Sydenham & Forest Hill welcome new people

[Tim Lund]

I would hope most of us do, anyway.

Can any one nominate new developments / conversions which most successfully provide places for them to live?

I leave this as a challenge for those with greater knowledge of planning, construction and design than myself.

Is there a glass half full person anywhere?

[leenewham]

All new people welcome. I was a new person once, although at times Sydenham's community is a bit Royston Vasey-ish.

The Orb is a stunning example of a better building than what was there before. The conversion of the warehouses opposite the station is another good example. The little houses at the back of the old Dylon Factory/new Enterprise cars building aren't bad either. The Segal places are great little communities and clever design to build low cost homes on low costs, difficult to build on land (this should be the future).

Many derelict or empty homes have been brought back to use (mine was empty and boarded up before I moved in).

Bad examples are pretty much everything new in Kirkdale, the places in Bell Green, bad church conversions like the one opposite Knighton Motors and the terrible pastiche opposite, what replaced the Children's hospital, the demolition of the communities and streets around Home Park and much of what replaced them etc. Of course some of these places might be wonderful inside (although I've been in a few and would argue that many are depressing).

All new people welcome.

All good buildings that enhance both people, the environment and place welcome.

[Tim Lund]

Lee, I'll try to keep this from being consigned to the pub.

The problem in saying 'all new people welcome' is that there aren't enough examples of buildings & conversions you approve of to house all of them. Could there really be, with better design? It's easy for those who claim expertise in such areas to say so, but when someone tries to look at the numbers, taking into consideration the opportunities there are around for the sort of community led Segal type developments you (and I) like, and for adding an additional storrey to existing developments, which I like, the numbers come out at about 7,000 a year across London.

A People’s Land Commission can close London’s house building gap

This just happens to be the gap between the 49,000 a year needed by the 2015 London Plan, and the space for 42,000 there identified. But according to the Long Term Infrastructure Investment Plan for London, we will need to find this number of new homes each year for decades.

If we really do welcome new people, we have to accept that some existing developed land, including where people are currently living, will need to be redeveloped at significantly higher densities, or that green space - most likely gardens - gets built on.

[_HB]

Land value tax.

Given the growing population we are also going to have to do better at moving people around as efficiently as possible. Which means investment in active travel and prioritising public transport, and sustainable transport ahead of private motor vehicle travel.

A massive investment in building the right kind of housing at the right density, coupled with the Bakerloo line extension and some first class cycle infrastructure might be the correct combination.

[monkeyarms]

The trouble is that most new developments don't even cater to the moderately well-off, let alone the poor.
I'd be much more sympathetic to all these mega-blocks being constructed if any of the sardine-packed 1- and 2-bed identiflats were priced at less than £300,000.

So it just seems like a lose-lose situation. Nice buildings replaced with ugly ones that don't even do anything to alleviate the housing crisis.

In fact, arguably, they exacerbate the housing crisis. It has now become a given that any medium-sized plot of land must be turned into the maximum number of flats in order to squeeze the most amount of profit out of the square feet. So land (and hence property) values go up accordingly. Vicious circle: for a developer to maximise his profit, he will do anything to minimize the number of "affordable" flats they provide; and this at a time when the term affordable has become meaningless when it's a relative (%) value of ever-increasing property prices.

It has a domino effect on rents too: any flat in a new development bought as a buy-to-let immediately enters the rental market at premium rent rate in order to meet whatever inflated amount paid for it.

So I don't think arguments against Victorian detached properties being turned into blocks of flats are by default anti-people, or NIMBYist. I'm increasingly of the mind that the solution to the housing crisis is not building more houses.

[leenewham]

Tim, the fact that not many new developments are of any particular quality isn't my fault or proof of any sort of nibyism.

It's the fault of developers, planning and those that allow them to be built. Yes, there can be better design.

Why accept crap, bog standard design when we have done the opposite with the examples I gave you? The Segal philosophy should have been a way forward, but for some reason it wasn't adopted on any large scale.

I've nothing against large gardens being built on as long as green space reins. Most people don't want or need extremely large gardens. They built on the grounds of the Pagoda house in Blackheath. It took them nearly 10 years to get permission.

Monkeyarms is bang on, how is building loads of new, expensive flats that are marketed initially to investors in Asia (Kidbrooke Village is a great example of great design but overpriced development) making housing more affordable?

Prices for a studio there start at £280k. 1 bed flats start at £350k.

Affordable? No, it isn't. At all.

Can you answer this, why are ALL new flats so expensive? Why aren't' any affordable, well designed flats being built?

Good design isn't about being expensive AT ALL. Marketing often uses terms like 'Architect designed' as a way of rising prices, which is wrong.

[Tim Lund]

I'm increasingly of the mind that the solution to the housing crisis is not building more houses.

I think this thread has gone as far as it needs to.

[leenewham]

Tim, do you think that not wanting buildings that give places character to be demolished to build flats is anti-people?

Do you think that any building could be demolished as long as it houses more people irrespective of design?

Do you think place and design don't matter as long as there is more space to stick people in to sleep and eat?

