Latest news with #housingreform
The Independent
16 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Labour rebel forces Commons vote amid fears of housebuilding reforms ‘wreckage'
Labour MPs have rebelled against the Government over its plans to override nature protections, amid fears its housebuilding reforms amount to a 'wreckage'. Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said developers will be able to pay into a new nature recovery fund to bolster conservation efforts, which he denied was a 'cash to trash model'. But North East Hertfordshire MP Chris Hinchliff forced a division on his amendment 69, which would compel developers to improve the conservation status of environmental features on their land before causing 'damage'. MPs voted to reject the amendment, with 180 in favour, 307 against, majority 127. Mother of the House Diane Abbott, Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) and Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) were among the 14 Labour MPs who rebelled against the Government. In addition to Mr Hinchliff, Labour's Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam), Richard Burgon (Leeds East), Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby), Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth), Clive Lewis (Norwich South), Rachael Maskell (York Central), Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East), Kate Osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East), Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill), Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston), and Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) also voted in favour of the amendment. Mr Hinchliff told the Commons that the fund was a 'kernel of a good idea', but added: 'The weight of evidence against how it has been drafted is overwhelming.' The money will help Natural England set up new environmental delivery plans (EDPs), which Mr Hinchliff said should come with a timeline for their implementation. He said the proposal will give 'ministers the opportunity to rescue something positive from the wreckage of this legislation, ensuring environmental delivery plans serve their purpose without allowing developers to pay cash to destroy nature'. He added: 'It would ensure conservation takes place before damage, so endangered species aren't pushed close to extinction before replacement habitats are established, and it outlines that conservation must result in improvements to the specific feature harmed, protecting irreplaceable habitats like chalk streams.' Mr Hinchliff had also called for a residents' right of appeal against green-lit large developments, if they are not on sites which a council has set aside for building, and new town hall powers to block developers' plans, if they have failed to finish their previous projects. Mr Pennycook had earlier said the 'status quo' for the environment and development was not working, and instead proposed reforms which he described as a 'win-win' for both. He said: 'The Nature Restoration Fund will do exactly as its name suggests. It will restore, not harm nature. It is a smart planning reform designed to unlock and accelerate housing and infrastructure delivery while improving the state of nature across the country.' He later told MPs: 'I feel obliged to tackle a number of the most flagrant misconceptions head on. 'First, some have claimed that driven by a belief that development must come at the expense of the environment, the Government is creating a licence for developers to pay to pollute. A cash-to-trash model, as some have dubbed it. In reality, the nature and restoration fund will do the precise opposite. 'I have been consistently clear that building new homes and critical infrastructure should not, and need not, come at the expense of the environment. It is plainly nonsense to suggest the Nature Restoration Fund would allow developers to simply pay Government and then wantonly harm nature.' Mr Pennycook said the money would be given to Natural England, which is set to get powers to acquire land compulsorily to put its EDPs into practice. Labour MP for Poole Neil Duncan-Jordan, who acted as a teller for the ayes to enable the vote to take place, criticised the Government's rhetoric, and argued it was 'too simplistic to argue that this is a debate of builders versus blockers'. He said 'there's no amount of killing badgers or red tape bonfires which is going to fix' what he described as a 'developer-led model' of planning, when housebuilders 'drip feed developments into the system, prioritising properties which maximise profit and are far from affordable for local people'. The Conservatives accused the Government of 'greenwashing'. Conservative shadow housing minister Paul Holmes said: 'While developers may cheer the ability to pay into a Nature Restoration Fund instead of taking direct responsibility for mitigations, we should ask, is this really restoration, or is it greenwashing?' Mr Pennycook said the new laws were needed to 'speed up and streamline' Labour's housing target of 1.5 million homes, clean energy goals and aim to approve at least 150 'major economic infrastructure projects'. Several MPs had called for swift bricks – hollow bricks where small birds can make their nests – in new builds, in amendments drafted by Labour's Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) and Barry Gardiner (Brent West), and Liberal Democrat housing spokesman Gideon Amos. At the despatch box, Mr Pennycook said that 'changing national planning policy is the more effective route to securing swift bricks as a standard feature of the vast majority of new builds', through a regularly updated set of planning rules. 'We are specifically giving consideration to using a new suite of national policies for decision making to require swift bricks to be incorporated into new buildings unless there are compelling reasons which preclude their use, or which would make them ineffective,' the minister said. 'This would significantly strengthen the planning policy expectations already in place, meaning for example that we would expect to see at least one swift brick in all new brick-built houses.'
