Kensington Resident Says She Will Leave

[trt]

if the Grefell victims move in to her building.

Cant say I blame her, the properties will devalue enormously.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4633644/Kensington-resident-away-Grenfell-victims.html

[Mamyalynne]

So the Independent has it all wrong?

There were never going to be any affordable housing in the development, well they want telling.

Maybe the planning docs have the answer.

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/idoxWAM/doc/Decision-1250347.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=1250347&location=VOLUME2&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1

[naomi24]

Mamyalynne, //There were never going to be any affordable housing in the development.//

Please don’t misrepresent me. I didn’t say that. I said that when those property owners bought their flats, they didn’t envisage that 68 of them – a high proportion of the whole, I imagine – were going to be allocated to social housing. Had that been the intention those flats wouldn’t have been vacant – they would have been allocated to people who required social housing long before the fire occurred – but they weren’t. They were on the market.

[Kromovaracun]

Naomi

Right. It seems a bit odd (even a bit malicious) to assume they have no good reason to be on London just because the media hasn't said anything about it...

[naomi24]

Krom, I can't help thinking you threw the 'malicious' in there simply to attempt to malign me - but if that's what you need to do to attempt to support your argument, that's what you need to do I suppose. If you're very lucky others here may well join you. ;o)

The fact is we must be practical. If there are empty properties in other areas there is no reason that they can't be allocated to those people who don't need to live in London where the housing shortage is, I believe, already quite acute. That would go a long way to providing homes for some of the victims, and hence in addressing their immediate needs.

[cassa333]

I watched one of the 'fly on the wall' documentaries about housing in London. It was a series I think.

They did as a matter of normality try to house them wherever there was accommodation. Some of that was in cities far away in Liverpool and Manchester. If they turned it down they were taken off the housing list.

[Kromovaracun]

But your whole point was that they should be relocated to other places if they have no legit reason to be in London. Which is an irrelevant thing to bring up unless one assumes they don't...

[naomi24]

Krom, I haven’t suggested assumptions be made – quite the reverse - and it’s not irrelevant when you consider that in the process of purchasing properties intended, up and until last week, for the private market, the local authority has, without the slightest consideration for the existing residents, at one fell swoop devalued their property enormously. As I said, solving one person’s problem at the expense of someone else simply isn’t reasonable – especially when there is an alternative.

[jourdain2]

Errrr........the world does not end out of London. (May be a surprise to some.) Some of these people may manage to integrate better when out of their communities. I'm thinking of how I found myself isolated in France - I had no option but to stretch myself and learn to belong.

[New Judge]

Been out for the evening so not read all of this, but I did read this:

“With respect NJ....shame on you, for what you are supporting is social cleansing.”

It’s no such thing. I don’t care who lives where. If I advocated moving people out for no reason because of their income or “class” or whatever that would be social cleansing. What I am suggesting is an attempt to reduce the scandalously high cost of providing housing for people. I can’t afford to live in Kensington (not that I’d care to) but nobody would help me to be able to do so. I don’t see any reason to provide such ludicrously high levels of support to enable people to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country. Companies and organisations needing staff to work in those areas should have to either pay their staff sufficient to enable them to do so or should have to provide some sort of subsidised housing for them. That way the customers of the businesses in the area will have to foot the bill. There is absolutely no reason why I should pay, through my taxes, to enable a shelf filler in Tesco Express in Kensington to live round the corner from their place of work.

There is also the issue that many of the residents in such tenements don’t need to live anywhere in particular at all because they do not work. There is no reason whatsoever why they should live in housing so heavily subsidised.

[Zacs-Master]

Isn't it the opposite of social cleansing?

[EDDIE51]

naomi, what would be your solution if you were head of a London council that overnight found it has to rehouse several hundred of it's tenants? That is what happened in Kensington and Camden! Remember most of these tenants work in the immediate area for the basic wage.

[Zacs-Master]

'Remember most of these tenants work'

Are you Sure?

[Quangoid]

"Kensington Resident Says She Will Leave"

Yes that will show the development not to tangle with you!

[vetuste_ennemi]

//As I said, solving one person’s problem at the expense of someone else simply isn’t reasonable//

Not reasonable? Disagree. If your instincts are tribal that's exactly what you do.

The word you were searching for, Naomi, is moral.

[Smowball]

I don't really know what the answer is, all I know is that there are a lot of children in the survivors who will still need to go to school and so they will need to be as local as possible.

[Kromovaracun]

//As I said, solving one person’s problem at the expense of someone else simply isn’t reasonable//

But "homeless and traumatised" is a far more serious problem than "less valuable house." Moving them outside London is not a real alternative if that is where they need to be.

The people complaining about their property values really need to realise that there are more pressing issues at hand.

[mikey4444]

If any more tower blocks are found to be dangerous, then there may well be 10,000's of people, 100,000's, suddenly needing homes, for the time being at least.
I think we need to be a little more charitable, and goes especially to the more wealthy amongst the Kensington rate payers.

[gness]

Oh no, Krom......we see now that surving a fire, being homeless and traumatised is nothing to the agony some folk will go through thinking their houses may drop a little in value......
And god forbid that we should try to keep these folk in an area they may know and with their friends and families.....
No.....lets ship them away somewhere where they won't scare and stress the poor well off folk......x

[naomi24]

v_e, //The word you were searching for, Naomi, is moral.//

I hesitated to use that word. As I said yesterday, “I suspect the reality would belie the claims of pious, - and distant - altruism. Easy to support - when you're not personally involved.” I wonder how many of the moral warriors here would be delighted to have their property forcibly devalued overnight?

Eddie, I’ve already offered my solution, but you know “most of these tenants work in the immediate area for the basic wage” – how? Does no one who works in that area for a basic wage hop on the tube or on a bus every day to get to work? And what about those who don’t work at all?

smowball, /I know is that there are a lot of children in the survivors who will still need to go to school and so they will need to be as local as possible.//

Education doesn’t begin and end in Kensington.

Krom, //if that is where they need to be.//

But do they?

Mikey, //I think we need to be a little more charitable, and goes especially to the more wealthy amongst the Kensington rate payers.//

Why? Is the responsibility of the more wealthy Kensington rate-payers greater than the responsibility of anyone else? You say “we need to be a little more charitable”, so I’m guessing you’d be delighted to have the value of your property slashed overnight. Go on – tell the truth. You’d be first in line to offer!

[Kromovaracun]

I find it extremely strange that people think it's fine and even desirable to treat the value of a property as equally important - or more important - than responding to a crisis and giving people who have been made destitute through no fault of their own a place to live.

To put it another way, I wonder how many of the "me me me" crowd would feel if their house burned down through no fault of theirs and their new neighbours began sneering at them and whinging about awful it was that they were bringing down property prices.