5 ms·

Ministers pledge to end 'poor doors' in new build housing

31 points by reallydontask 7y ago

Jonnax 7y ago
So I know in London any new housing development has to allocate part of the properties for shared ownership or social housing, To be able to get planning approval. Seems very reasonable because property developers make a lot of money selling luxury homes. And also in a lot of places the development is made after demolishing "unsightly" high density social housing. Often with far fewer homes than there were there originally. The social housing may be in a separate apartment block in a large development or the less prestigious lower floors. If you pass by a development it's often obvious what the poor door is. I've seen one where the social housing residents can't come in through the main entrance but instead goes through the utilities entrance, past the bin storage. The justification I normally hear about it is that the private home owners will pay high service charges for things like concierge, swimming pools, gyms landscaped gardens, etc etc. But honestly this seems like an excuse. Like people aren't asking for services for free. The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. I find it hard to imagine the scenario where a developer is presenting their plan to the council and saying: "this is the door for the poor people" But then again, I can imagine the arguments of "this is how it is always done"
- vwdhx 7y ago
  >The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. Well, they don't belong there. They are there because the government has mandated it. It's unnatural, and this is the result.
  - xorcist 7y ago
    Not sure what the argument is here. Living in an apartment is completely unnatural in itself.
    - kgwgk 7y ago
      Desirable things being (expensive and therefore) affordable when you are rich enough is “natural”. Desirable things being affordable when you are rich enough or poor enough is “unnatural”.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      what would you consider natural? living outside in the bush? in germany, owning property is considered unnatural or rather not the norm unless you are a farmer. it's all about how society develops and what it chooses as their lifestyle.
      - quibbler 7y ago
        That is not true about Germany. Renting is more common than elsewhere, but plenty of people buy, too.
  - madaxe_again 7y ago
    I see. So, who is going to make your coffee, sweep your streets, drive your buses, collect your trash, teach your children, and cook your meals, once all of the lower wage earners have been excluded from the area? You?
    - Freestyler_3 7y ago
      Probably much better paid versions of what you listed.
    - quibbler 7y ago
      The funny thing is, by state funding cheaper living in expensive areas, you are just giving state subsidies to rich people. You subsidize services for rich people. Without that, they'd have to pay their service workers higher wages, so that they could afford living nearby or commuting. Or do you think rich people would juslt suck it up and do the cleaning themselves? They'd either pay more for services, or move away, which would lower the rents. Socialism - reliably fails every time.
- jchb 7y ago
  > The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. Rather is it telling them that the tax payers are paying for their home. The idea being that (for those without a permanent disability) social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own. Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that?
  - insomniacity 7y ago
    > social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own What if you have a mental or physical disability that precludes you from paid work? (Note that doesn't include charitable work)
    - jchb 7y ago
      That should be a different category of housing (and I believe it is in the UK, “sheltered housing” vs “council housing”)
      - insomniacity 7y ago
        It is, but, like council housing, there will be a wait for sheltered housing. In the meantime, it's likely you're already in, or get put in a regular council house. Additionally, not all conditions require sheltered housing levels of care - they just mean you won't hold down a job.
  - sigwinch28 7y ago
    > Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that? Every time they have visitors, every time they go home, every time they get the post, every time their children see a playground they are not allowed to use [0]? Yes. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...
- yomly 7y ago
  This is a tough one - the service fees are real, iirc I know of some people who have to pay £700 a month to the development which is more than enough to rent a small place outside of London. So I can see an argument for segregation even if my personal hope would be for better harmonious living. Though when some people have to buy a place for ~800k and other people get state assistance it's hard to see that working out well in either direction. One party feels like their hard work and effort has been undermined and the other party sees privilege and vast inequality. I people who are "big" enough to drop that kind of money on a property and be ok living next door to someone in a similar plot who didn't. But what is the solution? Hard to say, maybe tackle the root cause of wealth inequality - but how. I am neither politician nor economist...
eps 7y ago
Ah, yes. They may want to talk to people responsible for selling parts of Vancouver olympic village for 2-3 mil per apartment in one building while the adjacent one was allocated to the welfare housing. Even in a presence of Chinese money. See how well it went.
- haasted 7y ago
  How well did it go?
haylel 7y ago
What does this have to do with hacker or tech news?
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  Your account was created 8 months ago, I suggest reading the guidelines, linked at the bottom. Usually it's much older accounts that ask this question... But it's a question that often gets asked so I don't blame you!
amelius 7y ago
This might be going in the wrong direction. To address wealth inequality, shouldn't we instead make it obvious? For example, by publishing tax records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
- snthd 7y ago