Irish Times
a day ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Rent Pressure Zones: Pressure on Government as it proposes to link certain rents to inflation
There is intense pressure on the Government as it proposes to carry out an overhaul of Ireland's Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ) system which could see certain rents tied to inflation. Opposition parties have already heaped criticism on the proposals – due to be discussed at the highest level of the Coalition this evening – and the plans have met a mixed response elsewhere. Under the proposals, the current RPZ annual caps would not apply to new buildings constructed after a certain date and rents in the newbuilds would instead be linked to inflation. It comes as The Irish Times has learned that cost-rental tenants may benefit from lower rents in future amid discussion within Government on whether the Land Development Agency (LDA) should remain subject to corporation tax. READ MORE The LDA has opened a number of cost-rental developments for people who do not qualify for social housing. With private sector rents now exceeding an average of €2,000 per month, the lower cost-rental rents are in high demand. A potential tax exemption for the LDA is being considered by the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure. Coalition leaders are due to consider the separate proposals for reforming the RPZ system when they meet later today in advance of a final decision on the plans due to be brought to Cabinet by Minister for Housing James Browne tomorrow. Currently rent increases in RPZ areas cannot be greater than the rate of inflation or 2 per cent – whichever is lower. There is concern that RPZs have negatively impacted the level of private investment in new housing developments. The proposal to get rid of the RPZ cap for newbuilds and tie the rent level to inflation is aimed at increasing private sector investment to deliver more housing. RPZs should be continued until a comprehensive step-down plan is put in place — John Mark McCafferty of Threshold The current 2 per cent rent increase cap would remain in place for existing tenancies, though landlords would be able to change the rents between tenancies, which is currently not permitted. The changes to the RPZ system would be accompanied by enhanced protection for renters in relation to security of tenure amounting to a minimum of six years. There would be a restriction on no-fault evictions during this six-year period – a measure that will require legislation. The landlord would be allowed to reset the rent every six years to the market rate. Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin argued that the changes would create a 'four-tier rental market', with different rent-setting and eviction rules for four types of tenants depending on whether or not they live in RPZs, when their tenancies begin, and when their homes were built. He claimed this was 'utter madness' and suggested the changes would 'incentivise landlords to evict tenants in existing rental stock to avail of the ability to reset rents', raising particular concern over the potential implications for tenancies that began under rules in place before 2022. [ Will the new rental reforms work? Mixed views among industry figures Opens in new window ] Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne argued that without a no-fault eviction ban, lifting the 2 per cent rent cap would lead to increased evictions and homelessness. John Mark McCafferty of housing charity Threshold said that without RPZs tenants would likely face substantial rent increases, pushing them into financial distress and 'even possible homelessness'. He said that regardless of the next rent regulation steps, 'RPZs should be continued until a comprehensive step-down plan is put in place'. Trinity College professor of economics Ronan Lyons said that while the proposals were a 'qualified positive' step, there would still be some rent controls for newbuilds in the form of linking rent to inflation, which could still present some 'challenges' for investors. Irish Property Owners' Association (IPOA) chairwoman Mary Conway expressed concern at the potential for a 'two-tier market' with 'old rents versus new rents coming in'.
Globe and Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Toronto wrangles with a simple question: What is a multiplex?
