Three options on housing

[Tim Lund]

I thought it might be worth moving this post from its original context, where I wrote it to correct a misrepresentation of my views on housing - which was at least quite amusing this time

So here it is - and I'll maybe bump it and link to it when similar occasions arise - the issue and three options:

We need more houses in London, and we want to preserve our green spaces. That's what Darren Johnson was saying here:

At the same reception where Darren Johnson called for more housing in London - without going into further detail

It will happen eventually, and as a society we have some choices about how it happens.

1. Sooner or later. If we build sooner, the generation currently paying absurd amounts of their income on housing will thank us for it
2. Planned or unplanned. We should all want it to be well planned. If we choose not to think about it, it won't be, nor if professional planners just focus on getting the highest possible density given existing rrules, we are all the losers
3. Upwards or outwards. We can build higher, but if we insist on outwards, then we may well see little boxes spreading out over our countryside, back gardens, nature reserves, and further problems of water management

[youtubes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSpc87Jfr0[/youtubes]

What do we really want? To see the values of our own homes keeping on rising, and keep the young and social housing riff-raff out?

What do we want of our politicians? What my American friend wrote about Lincoln, "the ability to signal one thing while doing the other" - so make us feel good by signalling concern for the environment, and the disadvantaged, but actually doing the opposite?

[Eagle]

Tim

Of course I , like most people , feel sorry for those who cannot get housing.

Are you aiming to tackle the problem the wrong way. They say every new motorway simply increase demand. Likewise ,building hundreds of thousands of new houses on virgin land in the south east , will simply increase the influx from overseas and the rest of the UK.

Somehow people must be encouraged to move to other parts of The Kingdom , rather than all come here.

I am not sure Abraham Lincoln had a housing crisis

[leenewham]

Exactly eagle. There are more than 3 options.

[leenewham]

We need a more diverse economy in the uk that is less London centric.

As long as London is somewhere people want to be rather than the rest of the uk, irrespective if whether it grows in size, property will be expensive. Cheaper property in London is either in unattractive property or areas people don't want to live. Bow was really cheap before they built lots of homes there. So was Stratford. So was Greenwich. So was kidbroke.

Housing is a problem but it's a complex, multi faceted solution that will fix it. And personally I think the government has to be heavily involved as market forces won't do it on thier own.

[sparticus]

I am not sure Abraham Lincoln had a housing crisis

I think he had a rather large house that came with the job.

[sparticus]

We need three things to happen:

1. Re-introduce rent control and security of tenure.. I'm not advocating a return to the old system that existed before deregulation, but sensible forms of secure tenure and control of rents exist in Germany and parts of the US and elsewhere and ensure a affordable and stable rental market.

2. We need to build massively more houses for rent and for owner occupation with the emphasis on the former. The market can't deliver this so it requires a government programme similar to the one that built so may houses in the '50s and '60s which apart from anything else hade a positive impact on general economic growth and provided decent and affordable housing for millions of people.

3. We need to prevent foreign buyers "investing" in housing by restricting sales to those domiciled in the UK. (and to those who pay taxes here!)

[Eagle]

Sparticus


Your suggestion on rent controls would , i think , have a dramatic effect on the economy.

As soon as introduced most buy to letters would put property on the market and house prices would slump. This infact may be a good outcome as prices far too high and need to come down. Housing available to letting would collapse , but on reverse side more people could afford to buy.

You may be right Sparticus.

[Tim Lund]

Thanks for your responses. Eagle's point, comparing increased provision of housing with increased provision of road space, which Nigel first made on the Forum a while back, needs addressing.

Lee's saying 'there are more than three options' makes me realise I'd have done better to used something more like 'Three unavoidable choices on housing'; of course there are more detailed choices than my three, but I don't think these three can be avoided.

Of course Lee and others can say we need a more diverse economy in the uk that is less London centric, but that's just not the way things are going. Governments have tried regional policies, but they go against the grain of what ordinary people want to do, which is to come to live and work in range of dynamic, creative hubs, such as London is - for several industries.

When sparticus writes that he is "not advocating a return to the old system that existed before deregulation" it begs the question what he does want, and acknowledges that in the past such policies have failed. It doesn't say anything about actually getting more homes built - and on balance would make this more difficult. I agree, guardedly, with his second point, "a government programme similar to the one that built so may houses in the '50s and '60s", but again, that's not much more helpful than Darren Johnson saying we need more homes. At least three of us can agree on that, and I'd guess we'd agree on 'sooner rather than later' and 'planned versus unplanned', but can you say in what what the current planning system need to be changed to make this happen? I say it needs to change, but using the professionalism of Town Planners, not ignoring them. It also says nothing about whether you want to build outwards or upwards (the other choice - building downwards, is really only for oligarchs in the City of Westminster, where planning reg on building heights is especially strict.)

