Planning for a better London

More actually affordable homes, not a token number of slightly less expensive ones per site. Also homes for londonets, not foreign invested or second homes for people to profit off the poorer London era. More social housing. Not built on greenbelt

London is a building site. What is being built? Offices! With empty spaces all around. Why build more? It makes no sense. 

Social homes please. Affordable homes is a nonsense to many. Leasehold is a trap unless you want to suck the finances out of Londoners. Sharehold is a trap. So what is the alternative? Social homes. Instead of local authorities focused on pretty projects can they focus on schools and housing and services. Instead of wasting money rebranding can they focused on housing and schools and services. 

It is currently insane to think about building on the green belt. The best solution is not to expand London but to improve the quality of life in the towns around London, including improving public transport, such as high-speed rail so that people can live outside London and have fast transport to get to work.

I'm concerned about the impact of mid-rise and high-rise buildings on green belt, Metropolitan open land, and near Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation. In particular, the impact this can have on biodiversity, which is increasingly being squeezed out in London. Unlike other countries, the UK does not take noise and light pollution on wildlife seriously. Nor does it consider the impact of buildings and windows on bird collisions/death, or migratory birds. Tall buildings next to a SINCs neither protect nor enhance biodiversity. 

More engineered and design solutions should be included in developments to address these issues. Specially manufactured windows should be installed, and buildings should be a certain distance from woodland or areas used by migratory species.

I agree with many people commenting here that London should have greater powers to force the off-shore property speculators who own housing stock that is empty for most of the year to sell/rent to Londoners so they can have a place to live. It's criminal that so many wealthy foreigners can buy up precious housing stock. 

I agree with comments that demand property developers build on land they own in a timely fashion and not just sit on it for years. There is a development down the road covered in scaffolding for years. There is planning permission but the builder doesn't build. 

There is property on our high streets that could be redeveloped into housing. This would revive our town centres and make them living, breathing communities again. 

New builds are also part of the mix, but those in charge of planning in London also need to think more creatively and use what is already there and sitting empty. 

AirBnB also contributes to the housing shortage and we should look to what other tourist destinations are doing to fight back against this further drain on available housing.

Green Belt is an emotive phrase.  I think the Mayor needs to publish a map showing what the existing Green Belt looks like and those areas which the team feel can be reclassified to allow building.

This should be open for a consultation period of say 6 months and refined if necessary.  

The consultation must not be interminably suppressed then by constant appeals and minority pressure groups.  There should be a final agreed map by this time next year.

Although we need more affordable homes, developers are not taking enough notice. A large old brewery site nearby was bought by developers some eight years plus ago. It is currently on its third development plan. Each time the provision for affordable housing has shrunk and the provision of more expensive houses and flats has grown. Blocks of flats in the latest plan are much higher than anything else locally. Surely there should be firmer rules about providing affordable housing  

Here in the London Borough of Sutton we do not need to consider green belt land for housing development. In fact we have a site for 75 homes which has laid dormant for 20 years. It has had planning permission twice and the last one just over 2 years ago was with the blessing of residents and council, but still there is nothing built there. We need better control on the developers and failing that a compulsory purchase order from the Council to kick start the building . In fact the threat of compulsory purchase might persuade the developer to start . So forget green belt and concentrate on land we already have standing dormant on brown field sites. 

There should be a time limit of six months after grant of planning permission when the builder is obliged to start building so that stock is a ailable for use quickly. In redbridge therr are quite few places where planning permission was granted some years ago but no building  work has started.

The Mayor is taking the right approach here. However:

1. In order to achieve 88,000 homes per year, it's necessary to aim higher, and then (if necessary) fall short. In the past, London has targeted 100,000 homes/year, and achieved 30,000 or so.
2. Affordable housing requirements function as a tax on new development. In that sense, they are a trojan horse for blockers. It would be better to tax the things we DON'T want, and use that money to build housing directly.
3. It is true that former industrial sites are insufficient to meet housing goals. However, the green belt is not the ONLY alternative. Another part of the story could (and should) include re-development and densification in existing neighbourhoods. Detached and semi-detached houses in areas like Dollis Hill, Brondesbury, and Brent Cross (5,000-10,000 people/sq km) could be upgraded to the more attractive terraced houses and mansion blocks seen in nearby West Hampstead, Kilburn, and Maida Vale (10,000-20,000 people/sq km).

However, overall the Mayor is on the right track; it's just a question of whether the train will ever leave the station.

I live in an area that’s 2/3 green belt. I get this idea on paper however anyone with a decent understanding of outer London will know this is a disaster waiting to happen. I’m deeply concerned. Get ready for scrupulous developers to step in, buy up land, run it down with fly tipping, overgrowth, making it an eyesore etc then arguing this is grounds to build on it at the next review. 
It’s also the thin end of the wedge, thus will start with ‘protections’ but when the inevitable need for more housing comes further down the line this will fall back again. Don’t fall for it.

Building on greenbelt lands would be an unforgivable historic mistake.

