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As Sadiq Khan arrived for his first day at work as London’s new mayor, architects urged him to be bold in tackling the city’s housing crisis.
They warned that his policies alone won’t be enough to solve the problems and advised him to widen his approach.
“Bold strategic moves are what’s required, and I therefore hope the new mayor has the stomach for a fight,” said Russell Curtis of RCKa.
— bdonline.co.uk
There are high hopes for Khan, find out more about some of the issues he will have to tackle in his new position: £950 for a mouldy 'central' flat? Welcome to London.The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm between the rich and... View full entry
Homelessness increased in the last year in the city and county of Los Angeles, leaving nearly 47,000 people in the streets and shelters despite an intensive federal push that slashed the ranks of homeless veterans by nearly a third, according to figures released Wednesday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. — the Los Angeles Times
"Nearly two-thirds of the homeless people tallied countywide, or 28,000, were in the city of Los Angeles, representing an 11% jump in January from a year earlier, a report from the agency stated. The county's homeless population grew 5.7%."For more on Los Angeles' devastating... View full entry
Back in 2004, Elio Ciampanella was evicted from his apartment of three decades...So he applied for an apartment in Rome’s public housing. And he waited. More than a decade passed.
Then, in February, [Ciampanella] unexpectedly had his choice of several apartments. His tale might be considered one of patience rewarded, but there was a twist: It turned out Rome’s municipal government never really had a shortage of properties.
— the New York Times
"Instead, the government actually owned so many thousands of apartments and buildings that no one was quite certain how many there were, who lived in them or where they were. That was, until staff members for Rome’s new interim administrator, Francesco Paolo Tronca, discovered nine boxes... View full entry
If you want evidence that London’s renters are being taken advantage of, look no further than a new social media campaign. Launched Monday, the #rantyourrent hashtag encourages London’s overcharged and poorly housed tenants to visually detail the bad conditions they’re expected to put up with in return for large sums of monthly rent.
The results, detailed in a new Tumblr called Vent Your Rent, make for sobering viewing.
— citylab.com
More articles on London and the housing crisis here:The root of London's housing crisis lies beyond its bordersLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm between the rich and poorLondon's Bleak Housing View full entry
strict zoning laws in the Bay Area make it almost impossible to significantly expand the housing stock there. [...]
As a result, the tech boom simply means that housing gets less and less affordable for anyone who doesn't work in tech or already own a home.
A lot of people are blaming the tech boom itself for the Bay Area's housing problems. But the technology boom is only a problem because the region's housing markets are functioning so poorly.
— vox.com
Related on Archinect:Man living in plywood "pod" in SF apartment told to knock it off by housing inspectorSilicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this the beginning of the end of its housing crisis?Exceeding height restrictions to break a housing logjam in San... View full entry
Squalid, chaotic, overwhelmed: Piraeus is the first port of call for the thousands now trapped in the capital, on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. Since the closure of Greece’s northern border and with it the Balkan migrant trail – a move that has resulted in more than 46,000 stranded on the Greek mainland – it has been emblematic of the country’s inability to cope with a situation few had envisaged. — The Guardian
"In passenger terminals never built to deal with a humanitarian crisis, facilities have been rudimentary, tensions high, and resources vastly overstretched."The article notes that the growing refugee population is putting pressure on Athenian society, which was already tense as the country... View full entry
Under the new law, the city would be able to relax some of the rules that often stop such [bootlegged] apartments from being legalized, allowing more density and loosening parking requirements.
In return, landlords who seek to legalize bootlegged units will have to provide some affordable apartments at those buildings — and guarantee that they remain affordable for at least 55 years, under a legal covenant documented with the county recorder.
— latimes.com
Related on Archinect:Clickbait is making affordable housing even more of an uphill battleHomes of the homeless, seized: L.A. cracks down on free housingCalifornia to decrease parking requirements for affordable housingDevelopers in California can be required to include low-income housing, courts... View full entry
In 2008 the financial crisis was caused by the sub-prime property crash in the US. Today London is facing a super-prime crisis. [...]
the market in London and parts of the south-east does not respond to local demand, because it is fuelled by the demands of global capital flooding into London, much of it from highly dubious sources, as the Panama Papers reveal. If London has been shown to be a hub of global money laundering, the property market is its driving force.