As to preventing foreign buyers - well, there are things to be done to eliminate their tax privileges, although this requires concerted international action, which will certainly not happen if the UK were to start introducing absolute limits on foreign investment. Foreign demand for London property isn't that different from the demand coming from the rest of the UK - it's a reflection of wanting to be where the action is.

[Tim Lund]

Thanks for your responses. Eagle's point, comparing increased provision of housing with increased provision of road space, which Nigel first made on the Forum a while back, needs addressing.

I nearly forgot. Yes - if you increase the supply of something - road space, housing - and make it available at a price lower than people are prepared to pay for it, then demand will increase to fill the supply. When the M25 was build, the price asked of drivers was zero, way below what it was worth to them, so it filled up fast with people making journeys they would otherwise not have made. If we build more homes in London, and offer them at say 80% of current rents - which while officially "affordable" is still very high - then some of them will be filled with more people coming from outside London, but many will also be snapped up by people already here, resulting in less cramped and less costly housing for existing citizens.

In the long run more housing may actually increase our demand for more of our kind, meaning that there were more space to live in - where people could find work, at price they could afford - people would chose to start families sooner, and have more kids. Is that a problem? There's a strand of environmental thinking which says it is - it's the pressure of c. 9 billion humans which makes our world unsustainable. I agree, but I don't think limiting London's housing supply is the way to deal with the problem. As I wrote on the "Re-engineering, re-wilding thread"

Another approach starts from thinking it's not in itself a problem there are 9 billion people on Planet Earth, all potentially in touch with each other, so able to learn from each other thanks to the triumphs of modern science, and living far longer, and almost certainly more satisfying lives. Of course it creates problems, but who better than engineers to solve them?

[Nigel]

Tim
Either your problem solving skills are plodding and fixated or you are trying to insult our intelligence without us know but there are many more than three options .
It is simplistic to call it a housing crisis when you could say it is a population crisis /ability to afford crisis/ magnet for people crisis/ entitlement crisis / immigration crisis / speculation crisis or indeed no crisis .

There are several schools of thought on this very forum proposing other options .

I for come resent your hammering arrogant attempt to make us accept that thousands more people may come to London . If there is nowhere for them to live them they cannot come.
Next question .
Good evening
Nigel

[Tim Lund]

Nigel - you could describe the problem in all those ways if you like, and having done so, you're quite entitled to reject my three options, and opt for immigration control. But how is it that by taking the positions that Darren Johnson, I and many others do, we insult your intelligence? I don't feel my intelligence is insulted by you disagreeing with me.

[bensonby]

Get rid of housing benefit. Phase it out over several years. The market can then correct itself to some degree. If you can't afford to live in the South East then you can house-share, or go and live in the reset of the country.

If employers can't get employees they will pay people more so that their employees can afford to live there. If they can't afford to pay people more then they, too, can relocate to elsewhere in the country.

[Eagle]

Bensonby

The housing benefit will have to go in due course . People will have to get a living wage.

It is probably not possible to stop people coming to London , despite very little space left .

[Tim Lund]

Get rid of housing benefit. Phase it out over several years. The market can then correct itself to some degree. If you can't afford to live in the South East then you can house-share, or go and live in the reset of the country.

If employers can't get employees they will pay people more so that their employees can afford to live there. If they can't afford to pay people more then they, too, can relocate to elsewhere in the country.

Housing benefit is a nonsense, and certainly helps push up the cost of (lower end) housing in London. If we got rid of it, or just try to control it a bit, as with the "spare bedroom tax", it would cause some short / medium term pain, and in the long run lead to some people in London living more to a room than currently, and some moving out. Jobs are unlikely to follow them - experience is that people move to jobs far more easily than vice versa. That's the experience of all those failed regional policies. More likely, you end up with various depressed satellite towns, such as exist round Paris, where planning controls are even stricter than here, with big social problems.

So much better to increase the supply of housing so that rents aren't so silly.

[Nigel]

Tim
You insult our intelligence in two ways :
1 - by picking immigration control from a list of 6 factors that all influence the supply and demand for housing - no doubt seeking to make my argument seem what others would variously term "daily mail/ UKIP / not quite nice .

