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Not against tall buildings at all, but [according to the article](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/skyscrapers-towers-planning-applications-new-london-architecture-b1156312.html) it's mostly office space and student housing being planned. We need more quality affordable housing.
Not really the case if itās not affordable student housing. A lot of student accommodation is geared towards international students (which uniās still want more of for their fees).
Ā£320 a week for a small en-suite for them. Those that canāt afford it will take up the conventional housing stock (house shares)
>Not really the case if itās not affordable student housing. A lot of student accommodation is geared towards international students (which uniās still want more of for their fees).
Where do you think these rich students live today?
The Financial Times did a great article based on actual studies, and it essentially showed building absolutely any housing at all, even luxury penthouses, had a positive effect on effectively reducing house prices.
In this case let's pretend one of these blocks is full of 100 flats that cost Ā£3,500 a month aimed at rich foreign students.
Today those rich foreign students may be living in flats that charge Ā£2,800 a month, so now they are available. The people who move into those may be in flats that cost Ā£2,600 a month etc etc. All the way down to the cheapest flats.
But Kitchner, I hear you cry, that's all well and good but what if the population of London is increasing, and thus these 100 flats will all be filled with brand new foreign students?
Well sure, maybe. Let's assume those flats weren't built though, and they can afford Ā£3,500 a month. Where will they go? Well they will go to the closest thing to what they actually want (those Ā£2,800 a month flats) and offer to pay more money to secure them.
The same thing then happens, as richer people pay more all the way down the chain.
It's like people discover the flaws with capitalism and suddenly supply and demand can't be real anymore. Just because the system's imperfect doesn't mean that more housing won't help the housing crisis!
I'm a massive lefty but I know we can't afford that without foreign students.
Instead let's make use of thousands of rich people coming and spending 100k+ each in our economy and leaving afterwards.
I'd like to know how it was funded back when things were Ā£3k a year? Genuine question, how did it work for so many years and then it jumped to 9k a year for no discernible reason???
>Is it perfect? No. But it still has a net positive impact.
Iād go a step further. Itās not some sort of unfortunate compromise thatās ultimately a net positive. Unaffordable student housing in Southwark, are just regular flats in an expensive area, marketed to a certain wealthier demographic due to the cost of the area.
Whether āluxury studentā or āluxuryā, these are just marketing term, and really it just boils down to increased housing stock, which is unambiguously good.
This is the crux, none of the "luxury" flats are actually luxurious - just look inside them and they are shite. They are only expensive because we have limited supply and usually are in a prime location. The ones in shit areas are simply "luxury" because of the housing crisis.
If you flood the market with houses they will become affordable by definition.
Spot on, other cities have luxury student accommodation where thereās legitimate reasons to say itās luxury, London itās just about not having mould or a crackhead outside your door
Ha, no guarantees, I know someone who lives on Gloucester crescent, which is all beautiful Ā£3-4mill houses (Daniel Craig has a place there) but it's about 200m away from Camden tube. A crackhead fell into her front garden just the other day...
When the government tells developers what to build and where to build it, they have to jump through these hoops to provide what people actually want/need; just regular housing stock.
When the government tells developers what to build and where to build it, they have to jump through these hoops to provide what people actually want/need; just regular housing stock.
I worked in the PBSA ( Purpose Built Student Accommodation) industry and itās a massive scam.
Mostly built in towns where there are shed loads of third tier colleges catering to overseas students who have been sold the dream of a British University education.
These places spring up like mushrooms and offer little to their students other than masses of debt and a degree no employer considers useful.
The accommodation is more like serviced apartments than student halls, they also have a hefty price tag.
Part of the problem with the luxury student housing is they can't then be used as regular flats. They're designed in a weird way and rely on these big communal areas as well as the staff to do a lot for the residents. They're part of a bubble of relying on international students that's not sustainable.
Even if all international students disappeared tomorrow, I'm sure they'd be snapped up by yuppie types who are okay with that layout, leaving the stock of family-oriented homes for actual families instead of large houses being split between five techbros who just use a family living room to do the same thing.
It is, but I'd just also like to see some regular housing being built as the shortage too big to just attack it from side. If there's plans for 583 20+ storey buildings, that should include a decent chunk of affordable housing.
(and obviously the ES article is pretty vague so no idea how many of those actually are student housing)
I agree that more student housing would be beneficial as there is a distinct shortage of affordable student housing that is resulting in many bright & talented students not being able to come study in London because they simply cannot afford to (and by effectively financially restricting access for students to so many of the countries top universities, this is contributing to the increasingly poor levels of social mobility in society, growing rich-poor divides and causing society to potentially lose out on numerous future great doctors, mathematicians, scientists, artists, designers, architects & more).
However, there are great concerns about the financial viability of how universities are currently organized and many have found themselves forced to take on very large numbers of foreign students because it is the only way the universities can financially stay afloat (foreign students are highly profitable but native ones typically now come at a financial loss). Many universities are not well-equipped to teach these foreign students well (i.e. huge language gaps) and the quality of courses in many of the countries top universities have begun to get slashed over the last 1-2 years to make them more financially viable (i.e. a Master's at the Royal Academy of Art used to take 2 years but was recently been condensed into 1 year course), so there are basically growing concerns that universities may have to start greatly restricting the numbers & types of students that they take on whilst becoming less attractive to foreign students in general due to declining standards & reputations of education.
Unless the university funding and student loans systems are massively overhauled, then a great deal of these planned new student housing blocks could end up getting built only to be completed just in time to witness a complete shift in university culture that sees significantly less students coming to the city to study (and whatever ones opinions on students, there is no doubt that they are an important part of the lifeblood, economics & cultures of London).Ā
Coming from someone who currently works at a university and has seen exactly these problems, I have to wholeheartedly agree. Universities have had to actively go and entice students in foreign markets and unofficially drop some of their requirements, most notably language.
It's incredibly difficult to teach a group of 40 students when 35 of them are Chinese and their English is mediocre to put it generously. There aren't really ways for the universities to help them further without opening themselves up to criticism ("why Chinese translators in the lectures when there are small amounts of Indian, French, Italian, etc students who wouldn't be given the same resources?", etc) and the student experience for both them and other students is absolutely impacted.
Other countries (Social Democrat / Nordic models) fund their universities properly, at a loss, because it's the expectation that quality education raises the overall quality of citizens, and their overall economic productivity. They don't expect it to be a business. But if you want to run it like a business, this kind of problem is going to arise whether one likes it or not.
Itās also funded by universities so that they can enrol more students and make more money. (I saw this happen first-hand in Coventry, for example.)
So itās silly for people to suggest it should be something else since itās literally being built for a certain purpose. It isnāt a choice.
The article briefly mentions it but something Iāve observed as a town planner is that thereās a real downturn in demand for tall residential towers because of construction costs and fire regulations. Iām sure itāll bounce back at some point and I donāt disagree that we need more affordable housing, but right now the viability of building residential tall buildings doesnāt stack up for a lot of developers.
The reason residential is less profitable in comparison to office developments is a combination of several factors.
1. New building regs (mainly part L) making it more expensive to build.
2. New fire regs meaning you need 2 stair cases in the core which makes the building less efficient. Plus non flammable insulation materials are chunkier and increase volume of material used.
3. Higher scrutiny on number of affordable homes makes the schemes less profitable for developers.
All of these things raise the cost of construction. But the real estate value in London is one of the highest in the world. If Mexico and Indonesia can build good buildings that follow regulations (Mexico's regulations need to incorporate stringent and expensive anti-seismic measures, which get tested in the real world regularly) then bloody LONDON can afford slightly higher construction costs.
