Agenda item

10.08pm – Councillor Andrew Johnson moved, seconded by Councillor Harry Phibbs, the special motion standing in their names:

“That this Council notes the successful record of the Conservative administration in seeking to ‘Build a Borough of Housing Opportunity’ through:

·            The introduction of a new, fairer, and more transparent, allocations policy which gives greater priority to those eligible people who work or make a community contribution, which prevents those would-be applicants earning over £40,200 from joining the register, which introduces a minimum five year local connection criteria and which prevents those people not eligible for social housing from joining the register at all;

·            Fixed-term tenancies within the Borough, allowing the Council as a landlord to make better use of its housing stock and provide a flexible approach to delivering a housing options service;

·            A revised HomeBuy register of nearly 6000 for those who live or work in the borough who have a household income of up to £66,000pa, where top priority is given to existing council and housing association tenants, members of the armed forces and police officers, and

·            The successful lobbying of Government to increase the maximum Right to Buy discount to £100,000 and the proposals to introduce the Right to Buy Part which is supported by the Mayor of London in the draft London Housing Strategy 2013.

That this Council resolves to expand homeownership opportunities for local residentsby:

·            Continuing to work with public and private bodies to deliver thousands of new homes in the Old Oak Common, White City and Earl’s Court Opportunity Areas;

·            Increasing the supply of new housing for low cost homeownership using council land and assets;

·            Allowing higher earning tenants to be able to convert to a form of low cost homeownership at the end of their fixed-term tenancy;

·            Enabling a greater proportion of council tenants to own part of their own homethrough shared ownership including Right to Part Buy, a deposit fund or disposal under a Discount Market Sale (DMS) model, and

·            Creating tenure forms such as Discount Market Rent to enable would behomeowners to save for a deposit to purchase a DMS unit, thereby creating acycle of housing opportunity.”

Under Standing Order 15(e) (vi), Councillor Stephen Cowan moved, seconded by Councillor Michael Cartwright, an amendment to the motion as follows:

“Deletes all after the word “administration” in the first sentence and adds:

“… in delivering it’s distorted priority of agreeing more new homes for overseas investors than it has for local residents. The Council recognises that this has been detrimental and added to the current housing crisis. It notes that Conservative councillors have repeatedly voted against building affordable homes to buy and rent that “Londoners can afford” as they are required to do by the GLA.

The Council regrets the Administration:

·         Using mechanisms to allow property developers to duck out of their responsibilities to build affordable housing to buy or rent

·         Consistently arguing at Planning Applications Committee meetings that it needs to put property developers’ profits over the concerns residents have over developments that share a lack of affordable housing, being too dense, too tall, too much massing, and out of character with or detrimental to many Borough neighbourhoods

·         Offering a third of all the Borough’s council estates for demolition to property developers here in the UK and at conferences in Cannes on the French Riviera

·         The cabinet member for housing telling a housing magazine in 2006 that the Conservative Administration regretted the Decent Homes programme and had been “Saddled” with it.

·         Record increases in council rents and service charges

·         Their simple caricaturing of all residents of social housing as “locked in a dependency and expectancy culture”

·         Lobby for the ending of genuinely affordable rents and the introduction of near market rents at 80% of market value

·         Its failure to take imaginative policies to increase home ownership, tackle overcrowding, prevent homelessness and make a positive impact on London’s housing crisis.

The Council notes the Shelter report that states how the average twenty something now has a less than 15% chance of getting onto the property ladder, and resolves to:

·         lobby Government to increase opportunities for home ownership

·         Adhere to planning guidelines that make more homes available for residents to buy

·         Genuinely expand homeownership opportunities for local residents

·         Lobby for new forms of home ownership that offer all tenants the opportunity to attain an ever increasing share of their property

·         Prioritise building homes “Londoners can afford”.”

The amendment was put to the vote:

FOR                            12

AGAINST                   25

NOT VOTING            0

The amendment was declared LOST.

The substantive motion was put to the vote:

FOR                            25

AGAINST                   12

NOT VOTING            0

The motion was declared CARRIED.

10.09pm – RESOLVED:

That this Council notes the successful record of the Conservative administration in seeking to ‘Build a Borough of Housing Opportunity’ through:

·            The introduction of a new, fairer, and more transparent, allocations policy which gives greater priority to those eligible people who work or make a community contribution, which prevents those would-be applicants earning over £40,200 from joining the register, which introduces a minimum five year local connection criteria and which prevents those people not eligible for social housing from joining the register at all;

·            Fixed-term tenancies within the Borough, allowing the Council as a landlord to make better use of its housing stock and provide a flexible approach to delivering a housing options service;

·            A revised HomeBuy register of nearly 6000 for those who live or work in the borough who have a household income of up to £66,000pa, where top priority is given to existing council and housing association tenants, members of the armed forces and police officers, and

·            The successful lobbying of Government to increase the maximum Right to Buy discount to £100,000 and the proposals to introduce the Right to Buy Part which is supported by the Mayor of London in the draft London Housing Strategy 2013.

That this Council resolves to expand homeownership opportunities for local residentsby:

·            Continuing to work with public and private bodies to deliver thousands of new homes in the Old Oak Common, White City and Earl’s Court Opportunity Areas;

·            Increasing the supply of new housing for low cost homeownership using council land and assets;

·            Allowing higher earning tenants to be able to convert to a form of low cost homeownership at the end of their fixed-term tenancy;

·            Enabling a greater proportion of council tenants to own part of their own homethrough shared ownership including Right to Part Buy, a deposit fund or disposal under a Discount Market Sale (DMS) model, and

·            Creating tenure forms such as Discount Market Rent to enable would behomeowners to save for a deposit to purchase a DMS unit, thereby creating acycle of housing opportunity.