London Assembly: Residents should have final say and ballot on estate regeneration

The London Assembly is asking the Mayor to hear Londoner’s voices and give them more power to decide where and when regeneration should take place in their areas.

A motion, agreed today, called on the Mayor to include this commitment in his final Good Practice Guide, urging him to make London a place where neighbourhoods are designed to answer communities’ needs.

Sian Berry AM, who proposed the motion, said:

The Assembly has called today for something all estate residents should have: a final say on what will happen to their homes and communities.

 Full consultation is vital and a ballot over any major plan to remodel their estates is the only way to make sure councils and housing associations don’t fudge these processes.

The Mayor’s commitment that ‘estate regeneration only takes place where there is resident support, based on full and transparent consultation’ was clear and we are calling now for him to keep his promise to Londoners.

 Tom Copley AM, who seconded the motion, said:

I’m pleased that the Mayor is insisting that there must be no net loss of social housing on estate regeneration schemes in his draft Good Practice Guide. However, I want him to go further by including ballots of residents whose homes face demolition. Balloting is a vital way of ensuring residents have a meaningful say over future plans for their homes and is the best way to ensure a regeneration scheme has legitimacy.

Wherever demolition is an option, there must be a commitment to balloting residents, particularly where a sizeable number of residents have made a request for a ballot.

Through his Good Practice Guide, we now want to see the Mayor working with community groups to develop detailed guidance about a host of issues, such as when ballots take place, who participates and how differences in opinions between residents may be resolved.

The full text of the Motion is:

This Assembly notes that the Mayor’s Good Practice Guide to Estate Regeneration is due to be published soon which will set out key principles to be followed in estate regeneration projects.

This Assembly also notes the Mayor’s manifesto commitment that estate regeneration only takes place where there is resident support, based on full and transparent consultation.

This Assembly believes that a final say for residents is an important way to ensure that resident involvement in plans for their homes is done in a meaningful way throughout the process.

This Assembly therefore urges the Mayor to recommend in his final Good Practice Guide that ballots are used on all schemes where demolition is an option or to include clear guidance that ballots will be guaranteed where a proportion of residents ask for it. Ballots should extend to private renters from non-resident leaseholders and freeholders on estates.

See this photographic essay for an example of an estate that is due to be regenerated LINK

GLA put Land Value Tax on the political agenda with Old Oak in the spotlight

The GLA today publish a report on the potential of a Land Value Tax in London. LINK
The report was commissioned by the GLC Oversight Committee in September 2015 to look at the case for and against the Tax.

In his foreword rapporteur Tom Copley, Labour AM says:  

The greatest challenge facing the next Mayor will be achieving a step change in the level of house building in London. Last year we built fewer than half the number of homes the Mayor’s own estimate says is needed to solve the housing crisis over 20 years. Clearly, new and bold thinking is required. 

This report seeks to offer the next Mayor a potential solution, by examining the argument for and against introducing a Land Value Tax in London. Land Value Taxation provides incentives for bringing land into more productive use, and discourages keeping land empty or derelict. Thus, it would have serious potential to bring more land forward for development, including for
housing. There are examples from cities around the world that have brought in Land Value Taxation that suggest this would indeed happen. 

Our conclusion is that the next Mayor should fund an economic feasibility study and, subject to a positive conclusion, request the powers from the Government to trial a Land Value Tax in part of the city. 

The potential of introducing Land Value Taxation in this country has been discussed for more than a century, and has supporters from across the political spectrum. Economists like the fact that it is highly efficient, with minimal distorting effects on the market. Of course, we recognise that making such a radical change to how we tax land and property would not be without difficulty. 

This report looks at both sides of the argument, and offers the next Mayor a clear course of action to pursue.

