Politics: Sadiq’s Naked Housing Plan Looks Promising

Housing is consistently rated in polls as Londoners’ top concern, forcing the city’s leaders to desperately search for new ideas to battle the affordability crisis.

When Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a £1.7 billion deal with councils and housing associations in July to build an extra 50,000 affordable homes some £500,000 was awarded to a new scheme called Naked House.

The idea behind Naked House is to make homes affordable by building the most basic apartments imaginable, providing only a lavatory and a kitchen sink. When bought (left) they won’t even have division walls, flooring, wall finishes, showers or decorations.

According to the developers, it will be “down to the people who’ll live there to create the homes they want” and they believe this will create “homes better suited to people’s needs.”

The non-profit organisation was set up by a group of London social activists who say they have “modest incomes” but expertise in urban design and construction.

The first 22 naked houses will be built in the northern suburb of Enfield by 2020. They are being erected on three properties owned by the council, which will keep the freehold, removing the cost of land from the project. The aim is to make the homes affordable for people earning about £40,000 a year, the standard wage in Enfield.

The Enfield homes will cost between £150,000 and £340,000, potentially selling for up to 40% less than average new builds in the same area. Simon Chouffot, a co-founder of Naked House, says that if the initial project succeeds they will begin work at seven other locations in Enfield and they are already in talks with other councils. The initiative seems promising when compared to the £459,000 average cost of properties in Enfield, and the average London price of about £580,000.

Solution or gimmick?

Anyone can sign up for a Naked House home as long as they make under £90,000 (the government’s income limit for eligibility for affordable intermediate housing).

The Spartan houses could help some members of “Generation Rent” to deal with the housing crisis but critics such as the Guardian writer Dawn Foster claim the initiative is simply tapping into the desperation about property prices rather than really addressing the housing crisis. Some people are desperate enough to move into a “barely-plumbed former car park,” she says, but thousands of pounds will then be needed to make them livable.

Conservative members of the London assembly are sceptical about Khan’s plans. Andrew Boff, who heads the housing committee, believes that the naked houses are suitable only for single people or couples. “If we don’t build larger properties for families we are creating a time bomb in London,” he says. “There are over 300,000 children growing up in overcrowded conditions and that number is rising.”

Projects like Naked House are clearly far too small to deal with the basic dysfunction of London’s property market, which speculators and wealthy foreigners have turned into an international investment product rather than a supply of shelter and housing. Labour’s recent general election housing manifesto housing manifesto demanded fairer regulation of private sector rent and sales to strengthen the rights of tenants and local buyers but the crisis has grown under national and London governments led by both major parties.

Some London councils are now telling families who need public housing that they can have accommodation many miles from the capital on a “take it or leave” basis. That means people are being pushed out of London, even if their jobs and schools are to be left behind.  Harbi Farah, Brent Council’s cabinet member for housing, claims that her council’s severe shortage of suitable homes has even deeper policy roots, as it is exacerbated by government welfare reforms.

 

by Ana Luiza Magalhães

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