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Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

architectsjournal.co.uk

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Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#31

Post by graemep »

nly wrote: post #6

Over the last 50-70 years the UK made the choice to stop building social housing and to sell off the existing stock with aggressive government subsidies. Complaining now is a bit like complaining there's no milk after you sold the dairy farm to build a casino. I read TFA but I'm not seeing anything but useless outrage that would have been better placed 20-30 years ago I became a first time property owner at 36 and it…

> If houses ever return to good affordability I'm screwed.

Which creates a huge pool of people who are opposed to making houses more affordable.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#32

Post by wruza »

globular-toast wrote: post #16
worthless-trash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population simply doesn't grow once and stop.

Actually it does. UK population growth is due to immigration.

More grass -> more rabbits -> less grass -> less rabbits -> (loop). You can mix different rabbits in, but the cycle is fundamental.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#33

Post by fifticon »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #28
daedrdev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not even that, the restrictions on new homes in the UK make it impossible to build any significant amount of housing, social or not.

Be specific - what restrictions are these and how do they affect building?

I can answer part of that. Very few areas are even opened up to allow building private housing, all kinds of "neighbours" can veto anything, just to name two problems

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#34

Post by red369 »

nly wrote: post #6

Over the last 50-70 years the UK made the choice to stop building social housing and to sell off the existing stock with aggressive government subsidies. Complaining now is a bit like complaining there's no milk after you sold the dairy farm to build a casino. I read TFA but I'm not seeing anything but useless outrage that would have been better placed 20-30 years ago I became a first time property owner at 36 and it…

I much prefer the system the US, where you know your rate for longer. Some other countries, I think the Netherlands is one, also let you fix for longer than 5 years. But why are you, and other people in your position, screwed if the prices return to affordability? High Loan-To-Value ratio so if the prices fall, the bank would force a sale?

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#35

Post by intrasight »

oytis wrote: post #14
whatever1 wrote: post #5

We had a chance to defuse the housing crisis with remote work and we blew it. Opportunities are concentrated and building in concentrated areas is inherently hard. We still don’t know how to scale mega cities fast while still operating them at capacity. So the problem will not go away anytime soon.

High density is supposed to be good isn't it? And density of European cities is still nowhere near what people have in East Asia

I interpreted that comment as not meaning density but instead geographical concentration.

WFH was an opportunity to escape from geographical concentration which is the main cause of the high cost of housing.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#37

Post by mschuster91 »

iamacyborg wrote: post #30
forgotusername6 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the cheap blocks of government made apartments in the UK are now being torn down. Without regular maintenance and updating, cheap housing can quickly become ugly ghettos. It isn't enough to just build houses. They need to be initially desirable and continually maintained to remain desirable.

Even if they are built, the entire insurance system post-Grenfell is causing absolutely insane service charges for residents. Mine are up >50% since 2018, that’s despite gaining no new services and work on the building being put on hold due to it not being essential. The fact that it’s a relatively new build (about 12 years old) is almost irrelevant as construction is shoddy. Putting new buildings up is only part of…

> Even if they are built, the entire insurance system post-Grenfell is causing absolutely insane service charges for residents.

If it's building insurance hikes, for fucks sake it should not be allowed to roll these over to the renters - they have had zero say in shoddy construction, the developers should be the ones held liable.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#38

Post by mattdneal »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #28
daedrdev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not even that, the restrictions on new homes in the UK make it impossible to build any significant amount of housing, social or not.

Be specific - what restrictions are these and how do they affect building?

Page 8 of the recent CMA study into housebuilding in the UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8badb6efa8...

A prior condition for building houses is having permission to build them. We have found that the planning system is exerting a significant downward pressure on the overall number of planning permissions being granted across Great Britain. Over the long-term, the number of permissions being given has been insufficient to support housebuilding at the level required to meet government targets and measures of assessed need.

In particular, we have seen evidence of three key concerns with the planning systems which we consider are limiting its ability to support the level of housebuilding that policymakers believe is needed: (a) Lack of predictability; (b) Length, cost, and complexity of the planning process; and (c) Insufficient clarity, consistency and strength of LPA targets, objectives, and incentives to meet housing need.

We have also seen evidence that problems in the planning systems may be having a disproportionate impact on SME housebuilders.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#39

Post by thrance »

oytis wrote: post #14
whatever1 wrote: post #5

We had a chance to defuse the housing crisis with remote work and we blew it. Opportunities are concentrated and building in concentrated areas is inherently hard. We still don’t know how to scale mega cities fast while still operating them at capacity. So the problem will not go away anytime soon.

High density is supposed to be good isn't it? And density of European cities is still nowhere near what people have in East Asia

Paris, where I live, is three times as dense as Tokyo... The entire city is mixed-used 6 storey buildings.

Re: Waiting 100 years for a home isn't a housing crisis, it's a moral collapse

#40

Post by SettembreNero »

brap wrote: post #4

It always comes down to we don’t build houses fast enough. Why?

> It always comes down to we don’t build houses fast enough. Why?

because we can't say that real estate is basically a cartel [1] and that big cities (where everyone is supposed to move because all the jobs are there + RTO) have staggering levels of empty houses (e.g. 19% in Paris [2]), and god forbid to apply any type of policy to adjust the situation.

[1]: e.g., Berlin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Wohnen_%26_Co._enteig...

[2]: https://www.ouest-france.fr/societe/logement/a-paris-pres-de...

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