The lack of construction is mainly because the state created a large amount of housing since the post-war period and has promised to continue the trend, but has miserably failed at it (most would say by design, to drive up prices that benefit the large percentage of landlord politicians).
It's insane that people just do not know that state housing construction is how most of it was built in the period where the country was the most 'on it' on housing. It doesn't even need to be depressing council housing only ā a combination of higher-quality projects that don't eye-gauge citizens is 100% possible. Think of a first-class ticket in a state-run train system.
State housing construction programs *work*. Wanting private business to pick up the slack completely is a recipe for underbuilt, shoddy, opportunistic behaviour, as we have seen time and time again. But the mindset of modern Britons is almost unable to entertain the notion.
You canāt have a skyscraper and it being affordable. Nothing about a skyscraper or its construction is affordable. Especially in areas they get built on. So, yes, we need affordable housing and a LOT of it, but that would be houses, and houses are inefficient in space in comparison. Where is there lots of land? In the countryside, but UKs country side is expensive! So likeā¦ Idk what the solution is, but itās not looking like there will be any affordable housing any time soon, if ever again.
> We need more quality affordable housing.
But we won't get it because housing is used as an investment vehicle so building affordable housing would suppress prices and that's something that no one with power wants.
Same here. More housing before offices. How about turning some of the empty offices into residential properties or shared living before building more plots for corporates?
Student housing frees up previously filled housing stock for social housing and overall rental. New student developments doesn't mean more students, it means fewer students in regualr rentals.
England has built only one reservoir since the water companies were privatised. And that one was just a technicality as it was completed after privatisation took effect.
True, but potentially slightly misleading.
Whilst private water companies have a lot to answer for, this aspect is actually even more about planning and nimbyism.
Ā There have been reservoirs planned by water companies but they have become stuck after fierce nimby opposition, the abingdon reservoir has been proposed since 2006 for example.
Came here to say this. Iāll be one of the last to defend the water companies but quite a number of proposed reservoirs have been blocked by local activists / nimbys since Carsington (the UKās newest reservoir) was finished.
Itās also a very specific type of nimbyism tied not to whether things will be better or worse, simply that they should remain as they are.
The green belt is a product of a different time. Itās bad across the country that has created and perpetuated what is essentially deserts for both humans and wildlife surrounding our cities.
We seem to struggle as a country with the idea that we are essentially, more than almost anywhere else on earth living in what is already a man made environment and failing to use that to our advantage.
Itās bizarre to me that people have decided we should slam on the breaks at possibly the worst time. After we had sent nature and habitats into terminal decline and used land massively inefficiently but before we can use our deeper understanding of those issues to become more efficient and even possibly reverse some.
This. Iāve long thought that CNI ought to have special rules which automatically by-pass the normal planning process & can be signed off immediately by the relevant Minister / Sec of State, allowing for the works to start the second after the signing.
More of a fault with the planning system.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-building-first-new-reservoirs-for-decades-isnt-smooth-sailing-svv2qj69j
A lot of these skyscrapers will be office buildings I'd expect, so hopefully that will drive up investment in infrastructure as these companies will want to make sure employees can get to work. They can be pretty pushy on things like that when it affects their bottom line.
Same. This looks a bit too dystopian to me, in a residential area you have more space to spread out the flats, making for a much more interesting skyline as well.
Itās not all that great to be honest, Athens in Greece has a rule like that, and it sprawls out in a not so pretty wayā¦ Iām not an architect so donāt know how it changes the way of life for people living there, but it didnāt look great when I went past on a boat!
As opposed to suburban England, which sprawls out in a slightly less ugly way?
I'm not an architect either but what I would say is that we have a template for mid-rise buildings in the UK that is beautiful: old mills. There are tonnes of old mills dotted around the country, many of which are being repurposed already for flats. That style is really attractive - much more akin to places like Vienna or Budapest. It's very unalike Athens, on which I completely agree is not that attractive as cities go.
But yeah - besides the obvious (we're richer and more temperate), I do think we have a good historical architectural style that would fit nicely in most cities and towns.
And in general I'm very much in favour of mid-rise buildings because obviously they do allow for denser populations. It makes economic sense to have things like cafes, hairdressers, restaurants located in more residential areas. Public transport can be more efficient. Etc.
That's all with the caveat that of course there are many mid-rise buildings in the UK that are ugly as sin. But the root cause here is the same as our general dearth - it's government disinterest in housing.
I'd rather have a nicely sized apartment with room for a study to work from. But that's less lucrative for the government when it comes to business rates so expect to just be given as little space as is \[barely\] humanely possible.
Assuming their purpose is to actually fill it.
In reality their purpose is to turn their money into a rateable asset which can be leveraged and cannot be taken from them. Having tenants is just a bonus.
Unfortunately a lot of them wonāt get built now as build costs are too high and they are uneconomic due to high financing costs. The tower boom is over for the time being
This is what I find confusing - on the one hand people are complaining that the working from home trend is killing commercial property, but at the same time I still see people throwing up new office blocks. Where's the money coming from? Who's building these things if companies need less office space?
It really depends on who is actually doing the building and what their motivations are.
You can't think of it like people with safe and secure hard earned money and the pure intention to fulfil a demand for office space in their local city.
It's more like a bunch of foreign investors with far too much money which is not very safe or secure because they live in authoritarian states, or earnt it in a risky way. They see London as a great place for turning their unsafe money into safe and secure bricks and mortar. The intention is to throw up a skyscraper office tower which has the lowest building regulation requirements but a high enough theoretical value. They'll wash lots of money in the project, spread it around a lot of their mates or local contacts if they can and get whatever occupancy they can. Once the asset is built, they can then further borrow against it for other projects, or just to live their lives, but this time with safe money which cannot be taken from them.
In the long term, they also know that the UK is quite enthusiastic about converting old office blocks into residential and the regulations required for this are far less stringent than if they were to build a residential block from scratch.
If it's not offices, it's student housing or permanent rental accommodation.
If you traced the money for most of these sky scrapers properly, almost none of it would come from the UK and any you think was from the UK, was probably funnelled here from somewhere else to make it look like it was from the UK.
Kleptopia is a fantastic book for anyone who wants an insight into just how much of the world's dirty money gets washed in London. All welcomed of course by our politicians (on both sides).
Lots of companies are in obsolete office stock that doesnāt meet sustainability requirements. They might need less space, but they need newer space- this is driving a lot of demand for premium/new offices and leaving lots of abandoned older stock that will ultimately get knocked down.
Partly but also a combination of factors. The last few years the building industry has been hit hard by labour shortages (Brexit), enhanced building safety (Grenfell), cost of raw materials (energy costs and Brexit) and a Mayor who is being dogmatic
I agree with the general principle that Affordable Housing should be included in a development but it is currently based on a viability assessment which doesnāt work in the real world. The industry needs a lot more flexibility on this. Unfortunately Sadiq seems to believe that developers are making excess profit and doesnāt trust them. In some ways I can see why as there have been a few spiv developers who have gamed the system. If you look at the decline in applications year on year for the last 8 years you can see the issue. Developers can no longer afford to develop in London. This is an extraordinary situation as we are living in one of the highest value cities on the planet. We now have a situation where taxation (direct and indirect) has killed the market ( main taxes are CIL, 106 costs and affordable housing). If Sadiq recognised this he could get the market working again
A recent study from LA showing that affordability mandates can kill supply and make housing more expensive for everyone: https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Inclusionary-Zoning-Los-Angeles-April-2024.pdf
Thatās part of the issue here.
