New houses proposed

[broken_shaman]

To my untrained eye it looks like some chancer wants to make some cash from a bit of land that is filled with trees and right next to a railway line. Trees which presumably shield the existing buildings from noise and provide habitat for wildlife. It doesn't look like a development opportunity to me. All very well going on about NIMBYs and housing crises, but don't assume every developer has some sort of crystal ball which can see amazing potential where others are blind to it. There are a lot of rubbish ideas.

Plenty of other sites around the area too. Land at Lower Sydenham, land in the middle of Bell Green Gyratory, the site next to Sydenham Beds, an empty plot on Mayow Road where the derelict bungalow burned down, another plot with planning permission at the Forest Hill end of Mayow Road. Nothing happening with any of these sites that I can see.

[Nigel]

Tredown man ,
And I understand your point but if those who do live in pleasant homes already don’t vocalise their views , how shall their opinions be “ weighed “ as you put it against those who completely misunderstand the question ?

My point is that we have a right to object to ugliness and overcrowding without being labelled in some of the unpleasant Ways I’ve heard on this thread . That’s all .
Stuart , I think the Towm Church is next door , and worrying about my mortal soul is a waste of your good and plentiful angst .

A very good evening
Nigel

[stuart]

That's a playful diversion with a logical flaw Chris which I'll willingly share with you elsewhere. However, it doesn't do anything about supply which is the question here.

These are new homes reclaiming a piece of land inaccessible to anybody else, has no effect on green space except increase the number who could enjoy it in Crystal Palace Park. That's a real win/win.

Are you against this scheme. If so, why?

Stuart

[Nigel]

Stuart
It’s fine and dandy describing Chris’ response as a diversion but remind yourself how much of previous post/sermon was about the 4 houses , rather than your saintly vision for us ignorant masses.
His proposal about flogging your gaff for an “affordable” price is actually on the money - you presumably don’t want to kiss goodbye to the equity you have gained, quite reasonably and others don’t want to lose trees, views , privacy , space, freedom from noise etc also quite reasonably.

You illustrate the point perfectly - none of us really want to give up anything much to alleviate the shortfall between available homes and the amount of people demanding them . Like most famines in the developing world it’s not always a shortage of food but sadly the price of food being too high for the poorest that causes the suffering . House prices in London is a similar issue and Chris’ idea of addressing that is an option for those of us that want to take it . I have no interest whatsoever in the logical “ flaw “ you seem to be offering - we all have our excuses I’m sure .

A very good morning
Nigel

[stuart]

Nigel. You just made a load of nasty accusations about me with zero evidence which are mostly [unsurprisingly] wrong and thus irrelevant. I'm not going to be diverted to put you right here and help you disrupt this thread.

I will just ask if you [and Chris] have any specific objection to this scheme [trees, views , privacy , space, freedom from noise etc] - and if so, what? Remembering, of course, that we are both roughly the same distance though it would probably have a larger effect on me*

Stuart

* Parking

[leenewham]

This looks like a well considered developement. I'm not sure why people are objecting unless they directly affect their property by being next to it and their lives/light etc would be affected. I quite like how they look, but I've always liked this type of architecture if nicely detailed.

Some of these arguments seem distracting and stupid.

Why do people not like this development?
Why do people like this development?

To me it looks as if (if they do it) it would be nicely landscaped, well designed and built and could be a nice take on a slightly retro housing scheme, which feels quite fresh. I'ts also make good use of unused land.

[TredownMan]

none of us really want to give up anything much to alleviate the shortfall between available homes and the amount of people demanding them

It's honest at least. But I struggle to believe it's a majority view in a progressive and community-minded area like this one.

[vbsydenham]

If you believe stuart should sell his house to solve the housing problems then you also believe that Nigel should head to Raqqa with a rifle to solve the ISIS problem.

I know the concept of Government's actually delivering services is terribly unfashionable these days but this thread

[stuart]

VB - let's not let this deteroriate into a Town Pub knocking shop (as it were).

The point here is there is a proposed development to use derlict land to house people. Clearly those materially affected have the right to object and have their objections very seriously considered if the development is materially going to impact their view/sunlight etc. That's the immediate neighbours at the bottom of Raymond Close. Obviously National Rail also have a close interest in protecting the railway.

Also any informed objections from further afield based on not stopping but materially improving the development would clearly be welcome.

Though I am currently at a loss why anybody beyond Raymond Close has a material interest worth stopping the very small development. Which is why I'm prodding Chris and Nigel to find out whether they would wish to do this and why. A question for SydSoc too I guess.

Ad hominems really don't help.

Stuart

[OnCrestOfHill]

Can I just hijack this thread a little further - would recommend all just interested in plaudits for these proposals to look away now - though on the narrow question, I am curious about what people in general think of the design, including the rear (view from the railway) and side elevations of this proposal - and the proposed materials? I can see there's quite a difference of opinion amongst those who have commented so far.

But, off topic, as it were, can I just to respond to the rhetoric here that paints small developers as socially motivated individuals battling to deliver the much needed housing stock that will solve the affordability crisis against the unreasonable constraints of the planning system, the selfishness of local residents and the insanity of BANANAs,

Is this another narrative that might not really hold water?