  Why not both? Poor Doors are arguably a realisation of the cobra effect; It depends if the goals of "affordable housing" are about reducing inequality (like, systemically, not just finding somewhere to live) or not, and if poor doors have an effect on that.
ryanlol 7y ago
‘Poor doors’ are just a natural consequence of putting social housing where it doesn’t belong. Making social housing more luxurious isn’t solving any real problems. Tax the luxury developments more and spend that money on social housing in a reasonable location instead.
- insomniacity 7y ago
  Where does social housing belong then? Where rich people can't see it? Society benefits greatly from mixed areas - race, class, etc.
  - vwdhx 7y ago
    >Society benefits greatly from mixed areas - race, class, etc. Citation needed. Also If I buy a flat and I have to live with problematic people, how does that benefit me?
    - crooked-v 7y ago
      Forcing rich people to have exposure to poor people to not automatically equate "poor" with "problematic" is one benefit to society.
      - vwdhx 7y ago
        I'm not rich by any measure but I know the kind of people who receive social housing. Not saying they are all problematic but many of them are, and one bad neighbour is enough to make your life hell.
        madaxe_again 7y ago
        You don’t know the kind of people who receive social housing, and it shows.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago
Honestly, seems like a bad idea. If the rich are willing to pay a premium for the top floors of a building forcing them to share the building with the poor will make them just build their own. Better yet, have incredibly punitive taxation for this so it becomes even more of a social symbol. Then use that money to improve the lives of people living in the lower floors instead of doing meaningless gestures.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
So, is the tax payer supposed to be paying for social housing, or social status?
quibbler 7y ago
What if the "poor people" become a nuisance? Such articles always frame things in a rosy light, as if the evil rich planners are the only reason people are divided. What if the poor people are alcoholics, drug dealers, petty thieves, antisocial people? Why should other people be forced to deal with them?
- em-bee 7y ago
  do only poor people mess up? why should i have to put up with that rich neighbors son who thinks he can do whatever he wants because his parents keep bailing him out? this attitude is clearly discrimination and unfair.
  - quibbler 7y ago
    The poor peole (on welfare) are mor likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason.. Rich people pay good money to be shielded from trouble. Do you have children? Did you get a cheap flat in the poor part of town? Many families pay higher rents, so that their kids have save streets and playgrounds to play in. In my middle class neighborhood, I am not aware if a rich kid causing trouble. What trouble do you have in mind? Loud parties? Is the rich kid going to steal my kid's iPhones? I am talking about violence, pollution, syringes on playgrounds, stuff like that.
    - em-bee 7y ago
      > The poor people (on welfare) are more likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason.. as someone who's family has lived on welfare too, i find that notion insulting. the reason for people being on welfare most often has nothing to do with people getting in trouble. loosing a job, divorce, natural disasters, illness in the family. there are many reasons someone could need welfare. i urge you to really meet these people and understand their situation instead of dismissing them like that.
      - quibbler 7y ago
        The likelihood is higher. That doesn't mean every poor person has issues. Being offended about reality makes no sense. The things you mentioned can be reasons, but so can mental illness, including drug addiction.
HelloNurse 7y ago
Mixed developments for which a "poor door" makes sense are unnatural because they force different people together. I have enough trouble in a medium apartment building with divergent interests between people owning very similar apartments on different floors (different heating expenses) or on different sides (different trouble with trees and other properties); I cannot imagine a place with different people getting different services. The solution? Drive moderately rich people out of the city with brutal taxation of luxury homes (according to building types and straightforward measures like residents per total area of the property).
DanBC 7y ago
There's a real misunderstanding in this thread of what this "social housing" actually is. This is not council housing. This is affordable housing. It's owned by a landlord and then privately rented. The people in it tend not to be the unemployed, because they can't afford it. The rental prices tend to be set higher than the Local Housing Allowance, and so Housing Benefit (or the housing element of Universal Credit) would not cover the whole rent. The people living in this affordable housing tend to be teachers, nurses, police officers, fire-service personnel, public law solicitors and barristers, small business owners -- the people who help make society work. We need those people, and it benefits us if they live in or near the communities in which they work. There's also a bit of misunderstanding about the other side of these housing developments -- some of them are luxury developments, but many of them aren't. They're just expensive but normal housing, because London happens to be stupidly fucking expensive.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  The real problem is that these people aren’t paid enough to afford “rich” housing which is a problem considering these people make society work. However forcing “affordable” housing in “rich” areas is the wrong way to deal with it IMO. Let the market deal with it. These people can switch careers (or not consider such a career in the first place) to something that’s better paid. When the talent pool dries up the salaries for these careers will rise naturally because there’s gonna be no other way to get police officers, nurses, etc.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    We've seen that the market cannot deal with it. The UK housing market is broken. You comments about people switching careers are incoherent.