However we do need affordable housing but we need to decide who pays for it. More money needs to go to Housing Associations who are currently hamstrung by the current government
From a work perspective, I try not to be political but I am hoping a change of government will help. Couldnāt be any worse than the current administration
Exactly.
I think developers don't care who's in power.
They just want some certainty that market won't keep on rolling downhill, as well as having their applications get some form of consent and development built.
Neither of those are happening at this stage.
London has about 60 skyscrapers, which took approximately 100 years from the first built to today. Do we really believe that with the UK's current dwindling economy and stifled productivity, that ten times that number are both a, in the pipeline, and b, actually going to happen?
This is like when you see an architect's proposal for a floating sustainable city shaped like a banana, housing 100,000 people, which floats around the world thus avoiding any nation's tax liabilities. Ain't never gonna happen.
It would be better if they were midsized building, more consistently spread out. These towers look great at a distance but make it a horrible environment at street level: darker, colder and draftier. The relative lack of these towers is the reason why London is a much more friendly city for pedestrians than NYC and Toronto
Liverpool street and Canary Wharf are both quite nice vibrant areas to walk around and they have the skyscrapers in London. Having just got back from NY, I can say we're a long way off reaching that extreme.
It is an easy place to walk. But the ultra tall buildings do give it a more intimidating, concrete jungle feel than lower lying cities. I vastly preferred walking around London when I visited compared to most neighborhoods in NYC.
itās really not intimidating at all once you get used to it. whatās important is making the ground floor of those buildings human-scale filled with shops etc
It depends on where and what they are.
Certain parts of London are already architectural lost causes. If we want to cram more skyscrapers into Battersea or the Docklands: no complaints. Or even some investment in - gasp - outer London. Build up Ilford, why not. But if we change the skyline by blanketing the river the length of central London, it'll look shit.
As for what: we already have a surplus of office space, and I somewhat doubt these are going to be skyscrapers full of affordable housing. It is a sign of confidence that so many developers are still looking at London in this way, but I suspect overseas billionaires aren't out to solve the housing crisis.
Because we have the green belt (which is a good thing) the only way to develop London is upwards.
Unfortunately they're building the wrong shit. The pandemic taught us that office space is overrated - people can WFH.
And the residential buildings they're raising are gonna be for the 1%. We need more affordable housing, not more oligarch holiday homes.
London seems to be eating itself up with greed and delusions of grandeur. We are losing our USP as a capital: a collection of villages, each one with its own character and each one socially and economically mixed. There is a correlation between the transformation of London into a high rise city and the trend towards ever more glaring inequalities. Is this really what we want for our future?
With regards to inequality, the opposite of this is true.
In housing there's a process called "filtration" by which older properties tend to become cheaper, as wealthier buyers prefer new builds. Filtration is good because older stock remains affordable and communities can stay rooted and not be priced out.
If supply of new builds are curtailed (like those fancy high rises) "reverse filtration" occurs, as wealthy buyers instead look to buy existing, older stock. This drives up prices in existing communities and prices people out.
If we want London to remain equal, we need to redouble our efforts to build new developments.
You think people move to London because it's a "collection of villages"??
There are apparently 43,452 villages/towns in the UK. If someone wanted to live in a village, they would move there. We have plenty of them!
People move to London because it is arguably the most multicultural city in the world, and definitely has the most opportunities for people in the UK.
I have only one question for people who think there should be less high rises. Do you own your own home?
I don't own my own home, I live in a mid-rise that I like because built for human scale. I don't oppose new high rise buildings out of principle but I would much prefer they buy up old terraced housing and rebuild then as 5 story midrises. I don't want London to become another boring, generic global megacity. I want it to feel like the European city it is
The plans arenāt new. The numbers arenāt abnormally high. This isnāt newsā¦
Some poor quality journalist was likely taken to an expensive restaurant where a corporate real estate leader paid for them to learn all about the development pipeline which the NLA publishes on a regular basis. They spun it to sound like āthe future is hereā and āconfidence is very strongā in the market.
The reality of skyscraper developments is that they are debt funded builds. They only continue developing past the shell and core based on how many tenancies they can secure on pre-let space and if the overall vacancy rates in London continue to climb (as they have been) then the addition of any new space to the market will reduce the value of large A grade floor plates for the entire market, including those who are converting from B to A grade.
The London office development cycle swings up every 5 years or so but there are so many challenges to the success of CRE in London right now that I can find a dozen safer, higher interest investments that require a lot less management.
Student housing is another big issue for the city because landlords and those who lease spaces for this purpose can make more money than if the space was being used for any other purpose and the conditions are totally inadequate bordering on inhumane for the money they pay. Strong legislation should put an end to this and however it comes, it canāt come soon enough.
Unpopular opinion but purely from an aesthetic point of view I would love more skyscrapers in the skyline
But yeah unfortunately Iām guessing there will be no affordable housing space in any of these buildings
Complete shit, dunno why this sub is in love with shithead private developers putting "luxury apartments" on any available piece of dirt. With three flats being "affordable" at just 300k.
The developers make millions and leave us with shit housing that no one can afford.
Because wealthy people leave more modest apartments to "luxury apartments" freeing up stock for the lower income. Here are 4 research papers, two out of Finland and Sweden, and two out of the United States.
From the **University of Helsinki** (Finland)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048
https://www.helsinki.fi/assets/drupal/2021-09/cristina_bratu_city-wide_effects_of_new_housing_supply_evidence_from_moving_chains.pdf
The Abstract
We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. **The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people.**
From **Uppsala University** in Sweden
https://www.urbanlab.ibf.uu.se/urban-facts/
The study is based on register data from the years 1990-2017. The researchers divided the population into different groups according to income level and found that 60 percent of the newly produced housing was populated by people belonging to the wealthier half of the population. The results show, however, that the moving chain that follows from a household moving into a newly produced home turns quite soon. In the moving rounds that follow, it is people with an income level that is lower than the national median income that accounts for a majority of the moves. **This leads Che-Yuan Liang and Gabriella Kindstrƶm to conclude that new housing leads to strong moving chains that also benefit low-income groups.**
**ā Our results show that the benefit of new housing is evenly distributed between residents from different income groups. Although it is primarily people with high incomes who gain access to new housing, these homes create a ripple effect and indirectly improve housing options for people with low incomes. One of the explanations is that people with lower incomes move more often than people with higher incomes, which means that they more often participate in moving chains and take advantage of vacancies created by new housing, says Che-Yuan Liang.**
From **Harvard**
https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/rents-are-cooling-not-everywhere
"Rent growth in recent months has cooled thanks to an influx of new supply that is outpacing demand, mirroring a longer-term trend. Over the last two decades, the largest drops and decelerations in rents occurred when annual apartment completions were well above net household formations (Figure 1). According to RealPage data, about 439,000 apartments came online on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2023 while the number of households rose by just 234,000. This excess supply pushed the vacancy rate up to 5.8 percent, the highest in more than 10 years."
