 170,000 NHH and Genesis residents worried.  Genesis Residents explain:

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Why are these housing associations merging?

So that the merged H.A can borrow more money on the private money markets to build homes which are out-of-reach for ordinary people. Both housing associations have lost sight of their original purpose.

In 2016 the National Housing Federation, the HA bosses association, said (1) that rental income is central for ,“raising private debt in order to build more homes”. Service charges and ‘management charges’ on maintenance work for leaseholders and shared owners also increase income and allow HAs to raise more private debt.

Increasing income (from rents, service charges and management charges on repairs) and a bigger asset base (our homes) means more loans for out-of-reach housing. It has very little do with protecting homes or ending the housing crisis.

In 2016 Genesis funded a report (2) by a ‘think tank’ set up by extremist conservative MPs which called for the government to give H.As a ‘deal’ – to build more out-of-reach homes based on increasing H.A debt to 60% debt and forcing up rents.  Part of the deal was also that the H.As could sell their existing housing. Although lip service was paid to ‘rent caps’, HAs would be able charge whatever rent they wanted:

“Government would give the housing associations signing up complete discretion over the use of the social housing grant from housing asset sales and allow the housing associations to set their own rents for its social housing tenants.”

Neither HA has been honest with residents about the real reasons for the merger – or the likely consequences.

What will this mean for our rents and service charges?

We are concerned that there is a long term agenda to raise rents or get tenants out, to sell properties on.

What is happening is shown by Genesis’ attitude to older ‘secure tenants’. The rents for these pre-1989 tenancies are currently uncapped. Despite the fact that all 2,000 of them are retired, or nearing retirement, usually on fixed savings or pensions, Genesis has been raising their rents by up to 177%.

As Kate Davies said (3) in 2008, “housing associations should be free to use new social housing, and existing social housing…as they see fit” (our emphasis). The new Housing and Planning Act 2016 allows H.A.s to end much of the protection for residents including their rents ( a process sometimes called ‘deregulation’).

In other words the terms of tenancies, including rent, are under attack. Service and other charges may also go up with the pressure to fund more building. Neil Hadden said in an interview (4) in 2015 that Genesis was:

“really looking at our asset base and seeing what the value of that is and how we can get our hands on that value, by changing its tenure, by churning it, by selling it and using those proceeds to build more homes.” 

So there appears to be a serious conflict of interest between the interests of current residents and the drive to increase the income of Genesis and Notting Hill’s (and therefore the new merged HA) by any means.