Brendan Charters runs a 15-year-old design-build firm, Eurodale Developments, which specializes in custom homes. He is diversifying, like a growing number of Greater Toronto Area home-building firms, into multiplexes due both to demand and planning reforms intended to enable more missing middle-type housing. – But, like many contractors who have dipped their toes into this new (but actually old) market, he's come face-to-face with a slippery question: What, exactly, is a multiplex? According to the City of Toronto, a multiplex built in neighbourhoods zoned for low-rise residential can have up to four units. Council's planning and housing committee next week [June 12] will begin considering whether to stretch that definition, so multiplexes can have up to six units, with apartment buildings re-defined as anything with seven or more. However, as Mr. Charters and others – including city planning officials – have discovered, such calculations are anything but straightforward. Take the example of two semi-detached houses that could each become fourplexes. 'We're actually building one or two of these now,' he says. 'We slipped in before the City of Toronto started to say, 'Wait a second, these are duplexes. We can't fourplex them because they're semi-detached duplexes.'' In other cases, city planning examiners have deemed that such conjoined projects are actually small apartment buildings, which council has voted to allow in areas such as major streets but nonetheless run into opposition from neighbours and committees of adjustment. To confront these ambiguities, city planning staff will also propose additional categories – e.g., 'detached houseplexes' or 'semi-detached houseplexes' – to capture anomalies in the original multiplex bylaw, based on in-depth analysis they carried out on the first 222 multiplex applications submitted for approval (as of last summer). Yet another twist in this definitional maze focuses on the number of bedrooms in a given unit within a multiplex. At the same committee meeting, councillors will get their first look at a staff proposal to cap the number of bedrooms in a multiplex – a move that has left Mr. Charters wondering whether the city genuinely wants to enable more family-sized rental housing at smaller scales, per council's various missing-middle policies. 'When the planning department rolled this out to us as an industry, I said, 'What's the number?' They said there's a mathematical formula that's being devised. But I was also told one of our projects, that has a four-bedroom unit and two two-bedroom units, would be fine. The fear is that [such projects] would contravene the rooming house bylaw.' The city's attempt to regulate the number of bedrooms touches some tricky planning questions. While council has been pushing the development industry for almost two decades to build more two- and three-bedroom apartments in order to allow families with children to live in high-rises, the market reality is that condos of that size tend to be very expensive and difficult for young families to afford. What's more, demand for apartments with several bedrooms includes older people who are downsizing as well as students or unrelated adults who need to share larger apartments in order to afford rent. Yet when planning officials analyzed the first 222 multiplex proposals, they noticed a handful where each unit had six to nine bedrooms, which suggested that the builders weren't thinking about families. In effect, a single multiplex with four such apartments might have up to 20 to 30 bedrooms in total, making it for all intents and purposes a rooming house. The planning department's solution will be to impose a limit on the total number of bedrooms in a given multiplex, but allow the builder to decide how to distribute them among the units. Mr. Charters says he understands the city's desire to avoid inadvertently the development of rooming houses when there's already a formal process for licensing them. But, he adds, the bedroom cap 'is confusing for the marketplace. It creates another wrinkle of unpredictability for us.' The city's efforts to remove other obstacles to multiplex applications has also included a review of what happens with these kinds of proposals when they go to committees of adjustment. Since council began adopting more permissive zoning regulations in areas long set aside for detached houses, the committees have turned back missing-middle type projects, even if they generally conformed with council's goal of promoting 'gentle density.' With multiplex projects that have to pass muster with the committee of adjustment, city planners will now be expected to submit their professional opinions to help the members understand how such proposals fit within council's broader policy aims. Yet the roadblocks include perverse incentives created not by the planning bylaws but rather by development charges and the financial incentives council has adopted to encourage such projects. Development charges, which can run to tens of thousands of dollars, are waived for multiplexes, and deferred for garden suites and laneway houses. Some builders have sought to maximize the density on a lot by applying to build a four-unit multiplex with a garden suite in the back. But, according to architect Craig Race, whose firm, Lanescape, specializes in such projects, contractors who want to build both simultaneously can find themselves on the receiving end of large development charge fees. 'You're allowed to do both as of right in the zoning by law,' he says. 'But the way staff are choosing to interpret the development charge bylaw, they're forcing you to build them out of sequence.' In other words, the contractor must first build the multiplex, and can only then begin with the garden or laneway suite, even though it makes sense, logistically and financially, to do both at the same time. As Mr. Race says, 'It's extremely inefficient.' One small contractor, who asked not to be named for fear of jeopardizing an approval, found himself facing $400,000 in development charges because he'd tried to do both at once, thereby triggering levies on all five units – a financial burden that has made the project difficult to justify commercially. Mr. Race adds that there's a lack of consistency in how city officials deal with this problem. 'Some staff have been trained to watch out for that. Others have not.'