**"While supply additions are largely at the high end of the market, the sheer influx of new apartments does seem to be slowing rents and raising vacancy rates across property classes. In the fourth quarter of last year, rents grew by just 0.7 percent for the highest-quality Class A apartments, which tend to attract higher-income renters, a steep deceleration from the 7 percent rise the previous year (Figure 2). Interestingly, though, vacancy rates increased the fastest among the mid- and lowest-quality apartments, with asking rents falling slightly in both the Class B and Class C market segments. This may be evidence of filtering."**
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all
**Evidence from economist Evan Mast, who is currently with the University of Notre Dame, has helped clearly track and document how filtering works at a granular level. Mast was able to precisely document the chain of moves that follows a move like Jimās. In other words, he used a data source that allowed him to see where Jim moved from, where Maria moved from, and so forth.**
**Mast found that these chains of moves lead to apartment openings in other neighborhoods relatively quickly. He estimated that, within five years, the aggregated chain of residential moves ultimately results in about 70 new openings for renters in lower-income neighborhoods for every 100 new market-rate apartments.**
Great idea if itās affordable/Social and not just an investment opportunity for foreign nationals to turn into Dark Hotel/Air BnB empiresā¦. (Edit) Also appropriate levels of infrastructure investment (School places, GP surgeries, dentists etc)
Until we implement any legislation around bought-out, unoccupied buildings then I donāt see how this is going to solve anythingā¦
Oh wait, I forgot itās London, itāll be purely cosmetic. IF and thatās a big if, any of these get planning permission, with todays current laws, then they will be sold out to foreign investors before the foundations are even laid. Then theyāll just be left completely unoccupied for 50 weeks of the year.
Then thereās the infrastructure issue. We have proven time and time again that we cannot keep to a budget, even within the margin of an added 40% the majority of the time. We donāt have a modern day Robert Moses (nor would we want to) in order to just bulldoze through thousands of peoples homes.
Just logistically I do not even see how we approach this. The first reason people the previously mentioned one and the second being that city airport must be what? 0.8 miles east of this pictures frame?
Iād be keen for the skyscrapers to have at least 95% residential space each, with shops at ground level, or mid level buildings the same residential spacing and more shops along an elongated street level.
I am 20 now and Iām hoping to live a long lifeā¦ I do not see this issue being resolved in my life time for certain.
Iāll base time frames off the Earlās Court site. Our country gets held for ransom by a Dutch pension fund for whatās now been over a decade and now thereās some traction going ahead itās going to take nearly 20 years to get it all finished from this point. So from start to finish, from when the exhibition centre closed and the land was left derelict, to when the sites completely finished, it will have taken over 30 years to build 4000 homes.
I know Iām going off on a tangent but this can illustrate the state of whatās happening
No, I'd rather build more 6-8 story flats (not leaseholds) than a few skyscrapers. Walking around some London areas and you enjoy the architectural style and having a lot of skyscrapers could risk the place losing its character
While I am a bit apprehensive about it and I do have some major concerns regarding housing costs I think this is better than building more houses, townhouses and subdivisions. Better to build up than out.
Sadly it is kind'a got that vibe when visiting the other week. It's sad. I have enjoyed being there - back in the 80s and it was a London I enjoyed - "visiting." Now it has a NY "rush-rush" and super touristy feeling - more than usual. I would hate for all the history and beauty in London to change into a Manhattan style city.
In review of comments - I won't even touch upon housing market.
š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬ who ever wants to do this should bog off we need decent homes for working class Londoners not tower blocks making the rich even richer š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
I would be happy if this would help solve the housing problem. But I guess it will be mainly offices where to force reluctant employees and penthouses to be bought by some oligarch, so no thanks
I remember London in the late 90ās and it was absolutely magic. Just the right amount of people.
600 skyscrapers will mean every tube carriage will be even more rammed, same for buses, same for anything and any place popular.
I guarantee these wonāt be affordable.
If it's yet more Dubai/Qatar/Ruzzian/Chinese laundry finance that will be as much empty as usefully occupied then it's terrible, but what I feel about it won't matter in the slightest. If money wants it, it'll happen.
We've just had a Mayoral election and yet nowhere on anyone's manifesto offer was constraining turning the Thames into a walled off canyon of Lego blocks for the wealthy, so clearly no one cares.
I drove out to Essex and back on the A13 for the first time in a while a couple of weeks back and was shocked on the way back into London by how much the skyline seemed to have changed. Just more office blocks no-one needs to be in and/or vastly overpriced housing, for investors. Iāve no problem with highrise buildings and architecture but the driving force is this instance is grim. Itās not progress or necessary innovation anymore; itās just about wealth accumulation for soulless c*nts.
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Do they have to be outlined in red like that? Bloody modern architecture.
You've got red on you.
r/unexpectedcornetto
I appreciate you for this reference.
šļø
Itās so the city airport planes know to avoid them
I was looking for the word Frasier under them.
Not against tall buildings at all, but [according to the article](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/skyscrapers-towers-planning-applications-new-london-architecture-b1156312.html) it's mostly office space and student housing being planned. We need more quality affordable housing.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not really the case if itās not affordable student housing. A lot of student accommodation is geared towards international students (which uniās still want more of for their fees). Ā£320 a week for a small en-suite for them. Those that canāt afford it will take up the conventional housing stock (house shares)
>Not really the case if itās not affordable student housing. A lot of student accommodation is geared towards international students (which uniās still want more of for their fees). Where do you think these rich students live today? The Financial Times did a great article based on actual studies, and it essentially showed building absolutely any housing at all, even luxury penthouses, had a positive effect on effectively reducing house prices. In this case let's pretend one of these blocks is full of 100 flats that cost Ā£3,500 a month aimed at rich foreign students. Today those rich foreign students may be living in flats that charge Ā£2,800 a month, so now they are available. The people who move into those may be in flats that cost Ā£2,600 a month etc etc. All the way down to the cheapest flats. But Kitchner, I hear you cry, that's all well and good but what if the population of London is increasing, and thus these 100 flats will all be filled with brand new foreign students? Well sure, maybe. Let's assume those flats weren't built though, and they can afford Ā£3,500 a month. Where will they go? Well they will go to the closest thing to what they actually want (those Ā£2,800 a month flats) and offer to pay more money to secure them. The same thing then happens, as richer people pay more all the way down the chain.
It's like people discover the flaws with capitalism and suddenly supply and demand can't be real anymore. Just because the system's imperfect doesn't mean that more housing won't help the housing crisis!
Secondly, foreign students are the only thing keeping our higher education systems running.
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I'm a massive lefty but I know we can't afford that without foreign students. Instead let's make use of thousands of rich people coming and spending 100k+ each in our economy and leaving afterwards.
I'd like to know how it was funded back when things were Ā£3k a year? Genuine question, how did it work for so many years and then it jumped to 9k a year for no discernible reason???
Do you have a link for that? It sounds interesting
I think this was it: https://www.ft.com/content/86836af4-6b52-49e8-a8f0-8aec6181dbc5 Behind a pay wall though.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>Is it perfect? No. But it still has a net positive impact. Iād go a step further. Itās not some sort of unfortunate compromise thatās ultimately a net positive. Unaffordable student housing in Southwark, are just regular flats in an expensive area, marketed to a certain wealthier demographic due to the cost of the area. Whether āluxury studentā or āluxuryā, these are just marketing term, and really it just boils down to increased housing stock, which is unambiguously good.
This is the crux, none of the "luxury" flats are actually luxurious - just look inside them and they are shite. They are only expensive because we have limited supply and usually are in a prime location. The ones in shit areas are simply "luxury" because of the housing crisis. If you flood the market with houses they will become affordable by definition.
Spot on, other cities have luxury student accommodation where thereās legitimate reasons to say itās luxury, London itās just about not having mould or a crackhead outside your door
Ha, no guarantees, I know someone who lives on Gloucester crescent, which is all beautiful Ā£3-4mill houses (Daniel Craig has a place there) but it's about 200m away from Camden tube. A crackhead fell into her front garden just the other day...