2- by assuming that Darren Johnson's childlike reduction of a complex problem into 3 options carries more weight than the combined thought of people on this forum .
It is interesting how you are the only person on this forum who tries to win arguments on the flimsy authority of other people .
Good evening
Nigel

[Tim Lund]

Tim
You insult our intelligence in two ways :
1 - by picking immigration control from a list of 6 factors that all influence the supply and demand for housing - no doubt seeking to make my argument seem what others would variously term "daily mail/ UKIP / not quite nice .

2- by assuming that Darren Johnson's childlike reduction of a complex problem into 3 options carries more weight than the combined thought of people on this forum .
It is interesting how you are the only person on this forum who tries to win arguments on the flimsy authority of other people .
Good evening
Nigel

I'm assuming this is the list of 6 factors Nigel meant, with the final 'no crisis' option not counting

1. population crisis /
2. ability to afford crisis/
3. magnet for people crisis/
4. entitlement crisis /
5. immigration crisis /
6. speculation crisis or
7. indeed no crisis

I'm interested in how we respond to the crisis which I and others say we have, so let's go through Nigel's list

1. Population.
   I've already responded to Nigel's point comparing supply more homes below their true economic price to the similar consequences of supplying free access to new road, and acknowledged that it will be a way of controlling population growth.
2. Ability to afford.
   We could introduce rent controls - as sparticus suggests - but this will cost money, and actually encourage people to come here, without encouraging more homes to be built. So, for those of us who accept there is some kind of crisis, not much of a solution, and for those who thing London is already over-crowded, definitely a bad idea. Good news for illegal sub-letters, however.
3. magnet for people
   Why should we not want London to be attractive? Is it somehow part of our civic duty to be hostile to newcomers?
4. entitlement
   Is this the point Bensonby made about Housing Benefit. I think I've already dealt with that.
5. immigration
   As previously said, immigration control makes some sense as a way of controlling the excessive demand for housing in London.
6. speculation
   As with rents, we could also control people buying property, but in itself it wouldn't stop people wanting to live here, so not a solution to the crisis.
7. indeed
   Crisis, what crisis?

So, the reason for picking on immigration control was that it's the one from Nigel's list which makes most immediate sense - I just think there are better ways of dealing with the crisis.

With regard to Darren Johnson, Nigel is perhaps being unfair, since it wasn't his "childlike reduction of a complex problem into 3 options" but mine. All he was saying was that there was a problem, but not going on to giving some reasonable options to help solve it. I offered three, Nigel, I think, is suggesting a fourth - immigration control.

If this does link Nigel's position to the not quite nice UKIP, then I think he should either grin and bear it, and wait for mainstream parties - perhaps even the Greens - to come round to his point of view, or help Nigel Farage as he sets about purging his party of those we can all acknowledge as not quite nice:

Ukip suspends councillor who claimed floods were caused by gay marriage

As Nigel himself once wrote:

I can't see that the three main parties stand for anything - particularly the Libs .
I think the value of UKIP and other parties that people tend to call "right" is to signal to whoever is in power what people want so that the main parties can then squabble to see who offers it or seems to.
Regarding UKIP , I would not vote for them as they stand , I like Farage and I would vote for any party with a chance of power who would take us out of Europe.
I don't think it is about what party as much as what they are offering . I have not voted labour since the traitor Blair - I vote Green .
But lets not forget how the fringe parties influence the country and the main parties - I think a lot of popular opinion would be truly silenced were it not for them .

Re: Is anyone admitting to supporting UKIP

Arrogance? Does anyone else think it arrogance to think about issues and acknowledge the views of others who perhaps know more about a subject than they do? I'd have said it's more arrogant just to go on gut instinct.

I am not Particularly clever and certainly not highly educated but I do know right from wrong - it's often instinctive and not as a result of a 3 hour researched debate

Source here

For the record, I think Nigel is quite clever. Hope he doesn't mind me disagreeing with him on yet another point

[Eagle]

Nigel and Tim

Calm down , life is too short.

I am not a supporter of UKIP , but do not agree that anyone who does is barmy.
Indeed it is logical if one wants UKIP aims at a general election to vote Conservative. A Ukip vote will only put decisive Milliband and Balls in power. That I would think is complete common sense.

I would imagine UKIP will do very well at Euro elections as simply protest vote.

Back to housing
If 1 million new houses were built in London somehow in next 5 years I would imagine the number of people trying to live here will hardly decrease.

We somehow have to limit demand.