Rising East Online

Hardly Heroic: Olympics Housing Plans

Fabien Vaujany

In line with Barcelona’s “regeneration Games” and the environmental, sustainable Olympics in Sydney, London 2012 bidders stated these Olympic Games would be a “catalyst for delivering sustainable communities and affordable homes to transform East London”, and an example of best practice in the “regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there”. In other words, the Olympics Games would be the event, which East London and the Lower Lea Valley especially, have been waiting for.

Officially, the Games will speed up regeneration and leave behind sporting facilities, thousands of new homes for local people, better transport connections, permanent jobs, new schools, family health services and other community facilities, as well as a new large park, all of this with consistent consultation and involvement of local communities.

Sounds superb, but how positive is it really going to be? In this article, I will ask questions particularly about the plans for house building. What kind of homes will they be? Who will benefit from this transformation of the housing landscape? Will local people have their say? Will those who are there already be able to remain in the area? Before coming to answer these questions, I take a brief look at the area itself.

Deprived but not largely derelict

The area is one of the most deprived of the country, according to 2004 Indices of Deprivation. Newham is the poorest borough in London. Among the 137,310-inhabitants of the Inner Impact Zone, unemployment goes up to 11.4% (as compared to 6.5% in London and 5% in England), 34.7% of people have no qualifications, and the population is much younger than the average. Less than half (44.3%) the population is “white British” and some 100 different languages are spoken locally.

But although statistically there are high levels of deprivation, local residents and businesses in the area feel the official bid has wrongly labelled them. The bid team referred to a derelict area, exaggerating the reality, according to local activists. Figures from the Planning Application made by the London Development Agency at the beginning of 2004, tend to support the idea that the real character of the area has been melodramatised. Whereas the bid document was for promotional purposes, the planning application is the document through which the London Development Agency applied for permission to the relevant planning authorities, the four London boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, to proceed with developments linked to the Games. Therefore, it gives more details of what will be done in the area. But this planning application, for which permission was granted a year ago, does not set it all in stone. It will be followed by other applications on specific issues of the delivery.

The Development Specification Framework, the main part of the application, gives an insight into what is the actual land use in the Oly1 site area, the Olympic site where the Legacy developments will take place. The site runs through the four boroughs. According to the data given in the document, 17.54 hectares (ha) of the total 236.79 ha of the area are described as “industrial and non-industrial derelict”. This represents only 7.4%, yet there is now a widespread impression that the whole site is derelict with nothing going on there.

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Sustainable community

The bid says that the legacy of the Olympic Village will be “a new, desirable and sustainable residential community”. When the legacy phase is over, hopefully around 2016, there will be 9,076 new units in the Olympic Zone. Considering that 150 units will be lost with the destruction of Clays Lane Estate in Newham, the real housing gain will be 8,926 for the area. Legacy housing spreads are as follows:

The Olympic Village, altogether, will provide 4,317 new homes in Newham. Part of it will be built on the site of the current Clays Lane Estate and the rest, some 2,100 homes, will be located in Stratford City North and will therefore be part of this regeneration project as well.

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Homes for whom?

The first table shows the mix of homes sizes in affordable and market housing for the Olympic area. The second one gives an insight into this mix for social and intermediate housing.

 

Different mixes have been set for private market housing and affordable housing, as needs in affordable housing are for larger units. This difference looks quite sensible and corresponds to identified needs. However, the mix for social housing and intermediate housing, which are the two components of affordable housing, shows that these needs are actually only met through social housing, where big units (3 bedrooms and more) are well represented. In fact, the mix for intermediate housing is exactly the same as it is for market housing, which can be taken as a clue that the spirit of this kind of housing is closer to market housing than social housing. It is doubtful whether the mix as it is set out, will manage to offer an adequate solution to local people in housing needs.

As with all major developments across London, the Olympic zone will seek to achieve mixed communities. Therefore, housing will be a mix of private market housing and affordable housing. In line with the London Plan, 50% of all new units should be affordable. Within affordable housing, a balance of 70% social housing and 30 % intermediate housing should be the norm. But the whole concept of affordability, which is key to all housing planning documents, is questionable. How much does it cost? Will it still be affordable in a few years’ time, given that social housing rents are increasing faster than incomes? Is it really accessible to people in housing needs? Evidence in the Elephant and Castle area shows that 96.2% of housing needs could only be met through social housing. Whom will intermediate housing be for? The concept of affordable housing suggest that all such housing is for lower income households, with costs throughout comparable to that of local authority housing; but much of ‘affordable housing’ is far less affordable than this.