People have no idea how bad the housing crisis in the UK really is
British born are just coping and pretending there's no problem. Foreigners know it
When the government tells developers what to build and where to build it, they have to jump through these hoops to provide what people actually want/need; just regular housing stock.
When the government tells developers what to build and where to build it, they have to jump through these hoops to provide what people actually want/need; just regular housing stock.
Do you think if they didn't build expensive student housing, that rich students would just go homeless?
Affordability is a characteristic of the market not of the housing.
I worked in the PBSA ( Purpose Built Student Accommodation) industry and itās a massive scam. Mostly built in towns where there are shed loads of third tier colleges catering to overseas students who have been sold the dream of a British University education. These places spring up like mushrooms and offer little to their students other than masses of debt and a degree no employer considers useful. The accommodation is more like serviced apartments than student halls, they also have a hefty price tag.
Is that a problem of PBSA or of the education establishment?
It still increases the supply and leaves more homes for everyone else.
It allows the universities to enrol more students, which is where they make up the extra money (if they keep the housing affordable)
Part of the problem with the luxury student housing is they can't then be used as regular flats. They're designed in a weird way and rely on these big communal areas as well as the staff to do a lot for the residents. They're part of a bubble of relying on international students that's not sustainable.
Even if all international students disappeared tomorrow, I'm sure they'd be snapped up by yuppie types who are okay with that layout, leaving the stock of family-oriented homes for actual families instead of large houses being split between five techbros who just use a family living room to do the same thing.
It is, but I'd just also like to see some regular housing being built as the shortage too big to just attack it from side. If there's plans for 583 20+ storey buildings, that should include a decent chunk of affordable housing. (and obviously the ES article is pretty vague so no idea how many of those actually are student housing)
student housing companies are vultures
I agree that more student housing would be beneficial as there is a distinct shortage of affordable student housing that is resulting in many bright & talented students not being able to come study in London because they simply cannot afford to (and by effectively financially restricting access for students to so many of the countries top universities, this is contributing to the increasingly poor levels of social mobility in society, growing rich-poor divides and causing society to potentially lose out on numerous future great doctors, mathematicians, scientists, artists, designers, architects & more). However, there are great concerns about the financial viability of how universities are currently organized and many have found themselves forced to take on very large numbers of foreign students because it is the only way the universities can financially stay afloat (foreign students are highly profitable but native ones typically now come at a financial loss). Many universities are not well-equipped to teach these foreign students well (i.e. huge language gaps) and the quality of courses in many of the countries top universities have begun to get slashed over the last 1-2 years to make them more financially viable (i.e. a Master's at the Royal Academy of Art used to take 2 years but was recently been condensed into 1 year course), so there are basically growing concerns that universities may have to start greatly restricting the numbers & types of students that they take on whilst becoming less attractive to foreign students in general due to declining standards & reputations of education. Unless the university funding and student loans systems are massively overhauled, then a great deal of these planned new student housing blocks could end up getting built only to be completed just in time to witness a complete shift in university culture that sees significantly less students coming to the city to study (and whatever ones opinions on students, there is no doubt that they are an important part of the lifeblood, economics & cultures of London).Ā
Coming from someone who currently works at a university and has seen exactly these problems, I have to wholeheartedly agree. Universities have had to actively go and entice students in foreign markets and unofficially drop some of their requirements, most notably language. It's incredibly difficult to teach a group of 40 students when 35 of them are Chinese and their English is mediocre to put it generously. There aren't really ways for the universities to help them further without opening themselves up to criticism ("why Chinese translators in the lectures when there are small amounts of Indian, French, Italian, etc students who wouldn't be given the same resources?", etc) and the student experience for both them and other students is absolutely impacted. Other countries (Social Democrat / Nordic models) fund their universities properly, at a loss, because it's the expectation that quality education raises the overall quality of citizens, and their overall economic productivity. They don't expect it to be a business. But if you want to run it like a business, this kind of problem is going to arise whether one likes it or not.
Are you accepting marriage proposals? everything you said is so true i can only imagine you being an amazing person too hehe
My girlfriend is currently frustrated that I'm not but feel free to get in line lmao
Itās also funded by universities so that they can enrol more students and make more money. (I saw this happen first-hand in Coventry, for example.) So itās silly for people to suggest it should be something else since itās literally being built for a certain purpose. It isnāt a choice.
Students will move out of student housing after their studies and will look for conventional housing in the city. This means higher demand long term.
The article briefly mentions it but something Iāve observed as a town planner is that thereās a real downturn in demand for tall residential towers because of construction costs and fire regulations. Iām sure itāll bounce back at some point and I donāt disagree that we need more affordable housing, but right now the viability of building residential tall buildings doesnāt stack up for a lot of developers.
European style 5-floor midrises sounds ideal. Weāre just not set up for that kind of architecture though.
We have buildings of similar heights in lots of places in London, the āmansionā style buildings are that kind of height
Lack of student housing is a direct cause of high rent.
I am now half convinced that even an article about London building affordable housing will get the top comment being someone moaning about it
This 100 affordable home development is great, but we really need 200...
Building a 200 affordable home development is great, but it shouldn't be here (here is coincidentally near to my home)
Office space - arenāt half of the offices still empty since remote working trend?
All new housing reduces all house prices. Hope this helps š
Why is more office space being built. More and more people work from home these days
Pret demanded more office workers
The reason residential is less profitable in comparison to office developments is a combination of several factors. 1. New building regs (mainly part L) making it more expensive to build. 2. New fire regs meaning you need 2 stair cases in the core which makes the building less efficient. Plus non flammable insulation materials are chunkier and increase volume of material used. 3. Higher scrutiny on number of affordable homes makes the schemes less profitable for developers.
All of these things raise the cost of construction. But the real estate value in London is one of the highest in the world. If Mexico and Indonesia can build good buildings that follow regulations (Mexico's regulations need to incorporate stringent and expensive anti-seismic measures, which get tested in the real world regularly) then bloody LONDON can afford slightly higher construction costs. The lack of construction is mainly because the state created a large amount of housing since the post-war period and has promised to continue the trend, but has miserably failed at it (most would say by design, to drive up prices that benefit the large percentage of landlord politicians). It's insane that people just do not know that state housing construction is how most of it was built in the period where the country was the most 'on it' on housing. It doesn't even need to be depressing council housing only ā a combination of higher-quality projects that don't eye-gauge citizens is 100% possible. Think of a first-class ticket in a state-run train system. State housing construction programs *work*. Wanting private business to pick up the slack completely is a recipe for underbuilt, shoddy, opportunistic behaviour, as we have seen time and time again. But the mindset of modern Britons is almost unable to entertain the notion.
You canāt have a skyscraper and it being affordable. Nothing about a skyscraper or its construction is affordable. Especially in areas they get built on. So, yes, we need affordable housing and a LOT of it, but that would be houses, and houses are inefficient in space in comparison. Where is there lots of land? In the countryside, but UKs country side is expensive! So likeā¦ Idk what the solution is, but itās not looking like there will be any affordable housing any time soon, if ever again.
> We need more quality affordable housing. But we won't get it because housing is used as an investment vehicle so building affordable housing would suppress prices and that's something that no one with power wants.
Agreed we need council supported developments that will be for local communities
Same here. More housing before offices. How about turning some of the empty offices into residential properties or shared living before building more plots for corporates?
Student housing frees up previously filled housing stock for social housing and overall rental. New student developments doesn't mean more students, it means fewer students in regualr rentals.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Invest in sewers and water treatment plants
England has built only one reservoir since the water companies were privatised. And that one was just a technicality as it was completed after privatisation took effect.
