Nine London Boroughs took the Mayor to Court to try to stop him raising affordable rent levels to 80% of market rents and to remove the right of the Boroughs to set local affordable rents.
The Mayor claimed that developers were being deterred from building new homes because of the variation of rent levels and of the level of defined affordable rents. They want higher rents across the board. The Boroughs wished to retain their freedom to respond to local needs and to stop their areas becoming unaffordable to those on low and modest incomes.
The Court ruled that although the Mayor’s strategy “may be open to legitimate criticism”, it was “plainly within the band of reasonableness.”
The judgement applies to developments where there is funding from the Mayor, so Boroughs, in seeking to ensure a broad range of homes will have to fight for the right to set local rent levels in developments where there’s no funding from the Mayor. There are likely to be more battles over affordable rents.
Since Boroughs have been stopped from building new homes, affordable housing built by the private sector as part of mixed developments of homes for sale and rent, has become the main route to provide homes for people on modest incomes. ‘Affordable’, as a relative, concept is a million miles away from the publicly built and rented homes of the last century which created homes for so many people on truly affordable rents. Londoners are now being priced out of their city as rents are raised to astronomical levels. It works for home builders but not for Londoners.
A full report on the court case is accessible at http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/court-rejects-bid-to-block-affordable-mayors-rent-policy