Housing stock nationwide has increased between 2006 and 2016 from 22,073,000 dwellings to 23,733,000 dwellings. I make that 7.52%. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... ngland.pdf

Households increased by 7% in the same period, and the proportion of 1 person households stayed the same.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... holds/2016

So overall nationwide not a massive increasing disparity between supply and demand.

But there are other changes. housing tenure changed massively. Owner occupied dropped, private rental went up. Social housing build remains low - and obviously did crash from the late 70s onwards. Right to buy erodes the public sector housing stock.

And the big change is in affordability - particularly in London.

So is the core problem really the number of houses we have or build, or changes in household numbers?. These may play a part. But perhaps there is something else at play - what we do with the homes that do exist and that we do build, how we fund them and how we extract money from the housing stock?

The FT, for example, not known for its radical line, suggest here that the big driver in changes in affordability has been not housing supply of population change but the amount of mortgage finance pumped into the housing market:
https://www.ft.com/content/fa6ae2e2-50e ... 7009366969.

Might there be some truth in this? And if so, who benefits from this? Does it ultimately concentrate wealth back to those who have the money (or should that be credit facilities) to lend out in the first place?

Can the housing stock also continue to be everyone's pension and secondary income - through capital increase and buy to let income? New houses built round the corner are being marketed for £1.4m - about 50 times average earnings, I reckon. I read that 1 hectare of land with residential planning permission can cost £6m. There are periods where I seem to earn a lot more just by owning my flat than by going out to work. Everyone wants a share of the profits to be made - how many people do you end up talking to who want to get a development site they can make a turn on, or who own an extra house or two for the rental income and the pension? But are these patterns really good for our society?

Seems to me these are economic and systemic problems and plainly they cause real hardship to those on the hard end of it.

Can we really just build our way out of the affordability crisis? Does it really warrant everyone needing selflessly to lower their aspirations for the amenity and pleasantness of their living environments - to the financial benefit of those who are doing the building and selling the Iand to be built on? Or do we need to challenge the economic system built around our housing stock? (Do we also need to look at regional development policies to ease pressure on the South East? )

Are all those involved in maximising profit from land part of the solution or part of the problem?

I've no expertise here - just a search engine on a computer. But I do have a strong inkling that the image of the crusading developer may have a little of the PR myth about it. So just put this out there for discussion. Really curious about what people think and how we can have a discussion about this that's not distorted by hidden agendas (whether a NIMBY agenda or a developer one).

I spoke yesterday with a neighbour talking about how his sons can't expect decent housing in London; saying that something really needs to be done. But what?

[Tim Lund]

Can I just hijack this thread a little further - would recommend all just interested in plaudits for these proposals to look away now - though on the narrow question, I am curious about what people in general think of the design, including the rear (view from the railway) and side elevations of this proposal - and the proposed materials? I can see there's quite a difference of opinion amongst those who have commented so far.

But, off topic, as it were, can I just to respond to the rhetoric here that paints small developers as socially motivated individuals battling to deliver the much needed housing stock that will solve the affordability crisis against the unreasonable constraints of the planning system, the selfishness of local residents and the insanity of BANANAs,

Is this another narrative that might not really hold water?

Housing stock nationwide has increased between 2006 and 2016 from 22,073,000 dwellings to 23,733,000 dwellings. I make that 7.52%. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... ngland.pdf

Households increased by 7% in the same period, and the proportion of 1 person households stayed the same.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... holds/2016

So overall nationwide not a massive increasing disparity between supply and demand.

But there are other changes. housing tenure changed massively. Owner occupied dropped, private rental went up. Social housing build remains low - and obviously did crash from the late 70s onwards. Right to buy erodes the public sector housing stock.

And the big change is in affordability - particularly in London.

As you say, possibly hijacking the thread - maybe this could be continued on another? Such discussions have been the subject of a good number of my 6,343 STF posts to date, and we've not yet reached a settled conclusion.

But just briefly here, I hope ...

We don't really need any rhetoric about small developers as socially motivated individuals - they are just business people who see an opportunity in building homes people will buy or rent because they want to live there.

Prices have gone up pretty well everywhere because interest rates are so low. People with money to invest - pension funds, insurance companies, those coming up to retirement with some accumulated savings - look at the alternatives - shares, bank deposits, annuities - and decide that even at current prices, a realistic yield of 2% after property management fees looks like the best place for their money. Add the general belief that property prices always go up in the long run, and it is a very persuasive case for buying property. So younger people, without the savings to put down a deposit on a mortgage carry on renting.

Nationwide there may not a massive increasing disparity between supply and demand, but in London there is, which is why London is particularly unaffordable.

[TredownMan]

It’s a vicious circle isn’t it?

Using property as an investment drives up prices (although tax changes on enveloped dwellings and buy to let are squeezing this.)

But the reason people regard property as a viable investment because they believe prices will increase indefinitely ahead of other asset classes, and that’s fundamentally due to scarcity. There’s been a lot of research in the states on this affirming this.

But I’m not an economist. All I know is my own view which is if more people want to come and live in Sydenham then that’s something to welcome, especially if it means doing up underused buildings or wasteland (others of course can think differently)

[ChrisSampson87]

It's back: https://www.sydenham.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21476