The Greater London Authority (GLA) has admitted that it is prepared to sacrifice affordable housing in areas of high land prices if it is forced to choose between the construction of housing and the promotion of socially mixed schemes.
Neil Coleman, the London Mayor’s special advisor on housing, confirmed at FPDSavills’ seminar today on Affordable and Key Worker Development that the GLA would be flexible about affordable housing in high-cost districts like Knightsbridge. “There is no intention that housing policy should be ideologically driven or inflexible,” Coleman said.
When asked whether such flexibility would mean that commuted payments, or cash in lieu deals, would be encouraged, Coleman replied that he would rather see commuted payments than not meet the housing target of 23,000 pa.
“If you were to really press me I’d say that capacity is more important than mixed communities. If we don’t provide the numbers, the problems will be huge. In areas with higher land values that may mean that affordable housing has to be provided separately.”
The pragmatic approach, Coleman said, was to ensure that the annual target of 23,000 houses would be met. “We are not achieving anything like that figure at the moment, and we haven’t done in the past few years. “We need to provide 345,000 houses over the next 15 years. The GLA is keen to genuinely work with the industry, so we realise the need for flexibility due to different circumstances,” he said.
The GLA recently backed down on this issue when it allowed Harrods to give cash in lieu instead of providing affordable housing in Knightsbridge. Mayor Livingstone initially rejected Westminster council’s compromise, but later accepted it on the condition that Harrods stumped-up a commuted payment of £2.5m for affordable housing elsewhere in Knightsbridge or Pimlico.
FPDSavills associate James Walker, who organised the seminar, said: “It’s very good that they are taking a pragmatic approach. They’re not going to get 23,000 houses a year without the help of the industry. If the Mayor is not flexible then fewer houses will be built, not more.
“I’d be surprised if they backed-down a lot, but there are always going to be exceptions where the developer has an alternative. Harrods had the genuine alternative to build the hotel, which wouldn’t include any affordable housing. The GLA was given the choice between affordable housing somewhere else or none at all,” he said.
EGi News 30/05/01
