The housing crisis in Hackney and our solutions

Housing in Hackney is in crisis.
The Hackney Gazette reported this week that house prices are on the way up again in Hackney. This will result in even further inequality cross the Borough. Along with Mustafa Korel, our Hackney Central by-election candidate, I visited the sites of recent and proposed developments to look for ourselves into the reality of the Councils claims on affordable housing.

Myself and Mustafa at Dalston Square, a
missed opportunity for housing in Hackney

There is a desperate shortage of affordable homes in Hackney - the average selling price for a home is in excess of £345,000, so the majority of residents are now priced out of house ownership and find themselves cut adrift in a poorly regulated rental market with little security and often poorly maintained properties, bought as cash cows by buy-to let landlords.

Hackney Council quite rightly turned down the Dalston Green development, which didn’t include any affordable housing, but the council is still being far too easy on developers.  There are developments springing up all over Hackney with nowhere near the 50% affordable the units the council says it wants. At Dalston Square we were told that the few affordable units were snapped up in the first stage and we’d be better off looking in Bow.

In any case Hackney's housing crisis is not going to be solved just by a few affordable units here and there. These homes are still anything but affordable. For many people, shared ownership can entail high rent and service charges.

We need a braver council, which prioritises properties for social rent, refuses large expensive student blocks (which charge around £250 per week, taking land that could be used for affordable housing and handing it to developers with their eye on the lucrative overseas student market), and builds properties that will stay affordable.  Unfortunately the coalition’s right-to-buy policies are only going to make problems worse as the public housing stock is privatised, leading to even less housing available for those on lower incomes.

Statistics also show that Hackney has over 3000 empty properties, 64% of which have been empty for more than six months, the highest percentage of all London Boroughs.
It's shocking to see properties lying empty while in Hackney there are thousands of households on the waiting list. Leaving houses empty not only deprives people of a decent roof over their heads but it ends up costing more money in the longer term to bring empty houses back into use. Properties are left unoccupied for many reasons, but more often than not this is for long-term economic gain. Landlords and owners should be encouraged to keep residential properties in use.

There are brownfield sites and empty properties. They must
be used intelligently, not just handed to developers.

 Greens would create a clearing house system to make publicly owned empty homes available to be brought back into use by self-help co-operatives, and encourage private owners to list their properties on the system.

It's obvious to everyone that London needs to build more affordable homes, that rents need to be affordable, and that homes need to be more affordable to run. We need more security for Hackney's many private tenants, to stabilise rents and help landlords invest in high quality homes. Housing policies at borough council level need a complete overhaul, and fresh ideas from the Greens will inject some much-needed new thinking into how to solve London's housing problems."

The Greens' target for building affordable homes is 15,000 per year, with 40% of these to be family-sized. On the issue of rents, the Greens have taken inspiration from the growing success of the campaign for a London Living Wage, and proposed an officially-recognised London Affordable Rent, based on average earnings and household size. And to make homes more affordable to run, there will be more help for Londoners to insulate their homes and drive down fuel bills.

The Green Party has published a 'mini-manifesto' detailing its policies on housing. The full text is below:

LET’S MAKE HOUSING AFFORDABLE
We will build genuinely affordable housing and refurbish over one million homes to cut energy bills. We will push to give private tenants more security and stabilise rent levels. We want to change the housing market from a playground for speculative investment to a source of secure, affordable homes.

1. Build genuinely affordable homes
Build at least 15,000 affordable homes per year, of which 40% will be family sized. Calculate an annual London Affordable Rent for the average household and use public land to keep rents at or below that cap.

2. Build homes that are affordable to run
Ensure all homes are actually built to high energy and water efficiency standards with enhanced building control checks, making them affordable to run as well as rent or buy.

3. End fuel poverty and cut carbon emissions
Roll out the RE:NEW home insulation scheme to over one million homes in London by 2015, helping people to install simple measures and to access the Green Deal, and work with councils and housing associations to bring all social housing up to an enhanced Decent Homes standard by 2016.

4. Help co-operatives build more housing
Establish the London Mutual Housing Company to help communities set-up Community Land Trusts, which will give them control over the design, development and management of permanently affordable homes.

5. Help co-ops restore empty homes
Set-up a clearing house to make all suitable publicly owned empty homes available to be brought back into short-life or permanent use by self-help co-operatives, and encourage private owners to list their properties on the system.

6. Protect the rights of private tenants
Lobby for comprehensive and smart reforms of the private rented sector to bring down rents, make tenants more secure in their homes with a default secure five year tenancy agreement, protect tenants from exploitative landlords and improve the condition of private rented housing. Guarantee these rights for homes built on public land and with public money.

7. Create an Ethical Lettings Agency
Set-up an ethical lettings agency for private tenants and landlords, and a web site for tenants to post feedback on landlords and letting/managing agents.

8. Protect the rights of tenants
Oppose all elements of the Government’s housing agenda that weaken security, raise rents for social tenants, and that reduces housing benefits for private and social tenants instead of reducing rents.

9. End rough sleeping
Bring all grants for pan-London homelessness services into the GLA to protect frontline services, and work closely with homelessness organisations to ensure nobody needs to spend a second night out sleeping rough on the street.

10. Campaign for root and branch reform
Use our influence and new research to build momentum behind radical reforms such as land value taxation and a ban on foreign investors, solutions which could stabilise house prices. Our housing crisis will only deepen if we fail to fix the roots of the problem.