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Hundreds of tiny studio flats, many smaller than a budget hotel room, are to be squeezed into an eleven-storey block in north London as its developer takes advantage of the government’s relaxation of planning regulations.
Plans for Barnet House, used by the London borough of Barnet’s housing department, reveal that 96% of the 254 proposed flats will be smaller than the national minimum space standards of 37 sq metres (44 sq yards) for a single person.
The tiniest homes will be 16 sq metres – 40% smaller than the average Travelodge room. [...] In the surrounding area, studio flats of a similar scale to most planned at Barnet House sell for around £180,000 and rent for around £800 per month.
[...] Office buildings in Croydon have also been converted into studios with floor areas of as little as 15 sq metres under the Tory deregulation. Housing experts have attacked the relaxation of planning regulations as a “race to the bottom”, but ministers insist the measure is helping to deliver vital new housing, and point out that more than 10,000 new homes were created from office buildings last year.
Under the “permitted development” system, developers who convert offices into homes do not have to meet minimum floor area standards, considered by researchers to be important for health, educational attainment and family relationships. Neither do they have to include any affordable housing.
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:35AM (2 children)
Landlords make a profit, the public pays with health.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:30AM (1 child)
Back in my parent's day, we had negated the tendency of people to tie up and rent-seek property by allowing the resident who owned the property he was living in to "homestead" it. In some cases, the "homestead" allowed was the actual value of the house. Meaning, the worker living there owed no property tax - rather the government let him spend the money he earned in his community instead of taking it from him and spending as the government saw fit.
However, today, tax changes ( lobbyist - inspired ) and inflation have minimized the impact of ownership by the resident.
Although house valuations have grown by leaps and bounds, the homestead allowance has remained constant.
IMHO, the homestead allowance should be the average price of a home in the county. Just like it was in my dad's day.
Its this damned tax law which is encouraging investors to snap up properties as they go on the market, as investors can now get a lot of tax breaks for ownership of properties rather than creation of jobs.
Investors are allowed depreciation. Homeowners are not.
Investors are allowed deductions for maintenance. Homeowners are not.
With a shake of the hand, and a signature of a pen, our representatives have basically told those of us who have money to hoard real estate instead of generating jobs ( aka. "Dale Carnegie" or "Henry Ford" ).
As we take things people have to have, like a place to live, which are in finite supply, and encourage wealth-holders to hoard it, well, no wonder the price goes through the roof.
This is not a failure of the wealth-holder's greed. He is going to do what he has to do to husband his assets.
This is a failure, pure and simple, of the representation-by-proxy system we have being bribed.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:50PM
Let your own company own your own house?
You --> company --> company --> house ownership.
Deduct all maintenance?