31 points by reallydontask 7y ago

So I know in London any new housing development has to allocate part of the properties for shared ownership or social housing, To be able to get planning approval. Seems very reasonable because property developers make a lot of money selling luxury homes. And also in a lot of places the development is made after demolishing "unsightly" high density social housing. Often with far fewer homes than there were there originally. The social housing may be in a separate apartment block in a large development or the less prestigious lower floors. If you pass by a development it's often obvious what the poor door is. I've seen one where the social housing residents can't come in through the main entrance but instead goes through the utilities entrance, past the bin storage. The justification I normally hear about it is that the private home owners will pay high service charges for things like concierge, swimming pools, gyms landscaped gardens, etc etc. But honestly this seems like an excuse. Like people aren't asking for services for free. The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. I find it hard to imagine the scenario where a developer is presenting their plan to the council and saying: "this is the door for the poor people" But then again, I can imagine the arguments of "this is how it is always done"

vwdhx 7y ago
>The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. Well, they don't belong there. They are there because the government has mandated it. It's unnatural, and this is the result.
- xorcist 7y ago
  Not sure what the argument is here. Living in an apartment is completely unnatural in itself.
  - kgwgk 7y ago
    Desirable things being (expensive and therefore) affordable when you are rich enough is “natural”. Desirable things being affordable when you are rich enough or poor enough is “unnatural”.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    what would you consider natural? living outside in the bush? in germany, owning property is considered unnatural or rather not the norm unless you are a farmer. it's all about how society develops and what it chooses as their lifestyle.
    - quibbler 7y ago
      That is not true about Germany. Renting is more common than elsewhere, but plenty of people buy, too.
- madaxe_again 7y ago
  I see. So, who is going to make your coffee, sweep your streets, drive your buses, collect your trash, teach your children, and cook your meals, once all of the lower wage earners have been excluded from the area? You?
  - Freestyler_3 7y ago
    Probably much better paid versions of what you listed.
  - quibbler 7y ago
    The funny thing is, by state funding cheaper living in expensive areas, you are just giving state subsidies to rich people. You subsidize services for rich people. Without that, they'd have to pay their service workers higher wages, so that they could afford living nearby or commuting. Or do you think rich people would juslt suck it up and do the cleaning themselves? They'd either pay more for services, or move away, which would lower the rents. Socialism - reliably fails every time.
jchb 7y ago
> The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes. Rather is it telling them that the tax payers are paying for their home. The idea being that (for those without a permanent disability) social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own. Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that?
- insomniacity 7y ago
  > social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own What if you have a mental or physical disability that precludes you from paid work? (Note that doesn't include charitable work)
  - jchb 7y ago
    That should be a different category of housing (and I believe it is in the UK, “sheltered housing” vs “council housing”)
    - insomniacity 7y ago
      It is, but, like council housing, there will be a wait for sheltered housing. In the meantime, it's likely you're already in, or get put in a regular council house. Additionally, not all conditions require sheltered housing levels of care - they just mean you won't hold down a job.
- sigwinch28 7y ago
  > Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that? Every time they have visitors, every time they go home, every time they get the post, every time their children see a playground they are not allowed to use [0]? Yes. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...
yomly 7y ago
This is a tough one - the service fees are real, iirc I know of some people who have to pay £700 a month to the development which is more than enough to rent a small place outside of London. So I can see an argument for segregation even if my personal hope would be for better harmonious living. Though when some people have to buy a place for ~800k and other people get state assistance it's hard to see that working out well in either direction. One party feels like their hard work and effort has been undermined and the other party sees privilege and vast inequality. I people who are "big" enough to drop that kind of money on a property and be ok living next door to someone in a similar plot who didn't. But what is the solution? Hard to say, maybe tackle the root cause of wealth inequality - but how. I am neither politician nor economist...

eps 7y ago

Ah, yes. They may want to talk to people responsible for selling parts of Vancouver olympic village for 2-3 mil per apartment in one building while the adjacent one was allocated to the welfare housing. Even in a presence of Chinese money. See how well it went.

haasted 7y ago
How well did it go?

haylel 7y ago

What does this have to do with hacker or tech news?

thinkingemote 7y ago
Your account was created 8 months ago, I suggest reading the guidelines, linked at the bottom. Usually it's much older accounts that ask this question... But it's a question that often gets asked so I don't blame you!

amelius 7y ago

This might be going in the wrong direction. To address wealth inequality, shouldn't we instead make it obvious? For example, by publishing tax records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

snthd 7y ago
Why not both? Poor Doors are arguably a realisation of the cobra effect; It depends if the goals of "affordable housing" are about reducing inequality (like, systemically, not just finding somewhere to live) or not, and if poor doors have an effect on that.