[monkeyarms]

Sorry, didn't mean to derail it or send it off on a big tangent. It's hard to discuss even the most simple of aesthetic concerns about buildings without ending up asking fundamental questions about the part housing plays in the UK.

[_HB]

I don't think it has been derailed.

I'm just looking forward to the first graph

[Nigel]

Tim
Apologies , I feel like Malthus cutting into a conversation between Le Corbusier and Peabody .
I think you mean " big , quick , densely populated housing for the less well off " rather than " good design " .

They can go together but you press for the former so insistently that design has to be considered a " nice to have " .

In London 2025 that means " you won't have unless you can afford " and to everyone else it means " if you are a town where people live that can't afford any where else , then it will be ugly and it will sweep away things you actualy like " .

I know deep down you are a Victorian Christian benefactor but I think your ideas on housing are not in the best interests of Sydenham - if that sounds a bit " a local shop for a local town " then so be it .
Yours locally
Nigel

[Eagle]

I think London has now over 8.5 million , which is 1.5 million odd more than about 45 years ago.

I suspect another 1 million under the radar.

We cannot house the whole world and the less attractive London becomes the less people will want to come.

I suggest you take Mr Farron up on his offer to house many thousands on banks of Lake Windermere.

[stuart]

I think London has now over 8.5 million , which is 1.5 million odd more than about 45 years ago.

But the same as 76 years ago before it went into decline. Then they couldn't build as high as we do now or could. Many (most) of the world's civilised cities have a greater density than London.

So this city and Sydenham has much more capacity to hold as many as we may wish to accommodate. Its just a question of deciding and building to match.

Stuart

[leenewham]

The population of London was 8.6 million in 1939 Eagle.

[Tim Lund]

Tim, do you think that not wanting buildings that give places character to be demolished to build flats is anti-people?

Do you think that any building could be demolished as long as it houses more people irrespective of design?

Do you think place and design don't matter as long as there is more space to stick people in to sleep and eat?

There are two types of issue. First is the validity of your particular aesthetic judgment. I agree that design and sense of place matter, and I have no doubt that Ian Ritchie architects do too.



The second type is whether we have enough decently constructed, amd adequately sized homes for everyone.

Your view that most modern design fails on the first is moot; my view that, as a society, we are failing on the second is clear, although I'll spare _HB the charts for the time being.

What gives? Design mavens turn their minds to how we get the best design for the numbers of houses we need, or we abandon rationality, and come to the conculsion that the solution to the housing crisis is not building more houses?

[Eagle]

Lee

What you say is true but also my figure for 1970's is I believe true

London did have a dramatic drop in population from 1940 to 1970 ish , from about 1980 has come back up again.

Of course people from the rest of London and rest of UK welcome to settle in SE26.

[monkeyarms]

When I said "the solution to the housing crisis is not building more houses", I certainly did not mean "you solve the housing crisis by stopping building"!!!

I meant: the housing crisis will not be solved by merely building more houses. It requires drastic changes in policy.You can't solve London's housing shortage by building block after block of flats that then all go onto the market at current market rates.

Because the only people who can afford them are: developers, investors (whether overseas or not), wealthy landlords or power-couples on very large salaries who even then can only buy with massive help from two sets of rich parents.

Policy has to change. London's housing problems can't be solved simply by building, because the way things are at the moment, you're just building fungible assets for trade, not homes for people that need homes.

Now if the government were to commit to a massive construction programme of social housing, or housing exclusively for key workers, or for those on salaries of under £25K per year... then those would be buildings actually worth having. Redefining "affordable housing" would be a good start.

[_HB]

I'm sure we can all agree that the answer lies somewhere in between No's 1 and 2 on Tim's post. Eagle's desire to disqualify anyone not currently living in the UK we'll call plan B...

The question therefore is how do we get there? Monkeyarms is spot on I think. You need the volume, and you need the quality (i.e the idea of place combined with quality construction), but you also need both weighted towards the genuinely affordable end of the market and/or social housing.

It still seems like there is no mainstream politician really able to take this on.

[stuart]

Getting back to Sydenham and the original question. The Orb is certainly an asset to SE26. But did good design 'add value' ie did acorn secure a higher price than for similar blander sized flats? Is there a real incentive to pay? You have to pay an architect to think and create rather than a draughtsman to reproduce.

Or could we reward developers with other incentives? Like it has to be 3 storey unless you can show architectural merit when you can have 4 and if its brilliant possibly 5? I'm sure real architects would enjoy that challenge. There is always the problem of judging aesthetics but hey ho its going to produce better results than now and even allow us to increase supply and enhance the environment at the same time. A prettier more populated Sydenham and hence a really more vibrant high street if we can control the traffic.

What's not to like?

Stuart

[_HB]

Getting back to Sydenham and the original question. The Orb is certainly an asset to SE26. But did good design 'add value' ie did acorn secure a higher price than for similar blander sized flats? Is there a real incentive to pay?

In my limited experience of the London market, first time buying in particular, buyers aren't the slightest bit interested in the architectural merit of the building. Maybe that's a function of scarcity? You have a budget, you see if the flat you're looking at fits your criteria, you make a bid. You despair that the asking price has gone up £25,000 since breakfast. Rinse and repeat.