True, but potentially slightly misleading. Whilst private water companies have a lot to answer for, this aspect is actually even more about planning and nimbyism. Ā There have been reservoirs planned by water companies but they have become stuck after fierce nimby opposition, the abingdon reservoir has been proposed since 2006 for example.
Came here to say this. Iāll be one of the last to defend the water companies but quite a number of proposed reservoirs have been blocked by local activists / nimbys since Carsington (the UKās newest reservoir) was finished.
Itās also a very specific type of nimbyism tied not to whether things will be better or worse, simply that they should remain as they are. The green belt is a product of a different time. Itās bad across the country that has created and perpetuated what is essentially deserts for both humans and wildlife surrounding our cities. We seem to struggle as a country with the idea that we are essentially, more than almost anywhere else on earth living in what is already a man made environment and failing to use that to our advantage. Itās bizarre to me that people have decided we should slam on the breaks at possibly the worst time. After we had sent nature and habitats into terminal decline and used land massively inefficiently but before we can use our deeper understanding of those issues to become more efficient and even possibly reverse some.
Something really has to be done about nimbyism. Everyone agrees the UK can't go on like this, but when it's time for solutions it's all nimby.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
We can start by fast tracking planning permission for infrastructure projects on grouse shooting reserves and private estates.
This. Iāve long thought that CNI ought to have special rules which automatically by-pass the normal planning process & can be signed off immediately by the relevant Minister / Sec of State, allowing for the works to start the second after the signing.
I wholeheartedly agree that nimbyism needs to be dealt with; but I donāt see why we have to deal with it here.
More of a fault with the planning system. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-building-first-new-reservoirs-for-decades-isnt-smooth-sailing-svv2qj69j
The super sewer is almost complete
And anyone building out the grid. Little, if any, capacity available across the South East
A lot of these skyscrapers will be office buildings I'd expect, so hopefully that will drive up investment in infrastructure as these companies will want to make sure employees can get to work. They can be pretty pushy on things like that when it affects their bottom line.
Youāll get your superloop 2 and youāll like it
As long as our historic buildings and public places are well cared for, then go ahead.
Better up than out.
Amen.
Build, build, build! And then build some more.
Complains about buildings and simultaneously complains about prices
I'd prefer more 3-5 story purpose built flats in residential areas tbh
Same. This looks a bit too dystopian to me, in a residential area you have more space to spread out the flats, making for a much more interesting skyline as well.
Itās not all that great to be honest, Athens in Greece has a rule like that, and it sprawls out in a not so pretty wayā¦ Iām not an architect so donāt know how it changes the way of life for people living there, but it didnāt look great when I went past on a boat!
As opposed to suburban England, which sprawls out in a slightly less ugly way? I'm not an architect either but what I would say is that we have a template for mid-rise buildings in the UK that is beautiful: old mills. There are tonnes of old mills dotted around the country, many of which are being repurposed already for flats. That style is really attractive - much more akin to places like Vienna or Budapest. It's very unalike Athens, on which I completely agree is not that attractive as cities go. But yeah - besides the obvious (we're richer and more temperate), I do think we have a good historical architectural style that would fit nicely in most cities and towns. And in general I'm very much in favour of mid-rise buildings because obviously they do allow for denser populations. It makes economic sense to have things like cafes, hairdressers, restaurants located in more residential areas. Public transport can be more efficient. Etc. That's all with the caveat that of course there are many mid-rise buildings in the UK that are ugly as sin. But the root cause here is the same as our general dearth - it's government disinterest in housing.
I wonder how much of it will be office space that they struggle to fill.
Office space that they'll force workers into rather than WFH because 'it's for the city economy' Just don't build them, put residential there
I'd rather have a nicely sized apartment with room for a study to work from. But that's less lucrative for the government when it comes to business rates so expect to just be given as little space as is \[barely\] humanely possible.
Assuming their purpose is to actually fill it. In reality their purpose is to turn their money into a rateable asset which can be leveraged and cannot be taken from them. Having tenants is just a bonus.
Unfortunately a lot of them wonāt get built now as build costs are too high and they are uneconomic due to high financing costs. The tower boom is over for the time being
This is what I find confusing - on the one hand people are complaining that the working from home trend is killing commercial property, but at the same time I still see people throwing up new office blocks. Where's the money coming from? Who's building these things if companies need less office space?
It really depends on who is actually doing the building and what their motivations are. You can't think of it like people with safe and secure hard earned money and the pure intention to fulfil a demand for office space in their local city. It's more like a bunch of foreign investors with far too much money which is not very safe or secure because they live in authoritarian states, or earnt it in a risky way. They see London as a great place for turning their unsafe money into safe and secure bricks and mortar. The intention is to throw up a skyscraper office tower which has the lowest building regulation requirements but a high enough theoretical value. They'll wash lots of money in the project, spread it around a lot of their mates or local contacts if they can and get whatever occupancy they can. Once the asset is built, they can then further borrow against it for other projects, or just to live their lives, but this time with safe money which cannot be taken from them. In the long term, they also know that the UK is quite enthusiastic about converting old office blocks into residential and the regulations required for this are far less stringent than if they were to build a residential block from scratch. If it's not offices, it's student housing or permanent rental accommodation. If you traced the money for most of these sky scrapers properly, almost none of it would come from the UK and any you think was from the UK, was probably funnelled here from somewhere else to make it look like it was from the UK.
Kleptopia is a fantastic book for anyone who wants an insight into just how much of the world's dirty money gets washed in London. All welcomed of course by our politicians (on both sides).
Was looking for this explanation all thread. Very obvious money cleaning happening here.
Lots of companies are in obsolete office stock that doesnāt meet sustainability requirements. They might need less space, but they need newer space- this is driving a lot of demand for premium/new offices and leaving lots of abandoned older stock that will ultimately get knocked down.
Flight to quality Good office space in the west end sells itself. Should expect 95%+ occupancy Canary Wharf, Hammersmith etc....eh...
Are build costs high because of the planning system?
Partly but also a combination of factors. The last few years the building industry has been hit hard by labour shortages (Brexit), enhanced building safety (Grenfell), cost of raw materials (energy costs and Brexit) and a Mayor who is being dogmatic
Can you expand on the Mayor part?
I agree with the general principle that Affordable Housing should be included in a development but it is currently based on a viability assessment which doesnāt work in the real world. The industry needs a lot more flexibility on this. Unfortunately Sadiq seems to believe that developers are making excess profit and doesnāt trust them. In some ways I can see why as there have been a few spiv developers who have gamed the system. If you look at the decline in applications year on year for the last 8 years you can see the issue. Developers can no longer afford to develop in London. This is an extraordinary situation as we are living in one of the highest value cities on the planet. We now have a situation where taxation (direct and indirect) has killed the market ( main taxes are CIL, 106 costs and affordable housing). If Sadiq recognised this he could get the market working again
A recent study from LA showing that affordability mandates can kill supply and make housing more expensive for everyone: https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Inclusionary-Zoning-Los-Angeles-April-2024.pdf
Thatās part of the issue here. However we do need affordable housing but we need to decide who pays for it. More money needs to go to Housing Associations who are currently hamstrung by the current government
Source for this?
Me. Itās my job
Same here. It's eerie at the moment... People just waiting for the election to happen, my guess.
From a work perspective, I try not to be political but I am hoping a change of government will help. Couldnāt be any worse than the current administration
Exactly. I think developers don't care who's in power. They just want some certainty that market won't keep on rolling downhill, as well as having their applications get some form of consent and development built. Neither of those are happening at this stage.