— theguardian.com
More on London's housing crisis:A tall order? Wooden skyscraper could become Britain's second tallest buildingStock bricks to Brutalism: housing design in PoplarLondon's housing crisis is creating a chasm between the rich and poorBank of England proposes new limits for "buy-to-let" landlordsCould... View full entry
[Berkowitz is now] offering custom pods for sale on Craigslist for people who want to make money with AirBnB or have their own subletters. [...]
The Department of Building Inspection reached out ... confirming that the pods are illegal and a violation of housing, building, and fire safety codes. [...]
"He would have to completely open it up or look at something different, such as a bed with a frame, with curtains, something that was open to the room." [...]
"there are fire safety realities."
— Hoodline
You may remember Peter Berkowitz's name from the not-an-April-Fools-Day post we made a couple weeks ago, reporting on the box freelance illustrator Berkowitz had constructed to live in his friends' apartment, at $400 a month. After the news took off, he had begun testing the waters in the rest of... View full entry
London’s red-hot housing market of late is by now an international legend, drip-feeding the media with tragicomic stories of insane pricing on a weekly basis—from the $710 cupboard to the one-bedroom flat on sale for $37 million. Now a new report out this week details some of the harmful social effects that this boom in housing costs has wrought. Unsurprisingly, they are many. — CityLab
This research, conducted by the think tank Centre for London, shows that the city's housing crisis is creating a massive gulf between the city's rich and poor. It's also creating an "inequality chasm" between London and the rest of the United Kingdom.The report identifies three major trends... View full entry
Which London mayor candidate will fix the capital's housing crisis?
There’s a short answer to [that] question. It is that none of them will. There are two big reasons for that: one, there’s only so much any mayor has the power to do about the city’s various housing problems; two, none of the front line candidates are willing to do everything they actually could do. Housing policy is difficult stuff...
— the Guardian
For more on London's housing woes, check out these links:Could a pop-up village in south-east London be the answer to the city's housing crisis?"Pay to stay" may boot 60,000 UK families from their homesLondon's Bleak HousingActivism targeting London's housing crisis bubbles to the surface View full entry
Rapidly rising property prices and rents, combined with the loss of social housing through right to buy, have put councils under growing pressure to find new ways to help people off their housing lists.
In Lewisham one solution is a £4.3m scheme to provide 24 homes and 880 sq m of business space that can be picked up and moved at a later date, allowing the council to make use of vacant brownfield land while longer-term projects are finalised.
— theguardian.com
Last week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. The city approved a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase
[...]
— Vox
"The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly."For more on the housing woes of the world's tech capital, check out these links:Can Silicon Valley save the Bay... View full entry
Parisian designer Stéphane Malka Architecture has suggested creating affordable housing in the French capital by adding prefabricated elements on top of and between existing buildings.
The “3box” system does not require the purchase of sites. Instead, the right to build is obtained in exchange for renovating existing buildings.
According to Stéphane Malka, the housing would cost 40% less than the usual market price and could be built quickly and cheaply in workshops.
— Global Construction Plan
"The units would work with a new Parisian law, the Loi ALUR, which states that 70,000 new dwellings should be built each year, and that rents should be stabilised."Interested in other novel housing solutions? Check out some related Archinect coverage:To each their own home: A peek into the... View full entry
Tens of thousands of hard-working families will be forced to leave their council homes and find themselves unable to afford a local alternative as a result of government plans to restrict social housing to the poorest, according to research obtained by the Observer.
The devastating figures...show that almost 60,000 households in England will be unable to afford to remain in their council properties from April next year, as a result of George Osborne’s reform, called “pay to stay”.
— the Guardian
The economy, coupled with concerted political efforts to dismantle what's left of the welfare state, has birthed a veritable housing crisis in London and the rest of the UK. According to new figures, "pay to stay", a plan crafted by George Osborne, the Conservative MP for Tatton, will leave an... View full entry
