Mayor to close loophole on replacement social housing
The current London Plan contains a loophole that allows estate redevelopments to reprovide social rented housing only where a former tenant has exercised a right to return:
The remainder can be provided as a tenure that the Mayor calls 'London Affordable Rent', which was an affordable housing tenure that the Mayor introduced in 2017 and was supposed to be set according to 'benchmarks' published every year by the GLA:
But in 2023 the Mayor decided to discontinue this tenure and stop publishing the benchmarks. The Mayor's website says that "For subsequent years, providers should apply their own updates to the benchmarks in line with the social housing rent-setting guidance published by the Regulator."
This is clear and while Regulator's rent-setting guidance says that rent for existing tenancies cannot be increased by more than CPI+1%, it allows affordable rent to be set at up to 80% of market rent on new tenancies or re-lets:
Confusion surrounding the various different affordable housing tenures has been a problem for some time now and section 106 agreements often afford developers further wriggle room to define them as they see fit.
Here is how London Affordable Rent is defined in the section 106 agreement for the Gascoigne estate redevelopment:
Here is how London Affordable Rent is defined in the section 106 agreement for the Brookhill Close estate redevelopment:
The New London Plan now proposes to close this loophole and require all social rented housing demolished to be replaced by social rented housing:
This comes too late for many of the schemes already underway or that have already been approved, but we welcome this long-overdue change in policy and look forward to having our say on what else should be included in the next London Plan. This will first and foremost include a policy presumption against estate redevelopment and other suggestions from our Alternative Good Practice Guide - WATCH THIS SPACE!