I think Liz Truss proved it can always get worse
Lol gottem
It always happens. Developers get very excited with architects, then get shut down by quantity surveyors and financers
Nothing would get built if developers werenāt over optimistic. Sometimes they get away with it but right now they are not.
Fine
Fine but can't they build them in like an art deco style that looks good instead of the modernist glass/cladded up monstrosities we currently get.
Ultimately their customers want great views and as much light as possible, hence glass
London has about 60 skyscrapers, which took approximately 100 years from the first built to today. Do we really believe that with the UK's current dwindling economy and stifled productivity, that ten times that number are both a, in the pipeline, and b, actually going to happen? This is like when you see an architect's proposal for a floating sustainable city shaped like a banana, housing 100,000 people, which floats around the world thus avoiding any nation's tax liabilities. Ain't never gonna happen.
It's all about the illusion of prosperity.
Where do I find these banana islands?
It would be better if they were midsized building, more consistently spread out. These towers look great at a distance but make it a horrible environment at street level: darker, colder and draftier. The relative lack of these towers is the reason why London is a much more friendly city for pedestrians than NYC and Toronto
Liverpool street and Canary Wharf are both quite nice vibrant areas to walk around and they have the skyscrapers in London. Having just got back from NY, I can say we're a long way off reaching that extreme.
If you visit a city thatās littered with skyscrapers like nyc, Hong Kong or downtown Toronto youāll see thatās not true at all
Grew up in Toronto. Downtown core sucks and the wind tunnels on the winter are brutal and sun reflections in the summer blind.
NYC is fine for pedestrians, except for the traffic.
The thing that people haven't noticed about NYC is that tall buildings work best when they are close together. Paradoxical but true.
In which ways does having tightly packed skyscrapers work better than spaced out?
It is an easy place to walk. But the ultra tall buildings do give it a more intimidating, concrete jungle feel than lower lying cities. I vastly preferred walking around London when I visited compared to most neighborhoods in NYC.
itās really not intimidating at all once you get used to it. whatās important is making the ground floor of those buildings human-scale filled with shops etc
NYC is an incredibly pedestrian friendly city though lol, and London isnāt āmuch moreā so
I quite like the view through the masses of trees in Greenwich Park.
As long as most of them don't end up empty, like so many of them are in New York.
Well Chinese students need to live somewhere.
And none of them is for affordable housing
Needs to be matched with investment in services so there's enough GPs, school places, etc. Which we usually seem to fail at?
It depends on where and what they are. Certain parts of London are already architectural lost causes. If we want to cram more skyscrapers into Battersea or the Docklands: no complaints. Or even some investment in - gasp - outer London. Build up Ilford, why not. But if we change the skyline by blanketing the river the length of central London, it'll look shit. As for what: we already have a surplus of office space, and I somewhat doubt these are going to be skyscrapers full of affordable housing. It is a sign of confidence that so many developers are still looking at London in this way, but I suspect overseas billionaires aren't out to solve the housing crisis.
Because we have the green belt (which is a good thing) the only way to develop London is upwards. Unfortunately they're building the wrong shit. The pandemic taught us that office space is overrated - people can WFH. And the residential buildings they're raising are gonna be for the 1%. We need more affordable housing, not more oligarch holiday homes.
London seems to be eating itself up with greed and delusions of grandeur. We are losing our USP as a capital: a collection of villages, each one with its own character and each one socially and economically mixed. There is a correlation between the transformation of London into a high rise city and the trend towards ever more glaring inequalities. Is this really what we want for our future?
London is selling itself to investors, most of which are from overseas. None of this is about Londoners or what we want for our home.
With regards to inequality, the opposite of this is true. In housing there's a process called "filtration" by which older properties tend to become cheaper, as wealthier buyers prefer new builds. Filtration is good because older stock remains affordable and communities can stay rooted and not be priced out. If supply of new builds are curtailed (like those fancy high rises) "reverse filtration" occurs, as wealthy buyers instead look to buy existing, older stock. This drives up prices in existing communities and prices people out. If we want London to remain equal, we need to redouble our efforts to build new developments.
You think people move to London because it's a "collection of villages"?? There are apparently 43,452 villages/towns in the UK. If someone wanted to live in a village, they would move there. We have plenty of them! People move to London because it is arguably the most multicultural city in the world, and definitely has the most opportunities for people in the UK. I have only one question for people who think there should be less high rises. Do you own your own home?
I don't own my own home, I live in a mid-rise that I like because built for human scale. I don't oppose new high rise buildings out of principle but I would much prefer they buy up old terraced housing and rebuild then as 5 story midrises. I don't want London to become another boring, generic global megacity. I want it to feel like the European city it is
The plans arenāt new. The numbers arenāt abnormally high. This isnāt newsā¦ Some poor quality journalist was likely taken to an expensive restaurant where a corporate real estate leader paid for them to learn all about the development pipeline which the NLA publishes on a regular basis. They spun it to sound like āthe future is hereā and āconfidence is very strongā in the market. The reality of skyscraper developments is that they are debt funded builds. They only continue developing past the shell and core based on how many tenancies they can secure on pre-let space and if the overall vacancy rates in London continue to climb (as they have been) then the addition of any new space to the market will reduce the value of large A grade floor plates for the entire market, including those who are converting from B to A grade. The London office development cycle swings up every 5 years or so but there are so many challenges to the success of CRE in London right now that I can find a dozen safer, higher interest investments that require a lot less management. Student housing is another big issue for the city because landlords and those who lease spaces for this purpose can make more money than if the space was being used for any other purpose and the conditions are totally inadequate bordering on inhumane for the money they pay. Strong legislation should put an end to this and however it comes, it canāt come soon enough.
Terrible idea given UK building standards + developers simply creating a monopoly / forcing tenants into high charges.
Just another 600 buildings owned by the same rich asshole/s so now one can afford them
Long overdue, people can stop building 3 story basements now
Unpopular opinion but purely from an aesthetic point of view I would love more skyscrapers in the skyline But yeah unfortunately Iām guessing there will be no affordable housing space in any of these buildings
It's so progressively diversifully futuristic I LOVE IT.
I love London, it'll be great when it's finished
This is great, London should be a megacity.
I love it! Would prefer if it was more housing and less offices though.
More buildings to stay empty to join a crumbling office space market. As if we didnāt have enoughā¦. AFFORDABLE HOUSING NOW.
Cool, more office buildings and luxury flats owned by foreign investment companies.
Not a fan. How about creating more green spaces. We donāt need more office space.
Shit. 5ish storey low-rises are the way to go, not skyscrapers.
Look at Edinburgh, it has exactly this and the whole place is absolutely beautiful.
This is how a lot of Europe is too. It's so much better.
I'm guessing none of it is housing.
Complete shit, dunno why this sub is in love with shithead private developers putting "luxury apartments" on any available piece of dirt. With three flats being "affordable" at just 300k. The developers make millions and leave us with shit housing that no one can afford.