A few alternative ideas to consider first:

1. Many high streets consist of low-rise buildings, mostly underused, as there is much less commercial activity. Focus on the regeneration of these places. It will add more good-quality housing in desirable locations and will help what is left of the commercial activity. There are over 600 high streets in London, 1k on average in each and much of the target is met.

2. Bring back housing to the city centre. Places like the city of London are deserted during weekends, and now with many WFH, on other days as well, this is not a healthy urban space, bad for business and can be changed if more spaces were converted to residential. 

3. Living in southeast London, I pass regularly through the A2 corridor in the Eltham area. This is an important traffic route, but also a nightmare if you live next to it. Why not build on top of it, as the Eltham station building and car park are?
The same can be applied to many railway lines/stations and other major roads. It can also contribute to the reduction of noise and pollution. Many of these spaces are already in the hands of TFL, which should make it easy to get this done.
 

Something needs to give in the endless pile up of property value and shutting out of ordinary Londonders, and the most obvious thing is the amount of domestic and office property being built in London that's empty for 90% of the year, not building on green belts.  
I don't want planning laws ripped up, because they make homes and public spaces worth living in. I don't want building regulations ripped up, because that leads to tragedies like Grenfell. I want London to work for the people that live in it, not investors and speculators. There's no need to build in green belts, unless the London Plan is too weak to challenge the empty buildings owned by millionaires and billionaires in the centre. To do that will just make the problem worse, and push ordinary Londoners farther and farther out, whilst the centre becomes a playground for the disinterested ultra-rich.

Too many empty rooms and homes - We desperately need to fill the empty property in London before building more. Second home owners/AiRbnbs/overseas investors not living in their properties need to be much much more heavily taxed - and somehow shift attitudes about second homes and emprty properties - it is destroying London

Also a campaign to encourage people to let out their spare rooms - I did it for years when I had a spare one and was such a brilliant addition to our family life.

Why is there still no national housing scheme to incentivise the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to downsize from under-occupied 2, 3, and 4-bed homes into 1-bed, retirement or care homes?

The youngest Silent Generation person is 80, and the youngest Boomer is 61. Some are living alone in homes too large for them to maintain, homes that young people and working families desperately need. These large properties are effectively locked out of the housing market for those needing housing of that size.

When house-hunting, I saw overpriced two-bed homes in disrepair: mould, warped fixtures, unsafe gardens, hoarded rooms, and leases allowed to run below 80 years. This neglect can turn a £650k flat into a £1m cost, once lease extensions, retrofits, and renovations are factored in—not to mention a prolonged conveyancing process due to years of property neglect. Who has that kind of money, not the ones who need the homes.

These homes should be sold while still in good condition, but there are no incentives, or expectations for elderly owners to downsize. Meanwhile, working people are priced out of the market due to high demand and low supply of housing, stuck in unaffordable rentals or leaving the city.

Savills says the over-50s hold 78% of UK private housing wealth—£400bn of which is in London. If we're building 800,000 new homes in London, many of those should be retirement or care homes designed to unlock this frozen housing stock.

A mix of incentives may be needed to motivate the  70+ occupants of underoccupied homes e.g:

• Remove single-person council tax discounts for elderly living alone in large homes
• Reinstate winter fuel payments for those who downsize or are already in suitably sized accommodation
• Build more retirement/care homes
• Offer £1,000 downsizing bonus to speed up the process of releasing this housing stock

Sources:
Savills – Housing wealth held by over-65s hits record £2.6tn
Independent – Older owners hold 78% of UK housing wealth
Parliament – Leasehold Reform Act upda

As a 30 something migrant whose lived in London for the last decade and will remain living in London the cost of housing is diabolical. The amount of people including myself who cannot afford to have kids due to how much it costs is alarming and incredibly unfair. Affordable housing is cutting off so many opportunities for so many and rent control/social housing/affordable housing for the well being of London is vitally needed ASAP.

While there has been consideration of whether high rise offers appropriate housing options (a matter of some debate, especially given the lack of daylight on lower floors), no thought appears to have been given to the costs and difficulties of maintaining tower blocks of housing. 

Once the developer has cashed in, who is there who will be willing to pay for the enormous costs of repair, needed as soon as 15 years after construction and certainly after 20 years. 

The odd resident might be willing to contribute, but not all of them, and getting everyone to cough up the very large sums required  will be extremely difficult. 

So the likely scenario is that these blocks will gradually fall into disrepair and become every less desirable places to live, indeed ever less safe. 

Who ultimately will have to pay the cost of the final demolition? The public purse? 

These are structures which, as with the rest of the current housing system, are designed for private profit at public cost.  It makes for very short term thinking to consider them a desirable addition to a city which aspires to be functional, still less livable. 

Build on retail parks, industrial estates and empty shops, not on green belt.  Convert gold courses to housing and green space.  Building in green belt is a betraying the legacy left for us and our children.  It doesn't fit in with the concept of preventing pollution that Sadiq holds so dear.