The report is particularly concerned with bringing land into use for much needed housing but the arguments for LVT in terms of a more progressive tax to replace Council Tax are also noted:

  Proponents of LVT argue that by replacing council tax and business rates with LVT, not only would the public sector secure returns on its investment in infrastructure, the average tax payer would actually pay less. The tax base would be broader and owners of vacant or underused property would pay more than under the current system.

The Land Value Taxation Campaign LINK make the case for LVT thus: 

A single-issue non-party/all-party organisation based in the UK, we propose that the rental value of land should be collected and used as the principal source of public revenue, as a replacement for present taxes on wages, profits, goods and services. This policy is a prerequisite if chronic economic problems are to be eliminated.

How? Nearly every country in the world is affected by poverty and unemployment; widening divisions between rich and poor; boom-slump cycles; housing shortages; inadequate infrastructure; and damage to the environment. These economic ills persist, seemingly intractably, despite unprecedented developments in science and technology. All of them are ultimately related to the different economic behaviour of 'land' in contrast to man-made consumer and capital goods, whose supply can be, and normally is, varied and transported in response to demand.

Land is otherwise. No more can be made: each plot of land is unique and immovable. Its total supply is fixed. Consequently, the market in land behaves differently from the market in products. Land value comes from the natural and man-made advantages of location, which derive from the presence and activities of the community as a whole.

It follows that the value of land, its rent, is peculiarly suitable as the basic source of public revenue. This is not really taxation, but payment for the right to occupy land and enjoy the benefits of occupation; however, the policy is usually known as "Land Value Taxation" It operates as an annual charge on the rental value of land, assuming that each site was in its optimum permitted use. Since the idea cuts across all political divisions, the Campaign has no party political affiliations.

The GLA report suggests that 'theoretically' the Old Oak and Park Royal Development,  which already gives the London Mayor additional powers, could be the site for him or her to trial LVT.

London Assembly backs Generation Rent manifesto

The world is their Oyster - publicity for  MIPIM

From Generation Rent LINK

London Assembly members voted this afternoon to back Generation Rent's Manifesto. This is a fantastic endorsement of the work we are doing from politicians in the heart of the country's housing crisis.

Two million people - a quarter of the London population - rents from a private landlord, and the unaffordability, poor conditions and insecurity of tenure are all high on the agenda. A poll from the Association of Residential Letting Agents today said that 43% of London's renters have had reservations about their landlord or letting agent on day one of their tenancy.

Darren Johnson AM, Green Party chairman of the housing committee, proposed the motion, which was seconded by Labour's Tom Copley AM, and passed after a debate in City Hall (available on this link).

“This Assembly welcomes the 'Renters manifesto' published by Generation Rent, which would bring considerable improvements to the lives of one in four households in London living in the private rented sector.

“The Assembly reaffirms its support for a number of Generation Rent's recommendations, which the Assembly put forward in its 'Rent reform' report in June 2013, including policies to stabilise rents, introduce longer tenancies and end retaliatory evictions.

“This Assembly supports further measures proposed by Generation Rent, including:

• longer notice periods for tenants who have lived in a home for a number of years
• banning letting agent fees
• closing loopholes on deposit protection schemes
• increasing the Rent a Room tax allowance
• scaling up the Community Land Trust model to create a large, secondary housing market affordable to Londoners

This Assembly also notes with regret the Mayor’s continued involvement with international property fairs such as MIPIM. His support for rich investors to build expensive flats for rich owners and landlords, who in turn let homes on insecure contracts in a dysfunctional rental market, is not providing for the needs of ordinary Londoners.

This Assembly therefore calls on the Mayor to set out his response to the 'Renters manifesto', to consider piloting some of the recommendations in his Housing Zones, and to require its implementation in any deals made at MIPIM.”

We'll be looking forward to Boris Johnson's response. 

Comment from Wembley Matters.  The  next four day MIPIM will be held in Cannes in March and costs 1490 Euros for each delegate plus accommodation. Brent's Director of Regeneration and Major Projects, Andy Donald, has been an attender in the past. LINK