New Development Stroud Green Road

Kate Jones

<P>Also Mr Convery's comments are not correct - its nothing to do with John Jones being tied in to an exclusivity deal. When we met him after our planning was initially refused, he tried to push us in to speaking with a developer of social housing that he would like to take on the site but we had already appealed our planning decision and it felt inappropriate - and a bit odd considering that Islington Planning Officers had highly recommended our scheme. I am not sure what his motives were, but from our perspective our situation is nothing to do with an exclusivity deal.</P>

Arkady

@Padders81- the Network Rail site was identified as a regeneration zone in the Finsbury Park Masterplan. Network Rail ‘expressed their willingness’ to have the site redeveloped. I doubt they will lead anything themselves, but the council might pressure them into something down the line. I doubt they will evacuate the site until after the Thameslink works are complete, and that might be ongoing until 2018.<br><br>I wouldn’t expect anything taller than the next-door terrace on that site, partly due to Vista House, partly due to overlooking the park, and partly due to the site bordering the conservation area.<br><br>Hope the move works out for you. Would love to check out the view if you do move in!<br><br>@KateJones – I hope you can sue them for compensation if (and hopefully when) they lose.<br>

miss annie

<p>@sincers<;/p><p>Thought we hadn't heard from you for ages. Where are you now, did you make the move to Australia?</p>

Marquis

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djalicat

today i noticed someone has crossed out 'luxury' on the sign on the apartments.

sincers

<p>Hi Miss Annie et al. yes I moved to Oz in October via India/Singapore/Thailand. Still have a flat on FPR though. Its difficult to comment on the site because whenever I go on it advises me to comment in the morning, which isn't much help when its 3 o'clock in the afternoon.</p><p> </p><p>Hope all is well.</p>

miss annie

<p>Hello Sincers! Glad to hear your move's gone well. How is life in Australia? </p>

Roy

<blockquote>There will be 7 apartments for Social Housing (they will have their own entrance and elavator on the north side of the building)<br><br> There will be 27 private apartments with an entrance on the south side. Some of these apartments will be offered for sale (depending on market conditions) and some for rent. If the market is too depressed we will keep and let all of the flats<br><br></blockquote>I'd noticed for ages that there were two entrances, but just assumed they were for two halves of the building or something.  It was only on rereading some of this thread a few weeks back that it struck home what they are.  There really is the <i>Rich Persons Entrance </i>(towards Morris Place, for luxury apartments 1-27) and the <i>Poor Persons Entrance</i> (towards Lenox Road) for social housing units 28-34.<br><br>That's right - they went to the effort and expense of putting in a dedicated entrance and dedicated lift for seven flats <i>just so that the rich people would never have to even say hello to the people in the affordable units.</i><br><br>I am appalled.<br><br>roy<br>

ADGS

Just so long as the Proper Entrance is also wider and requires less effort to open than the Prolehole - wouldn't want the underclasses getting ideas above their station!

conformable_kate

I am with Roy - what a despicable thing to do - and even worse that it is in no way surprising.<div><br></div><div>Cross-referencing another topic - on my own list of Good Things about the SGR area is the sense of social mix and interchange, as opposed to the ever increasing gated and separated and insulated parts of the city. So it is especially sad to see this embedding of separation.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

scottish_strouder

This is the case on most new builds. Separation between social housing, and private.  <br>

miss annie

They should put up those carved signs that used to on bath houses and schools to show which entrance is which. There are still some on the old baths in Kentish Town (now flats), I think they say Gentlemen's Entrance and Public Entrance or similar. Perhaps they could say Jumper Wearers and Tracksuit Wearers.

Arkady

I’m hazy on this, but isn’t this something to do with the council needing access to social housing?<br><br>Regardless, it is sad. But given the likelihood that it will increase the value of the private flats it’s not too surprising.<br>

Roy

I don't think the council have anything directly to do with most social housing these days - 'affordable' housing like this is owned and managed by private organisations called RSLs (registered social landlords, the replacement for housing associations).  In London, even the actual council houses, whilst still owned by the council, are managed by private organisations called ALMOs (arms length management orgnanisations - Homes for Haringey, etc) so the council have little direct involvement in the day to day running of even the social housing that they own.<br><br>roy<br>

Arkady

Mmm.  Isn't there a difference between social and affordable housing?  I'm hazy on this stuff, but I thought affordable was subsidised-to-buy, as opposed to subsidised-to-rent. No?<br>

Roy

Oh, you might be right, I'm not sure.<br>

Roy

@Arkady: Well, I did some reading on this, so on the off chance that you're intersted...<br><br>None of these terms are used entirely consistently, but affordable housing seems to be largely used as an umbrella term for any form of subsidising housing, including council houses, registered social landlords, shared equity/shared ownership schemes and discount sale schemes at a range of levels of discount below market prices.  It can be split into social housing (council houses, and regisitered social landlorts letting properties at similar prices to council rents) and intermediate housing (basically, everything else).<br><br>Recently, and somewhat confusingly, when talking about the rented sector, the distinction has been made between social rents (i.e. at a similar level to current council houses and most current registered social landlords) and 'affordable rent' which means rents at a lesser discount to market rents (i.e. what was formerly known as intermediate rented).  Affordable rented is what the government is currently pushing in a big way.<br><br>Anyway, now onto developers being required to provide affordable housing, and Section 106 agreements.  The most common way to do this is for the Section 106 agreement to require the developer to sell the affordable units to a registered social landlord at such a discount that the RSL is able to then let the units at either a social or an affordable rent without resort to government funding.<br><br>Discount sale of individual units to the public does exist, but it can be problematic.  The usual model is that the affordable units are sold to key workers at a specified discount to market value, and all subsequent resale must be made at the same percentage discount to the market value at the time of resale.  Typically there is also a requirement to offer the units for sale only to other people who meet the specified 'key workers' criteria.  The interesting thing about this approach is the way it is accomplished.  It is done entirely with Section 106 agreements; the Section 106 agreement is associated with the land and continues to bind future owners, which is how the restrictions on resale are implemented.<br><br>However, in this day and age getting a mortgage on a property with a Section 106  agreement tends to be problematic, and the other problem is that there's no guarantee that someone won't be able successfully challenege the Section 106 agreement, or have it varied, if they can show it no longer serves a legitimate planning purpose.  (If it makes the house de facto unsaleable that's a fairly obvious ground for challenge, for example.)<br><br>roy<br>

Arkady

PS - thanks for this Roy.  Gruelling, but interesting.<br>