Furthermore, with reference to the Olympic site, the declared intention that 50% of all housing will be affordable, is tricky. Firstly, homes demolished in Clays Lane for the construction of the Olympic Village are all affordable dwellings to be replaced by a 50-50 split of new housing. Therefore, the net result here is not in favour of affordable housing. Secondly, planning permissions make it clear that in the area that will fall under the Olympic application and the Stratford City application, the conditions of the latter, if granted, should apply. On housing, the Stratford City proposal is to achieve only 30% affordable housing. What, then, will happen after the Games when the time comes to change the Village into a local community? How much affordable housing will be required under the terms of this order of priorities? If the Stratford City application target of 30% applies, will there be more affordable housing in the rest of the Olympic Zone or will the global rate of affordable housing decrease? Thirdly, the JPAT suggests in its report that the different types of low cost housing that form intermediate housing will have to be precisely considered and should include student accommodation. There is no doubt students need specific affordable housing, but to include it in the 50% affordable housing, is to further reduce the amount of homes accessible to longstanding local people. Student accommodation should be built but not included in the calculation of affordable housing, all the more so since the Games will lead to demolition of actual student homes and this loss has not been taken into consideration.

One last and major worry comes with the requirement of an individual, detailed ‘open-book’ financial appraisal for each site. The target of 50% affordable housing is a target for the whole area and “is subject to availability of housing subsidy, remediation costs, and local market conditions”. On every site an “open book” will be kept in order to determine its capacity to meet the 50% target. Thus the actual level of affordable housing will be decided site by site on criteria of financial sustainability. Other cases, in the Elephant and Castle for example, tend to show that these appraisals usually lead to fewer affordable houses as they state there is not enough funding for 50-50 developments.

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Moving people out

To recapitulate, after the Games, there will be indeed more housing. But there is concern that there will be less than 50% affordable housing overall. Intermediate housing might be oriented towards the lower middle classes, and social housing, which will be no more than 35%, will be more expensive than it is today. Considering that the area has an important part of its population on low incomes, future housing does not seem to be made for local people.

There is a risk that the most vulnerable families will move away from the area, as occurred in the run up to the Games in Barcelona. Figures show that in every city that has held the Olympics recently, property values have increased dramatically. In Barcelona, the so-called best model for Olympics urban regeneration, house prices rose 131 % in the five years before the event (83% for the whole country). In Athens, the increase was 63%, against 55% for Greece as a whole. Moreover, the rise of prices is even more important in the area where the Olympic Park is built, as Sydney’s case shows: 50% across the city, 70% in the main Olympic site. Another characteristic is that there is a massive boost in houses prices before the event, not so much after. However, new housing will come after the games, not before, creating an important pressure on vulnerable groups in the meantime. According to Tim Crawford, group economist at Halifax, “homeowners in Hackney and Stratford could potentially reap similar benefits to other Olympic precincts over the longer term." What about tenants?

All things put together, regeneration might just lead to a change in the composition of the local communities, through a classic process of gentrification such as other Olympic cities have experienced. The bid said the Olympics would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the local community. This might prove true: it just depends on what the local community looks like.

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Olympic participation

The Games are meant to lead a regeneration that is not only made for local people, but is also inclusive of local people. Conversations with local people tend to suggest that, thus far, this could not be further from the truth. Officially, everyone supported the bid. However, those trying to challenge some issues of the bid, those raising concerns and worries, those wanting to actually discuss the bid, those not taking everything for granted have been ignored or strongly criticised.

In an event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in August, people living in the area explained that they had found the bid campaign aggressive, undemocratic, and neglectful of local communities. Supporting London 2012 has been presented as some kind of national duty, and anyone questioning it – which is by no means the same as opposing it – thus becomes a traitor. The Bid, a documentary from Agitate Films on “the other side of the Olympic story”, and Noemi Rodriguez’s short film All that glitters both show how many local concerns were left out. Groups such as No London 2012, which opposes the Olympics in the Lower Lea Valley, have remained largely hidden; so too has information which does not support the official position.

The planned destruction of the Clays Lane Estate is a good example. The estate is run by a cooperative, the second largest of its kind in Europe, and is frequently used to help people make re-entry into social life. The feeling of residents is that it has been successful in this, thanks to a strong local community. These residents now know they will have to move somewhere else since their homes will be demolished and the land used for the Olympic Village. In submissions to the two formal public consultations accompanying planning applications, the Coop underlined the lack of work with the residents on relocation, and the failure to take local people’s needs into consideration. It was clear from the consultation process that some 500 residents wanted to stay together as far as possible, if necessary in small groups of re-located households. But in two rounds of consultation, levels of real engagement with local interests have remained poor. In 2004, as stated in the JPAT report on the Planning Application, meetings and surveys on options for relocation were to be held with the Coop. One year later, Clays Lane residents know nothing more than that they will have to go. Conditions and destination of removal are still very vague and people are kept in uncertainty. They are still protesting.

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It’s not ‘Game Over’

Although the Olympic Planning Application gives a general framework for the Olympic regeneration, this is only a first step. In the months to come, there will be a lot of documents to look at and other opportunities for the local community to speak up and, hopefully, influence the future of the area.