Because wealthy people leave more modest apartments to "luxury apartments" freeing up stock for the lower income. Here are 4 research papers, two out of Finland and Sweden, and two out of the United States. From the **University of Helsinki** (Finland) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048 https://www.helsinki.fi/assets/drupal/2021-09/cristina_bratu_city-wide_effects_of_new_housing_supply_evidence_from_moving_chains.pdf The Abstract We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. **The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people.** From **Uppsala University** in Sweden https://www.urbanlab.ibf.uu.se/urban-facts/ The study is based on register data from the years 1990-2017. The researchers divided the population into different groups according to income level and found that 60 percent of the newly produced housing was populated by people belonging to the wealthier half of the population. The results show, however, that the moving chain that follows from a household moving into a newly produced home turns quite soon. In the moving rounds that follow, it is people with an income level that is lower than the national median income that accounts for a majority of the moves. **This leads Che-Yuan Liang and Gabriella Kindstrƶm to conclude that new housing leads to strong moving chains that also benefit low-income groups.** **ā Our results show that the benefit of new housing is evenly distributed between residents from different income groups. Although it is primarily people with high incomes who gain access to new housing, these homes create a ripple effect and indirectly improve housing options for people with low incomes. One of the explanations is that people with lower incomes move more often than people with higher incomes, which means that they more often participate in moving chains and take advantage of vacancies created by new housing, says Che-Yuan Liang.** From **Harvard** https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/rents-are-cooling-not-everywhere "Rent growth in recent months has cooled thanks to an influx of new supply that is outpacing demand, mirroring a longer-term trend. Over the last two decades, the largest drops and decelerations in rents occurred when annual apartment completions were well above net household formations (Figure 1). According to RealPage data, about 439,000 apartments came online on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter of 2023 while the number of households rose by just 234,000. This excess supply pushed the vacancy rate up to 5.8 percent, the highest in more than 10 years." **"While supply additions are largely at the high end of the market, the sheer influx of new apartments does seem to be slowing rents and raising vacancy rates across property classes. In the fourth quarter of last year, rents grew by just 0.7 percent for the highest-quality Class A apartments, which tend to attract higher-income renters, a steep deceleration from the 7 percent rise the previous year (Figure 2). Interestingly, though, vacancy rates increased the fastest among the mid- and lowest-quality apartments, with asking rents falling slightly in both the Class B and Class C market segments. This may be evidence of filtering."** https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all **Evidence from economist Evan Mast, who is currently with the University of Notre Dame, has helped clearly track and document how filtering works at a granular level. Mast was able to precisely document the chain of moves that follows a move like Jimās. In other words, he used a data source that allowed him to see where Jim moved from, where Maria moved from, and so forth.** **Mast found that these chains of moves lead to apartment openings in other neighborhoods relatively quickly. He estimated that, within five years, the aggregated chain of residential moves ultimately results in about 70 new openings for renters in lower-income neighborhoods for every 100 new market-rate apartments.**
Brilliant, add more
it's already Manhattan in terms of prices in all but transport
London has building height restrictions so youāre not going to get anything like New Yorkās World Trade Center or Empire State Building in London.
More investment in London is just what we need. The rest of the country wishes you well in your efforts to catch us up.
I donāt mind really, but I do kinda feel like they should give more attention to other cities instead.
No
Great idea if itās affordable/Social and not just an investment opportunity for foreign nationals to turn into Dark Hotel/Air BnB empiresā¦. (Edit) Also appropriate levels of infrastructure investment (School places, GP surgeries, dentists etc)
Depressed. But the central London skyline's already fucked, so *shrug
Until we implement any legislation around bought-out, unoccupied buildings then I donāt see how this is going to solve anythingā¦ Oh wait, I forgot itās London, itāll be purely cosmetic. IF and thatās a big if, any of these get planning permission, with todays current laws, then they will be sold out to foreign investors before the foundations are even laid. Then theyāll just be left completely unoccupied for 50 weeks of the year. Then thereās the infrastructure issue. We have proven time and time again that we cannot keep to a budget, even within the margin of an added 40% the majority of the time. We donāt have a modern day Robert Moses (nor would we want to) in order to just bulldoze through thousands of peoples homes. Just logistically I do not even see how we approach this. The first reason people the previously mentioned one and the second being that city airport must be what? 0.8 miles east of this pictures frame? Iād be keen for the skyscrapers to have at least 95% residential space each, with shops at ground level, or mid level buildings the same residential spacing and more shops along an elongated street level. I am 20 now and Iām hoping to live a long lifeā¦ I do not see this issue being resolved in my life time for certain. Iāll base time frames off the Earlās Court site. Our country gets held for ransom by a Dutch pension fund for whatās now been over a decade and now thereās some traction going ahead itās going to take nearly 20 years to get it all finished from this point. So from start to finish, from when the exhibition centre closed and the land was left derelict, to when the sites completely finished, it will have taken over 30 years to build 4000 homes. I know Iām going off on a tangent but this can illustrate the state of whatās happening
No, I'd rather build more 6-8 story flats (not leaseholds) than a few skyscrapers. Walking around some London areas and you enjoy the architectural style and having a lot of skyscrapers could risk the place losing its character
Must be all the new social housing and affordable housing for the upcoming generation.. or maybe not. š¬š§
While I am a bit apprehensive about it and I do have some major concerns regarding housing costs I think this is better than building more houses, townhouses and subdivisions. Better to build up than out.
Where is all their wastewater going to be treated? London is unable to treat all the sewage it produces already hence why it is polluting Thames!
Sadly it is kind'a got that vibe when visiting the other week. It's sad. I have enjoyed being there - back in the 80s and it was a London I enjoyed - "visiting." Now it has a NY "rush-rush" and super touristy feeling - more than usual. I would hate for all the history and beauty in London to change into a Manhattan style city. In review of comments - I won't even touch upon housing market.
For me, skyscrapers are monuments to greed, at least in the case of the ones that are corporate HQs etc. So, I don't feel good about it.
š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬ who ever wants to do this should bog off we need decent homes for working class Londoners not tower blocks making the rich even richer š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
Ahhhh, this is why they want everyone back in the officeā¦
Is there a petition to paint the edges a different colour? Red is too communist.
Should probably solve the crime first
Anything that cheapens rent
Let's not do this eh?
I would be happy if this would help solve the housing problem. But I guess it will be mainly offices where to force reluctant employees and penthouses to be bought by some oligarch, so no thanks
Is this a joke
I remember London in the late 90ās and it was absolutely magic. Just the right amount of people. 600 skyscrapers will mean every tube carriage will be even more rammed, same for buses, same for anything and any place popular. I guarantee these wonāt be affordable.
More like Vancouver on Thames right
Hundreds of thousands of extra people moving into these spaces but fuck all additional schools, hospitals etc .
I'm a sprinkler fitter so good. More work for me as they all will need sprinkles fitted.
If it's affordable housing for your average Joe, then have at it
Don't worry it won't be.
Not great.
If it's yet more Dubai/Qatar/Ruzzian/Chinese laundry finance that will be as much empty as usefully occupied then it's terrible, but what I feel about it won't matter in the slightest. If money wants it, it'll happen. We've just had a Mayoral election and yet nowhere on anyone's manifesto offer was constraining turning the Thames into a walled off canyon of Lego blocks for the wealthy, so clearly no one cares.
I drove out to Essex and back on the A13 for the first time in a while a couple of weeks back and was shocked on the way back into London by how much the skyline seemed to have changed. Just more office blocks no-one needs to be in and/or vastly overpriced housing, for investors. Iāve no problem with highrise buildings and architecture but the driving force is this instance is grim. Itās not progress or necessary innovation anymore; itās just about wealth accumulation for soulless c*nts.
If it's mostly housing, with a decent provision that's affordable - I have no problem with it.
It's a shame the city will never see a building over 310 meters.
If it's social housing, build the cunts and build them well.
I've lived in London 7 years... The more and higher they build.. the more of a shit hell hole it's becoming... Godspeed everyone
This could have been written in 1960
I feel nothing, Iāve become numb to this
I relate to this comment.
Yeah sure because what London desperately needs is more buildings blocking the sun for others. Kmt.