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Rents to surge £900 to pay for Labour reforms
Labour's rent reforms will add almost £900 a year to the average tenancy, a report has warned. Nearly half of Britain's buy-to-let landlords (44pc) plan to increase rents in response to the controversial Renters' Rights Bill, according to research by housing lender Landbay. The landmark legislation, due to kick in this autumn, will limit landlords to just one rent increase per year capped at the 'market rate' – the price that would be achieved if the property was newly advertised to let. Landbay said property owners were planning to increase rent by an average of 6pc, which would add £74 to the average monthly rent, or £888 a year. The survey also found that the majority of landlords (89pc) intended to raise rents in the next 12 months. More than a third (40pc) planned to increase rents by 3pc or more over the next 12 months, while over one in 10 (11pc) said they did not intend to put up rents at all. The Renters' Rights Bill will introduce new protections and rights for the 11 million private tenants in England by reforming the current system of renting. An end to fixed-term tenancies, longer notice periods, and restrictions on rent increases will give tenants more rights and landlords less control over how they manage their property and buy-to-let business. The bill is currently being scrutinised in the House of Lords. The Government aims for the reforms to receive Royal Assent by summer 2025, with implementation expected between October and December this year. The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) argued that the bill could force landlords out of the sector and push up rents if it is passed in its current form. Chris Norris, of the NRLA, said the 6pc rent increase figure was consistent with the NRLA's estimates that the Renters' Rights Bill would trigger rent rises of 3pc to 4pc above inflation. He added: '[The bill] is likely to affect tenants directly in many more ways than landlords. 'You have the prospect of tenancies becoming more risky, harder to end – and you have to wait longer to claw back arrears. 'Landlords will be pricing in that risk when setting rents.' A recent survey by Pegasus Insight showed that 37pc of landlords planned to sell a property in the next 12 months while just 6pc said they intended to buy. Rents in England rose by 1pc in May to £1,226, the highest level since October 2024, according to letting agent software firm Goodlord's rental index. William Reeve, Goodlord's chief executive, said: 'Although the pace of year-on-year increases is starting to slow… ongoing supply issues coupled with landlord jitters ahead of the Renters' Rights Bill means that rents remain on track to rise for the foreseeable future.' The Government was approached for comment.
BBC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Environmental rules reviewed for small housebuilders
Environmental rules that force developers in England to improve wildlife habitats could be eased under government plans to make it easier to build homes on smaller government is reviewing Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements, under which builders must compensate for the loss of any nature on housing say they are are considering how costs can be reduced for smaller housebuilders whilst also delivering habitats for proposals are part of a package of housing reforms to be set out by the Labour government on Wednesday. Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner wants to simplify the planning system to speed up house-building on smaller are plans to ease BNG requirements for minor developments of up to nine homes and give trained planning officers rather than councillors the power to approve have also suggested exempting sites of between 10 and 49 homes from a tax to fund the removal of unsafe government said smaller firms had seen their market share shrink since the 1980s, when small- and medium-sized builders delivered 40% of the country's homes."For decades the status quo has failed them and it's time to level the playing field," Rayner said."Today we're taking urgent action to make the system simpler, fairer and more cost effective, so smaller housebuilders can play a crucial role in our journey to get Britain building."The Conservatives said they had been pushing the government to do more to support small secretary for local government, Kevin Hollinrake, said Labour was "stripping councillors of the right to vote on local planning applications, concreting over green belt and withdrawing support for first-time buyers".He said Rayner would bring "higher taxes and less say over development in your community".Ministers hope these policy changes will help them reach the government's stated aim of building 1.5m new homes in England by for Budget Responsibility (OBR) figures released in March suggested housebuilding would fall short of the 1.5 million target, even with planning reforms previously outlined earlier this government argued that further reforms not factored into the OBR forecast would help it reach the year saw a record low for housing projects granted planning permission in England, with just over 30,000 projects given the go-ahead. The difficulty of hitting the house-building target has brought the impact of BNG into sharper became a mandatory part of the planning system in England in February as part of the 2021 Environment means sites have to be assessed and housing developers must commit to delivering a 10% net improvement in biodiversity that lasts over a 30-year month, the Home Builders Federation said the BNG had placed a "disproportionate burden on small and medium-sized home builders"."The home-building industry has embraced BNG and is committed to both increasing housing supply and protecting and enhancing our natural environment," Neil Jefferson, chief executive at the Home Builders Federation, said."However, if we are to increase supply alongside these new requirements it is vital to address emerging barriers to implementation, such as the insufficient resourcing of local authorities, shortage of ecologists, and inadequate national guidance."But the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of conservation groups, urged the government not to "turn back the clock to the days of damaging development".Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: "Exempting small sites would mean almost three-quarters of developments face no requirement to compensate for nature loss - let alone enhance it."These changes could leave the Biodiversity Net Gain system dead in the water and, with it, the government's main guarantee of nature-positive planning."The government is launching a consultation reviewing BNG and alongside this, is investing £100m in loans to help smaller house-building firms.