The planning permission given by the four planning authorities comes with an important number of ‘Grampian conditions’. This means that until certain conditions are fulfilled, the development cannot go ahead. There are various Grampian conditions relating to housing and participation.

One of them is the approval by the planning authorities of an Affordable Housing Strategy. This strategy will have two parts. The first one will be submitted before the construction of the Olympic Village starts and “ shall relate to the permanent affordable housing to be provided, in due course, by conversion of the Olympic Village”. The second, before the legacy development starts, will “ relate to the affordable housing to be provided as part of the Legacy Development”. The strategy will give the detailed proposals for affordable housing in terms of number, sizes, types, design, spatial distribution, etc. The strategy will have to explain how the objectives presented above (50 % affordable housing, 70-30 % mix between social and intermediate housing, mix of sizes) and others regarding special needs (wheelchair users, elderly), Lifetime Home Standards (“as far as possible”) and spatial distribution will be achieved, in particular regarding financial issues. The strategy will be reviewed every two years following a first review that “shall be submitted no later than one year prior to the letting of contract for the permanent conversion of the Olympic Villages or at the same time as the Affordable Housing Delivery Strategy Part 2 is submitted, whichever is earlier”.

It has to be pointed out that once again, a possible restriction on the total amount of affordable housing and the amount of social housing can be applied if “it has been demonstrated through an open book development appraisal that this [target] is not financially viable”. However, at any time after completion of the 500^th unit of the legacy phase, no less than 40% of all completed homes should be affordable.

The Residential Relocation Strategy will identify “reasonable relocation needs” and preferences of all displaced residents, identify “alternative residential relocation possibilities” and provide “appropriate arrangements” for their relocation, including support and assistance in moving and full up-to-date information relating to the Olympics. It is underlined that residents will be properly consulted and closely involved during the whole process. Furthermore, there will have to be a “mechanism to enable residents access an independent source for confidential advice”. The strategy will be revised annually. The Travellers’ Relocation Strategy will follow exactly the same principles for “displaced lawfully residents living on the Clays Lane and Waterden Crescent Travellers sites”.

The Community Involvement Framework, to be reviewed every two years, will be the strategy for managing community involvement. A principle for this participation will be that “all sections of the community” will be involved “in all phases of the Olympic development and Legacy development”, with some room to manoeuvre however, as this will be done “as far as reasonably practical”. A Community Involvement Advisory Panel will be responsible for “guiding the design, management and implementation of the Framework”. This Panel will work with key stakeholders and “contain a representative from each of the four Boroughs and representatives of the community”. But it is important to note that “membership [will have] to be approved by the Local Planning Authorities”, which means there is a risk of seeing non-democratic and accountable community ‘representatives’ on the Panel.

Taken together, however, all these conditions amount to an opportunity for local people to make their needs count in the development of the Games and their legacy for regeneration.

Fabien Vaujany fabien@echanges-partenariats.org Fabien writes: I’ve done this piece of work as part of my involvement with the London Tenants Federation (LTF), within the framework of a European program of exchanges and partnerships development led by French independent organisations around the issues of social exclusion (the programme; the Volunteers’ Website). The LTF is an independent, democratic, accountable and non political umbrella organisation bringing together borough wide council tenants organisations (www.londontenants.org/).

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1. London Candidate File
2. London Development Agency (LDA) website, www.lda.gov.uk
3. Unless other indication, figures come from the report made by the JPAT on the Olympic Planning Applications. The JPAT (Joint Planning Authorities Team) gathers the four planning authorities concerned with the Olympics and was created to process the Planning Applications. The report can be found on their website, www.olympicsjpat.org.uk/
4. The Inner Impact Zone gathers the 12 wards with territory in or adjacent to the “Lower Lea Valley Masterplan Area” as defined in the Olympic Application. This Masterplan Area includes the Olympic Site but extends also towards the south to the Thames.
5. “The area is characterised by a large area of derelict industrial land”, LDA website
6. The Olympic applications are actually five different applications, named Oly1 to Oly5. Oly2 to 4 are for the construction and use of temporary coach drop-offs and parking, Oly5 for a permanent ramp in West Ham to improve access and Oly1 corresponds to the “facilities for the Olympic Games and Associated Events, Infrastructure and Permanent Legacy Uses within the Olympic Site” – Development Specification and Framework of the Olympic planning applications.
7. London Candidate File
8. On this issue of rent restructuring, read London Tenants Federation Newsletter, Issue 5, Summer 2005.
9. Olympic Planning Applications
10. Halifax Bank study, 7^th July 2005
11. Quoted in the same article
12. Olympic Mega-projects, screenings and discussions, Institute of Contemporary Art, August 25^th 2005.
13. The film can be seen on www.agitatefilms.co.uk.
14. www.noLondon2012.org
15. This comes written in JPAT Olympic Application report, where some of the answers to the consultation are partly given.
16. A demonstration took place on October 27 th.
17. Olympic Planning Applications.

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