ryanlol 7y ago

‘Poor doors’ are just a natural consequence of putting social housing where it doesn’t belong. Making social housing more luxurious isn’t solving any real problems. Tax the luxury developments more and spend that money on social housing in a reasonable location instead.

insomniacity 7y ago
Where does social housing belong then? Where rich people can't see it? Society benefits greatly from mixed areas - race, class, etc.
- vwdhx 7y ago
  >Society benefits greatly from mixed areas - race, class, etc. Citation needed. Also If I buy a flat and I have to live with problematic people, how does that benefit me?
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    Forcing rich people to have exposure to poor people to not automatically equate "poor" with "problematic" is one benefit to society.
    - vwdhx 7y ago
      I'm not rich by any measure but I know the kind of people who receive social housing. Not saying they are all problematic but many of them are, and one bad neighbour is enough to make your life hell.
      - madaxe_again 7y ago
        You don’t know the kind of people who receive social housing, and it shows.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

KUcxrAVrtI 7y ago

Honestly, seems like a bad idea. If the rich are willing to pay a premium for the top floors of a building forcing them to share the building with the poor will make them just build their own. Better yet, have incredibly punitive taxation for this so it becomes even more of a social symbol. Then use that money to improve the lives of people living in the lower floors instead of doing meaningless gestures.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

So, is the tax payer supposed to be paying for social housing, or social status?

quibbler 7y ago

What if the "poor people" become a nuisance? Such articles always frame things in a rosy light, as if the evil rich planners are the only reason people are divided. What if the poor people are alcoholics, drug dealers, petty thieves, antisocial people? Why should other people be forced to deal with them?

em-bee 7y ago
do only poor people mess up? why should i have to put up with that rich neighbors son who thinks he can do whatever he wants because his parents keep bailing him out? this attitude is clearly discrimination and unfair.
- quibbler 7y ago
  The poor peole (on welfare) are mor likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason.. Rich people pay good money to be shielded from trouble. Do you have children? Did you get a cheap flat in the poor part of town? Many families pay higher rents, so that their kids have save streets and playgrounds to play in. In my middle class neighborhood, I am not aware if a rich kid causing trouble. What trouble do you have in mind? Loud parties? Is the rich kid going to steal my kid's iPhones? I am talking about violence, pollution, syringes on playgrounds, stuff like that.
  - em-bee 7y ago
    > The poor people (on welfare) are more likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason.. as someone who's family has lived on welfare too, i find that notion insulting. the reason for people being on welfare most often has nothing to do with people getting in trouble. loosing a job, divorce, natural disasters, illness in the family. there are many reasons someone could need welfare. i urge you to really meet these people and understand their situation instead of dismissing them like that.
    - quibbler 7y ago
      The likelihood is higher. That doesn't mean every poor person has issues. Being offended about reality makes no sense. The things you mentioned can be reasons, but so can mental illness, including drug addiction.

HelloNurse 7y ago

Mixed developments for which a "poor door" makes sense are unnatural because they force different people together. I have enough trouble in a medium apartment building with divergent interests between people owning very similar apartments on different floors (different heating expenses) or on different sides (different trouble with trees and other properties); I cannot imagine a place with different people getting different services. The solution? Drive moderately rich people out of the city with brutal taxation of luxury homes (according to building types and straightforward measures like residents per total area of the property).

DanBC 7y ago

There's a real misunderstanding in this thread of what this "social housing" actually is. This is not council housing. This is affordable housing. It's owned by a landlord and then privately rented. The people in it tend not to be the unemployed, because they can't afford it. The rental prices tend to be set higher than the Local Housing Allowance, and so Housing Benefit (or the housing element of Universal Credit) would not cover the whole rent. The people living in this affordable housing tend to be teachers, nurses, police officers, fire-service personnel, public law solicitors and barristers, small business owners -- the people who help make society work. We need those people, and it benefits us if they live in or near the communities in which they work. There's also a bit of misunderstanding about the other side of these housing developments -- some of them are luxury developments, but many of them aren't. They're just expensive but normal housing, because London happens to be stupidly fucking expensive.

Nextgrid 7y ago
The real problem is that these people aren’t paid enough to afford “rich” housing which is a problem considering these people make society work. However forcing “affordable” housing in “rich” areas is the wrong way to deal with it IMO. Let the market deal with it. These people can switch careers (or not consider such a career in the first place) to something that’s better paid. When the talent pool dries up the salaries for these careers will rise naturally because there’s gonna be no other way to get police officers, nurses, etc.
- DanBC 7y ago
  We've seen that the market cannot deal with it. The UK housing market is broken. You comments about people switching careers are incoherent.