Housing crisis: Could London learn from Europe? - BBC London

London has a housing crisis but it's not alone so do other cities have an answer I went to Amsterdam Berlin and Vienna to find out [Music] when you think of Amsterdam houses you might conjure up images of these like London the city has previously had difficulties building enough homes and when it did it started encouraging its citizens to self build so she'd London do the same only a few years ago this area was full of warehouses until it was sold cheaply to self builders like Thomas annually if we're going to do this adventure then we want to go as well experimental so it was never meant to be a standard house the idea is that you live in your own little climate so you built a glass house and it never rains there's no wind and for eight months a year it's warmer than 18 degrees it may look beautiful but it's not been easy we moved in three years ago and it was not finished so we didn't had electricity water toilet whatever we had a moment when friends only a scarce how's the house doing it's something others on the street can understand to their next-door neighbour vim has been planning and building his home for seven years in the beginning it was really like Driftless like this very joy joy and we're gonna do this and it's gonna be beautiful and then comes the money and your energy you know you your own I blew my new out for once I had to sit down for two months and I'm all for the self building and have on control of your life I want the whole city to be like that until the financial crash amsterdam didn't have much self building similar to london now it encourages it saying it can be cheaper helps build communities and creates more interesting architecture since 2011 there have been plots for 2440 self built homes sold here seventy percent of this new plot of land is just for self building and the city insists it can be for anyone the funny thing is self building is not for just one group it's scattered all over the difference inc so you have very rich people there's an island over there I think it starts with a million euros but you also have these housing cooperatives where people will organize themselves and rent out social housing to themselves just outside the city it's been done on a much bigger scale this is booster world farmland that's now been set aside for 15,000 self built homes this is a much more extreme form of self building although you can pretty much design whatever you like you have to put in your own water your own electricity you even have to work with your neighbors to build the road you have to learn things about the entire construction and you have to talk to your electrician you have to talk to your installer you have to have talked to your contractor you have to make sure that the funds are there when you need to pay beautiful here that hasn't scared off new residents but advocate of self build so the biggest hurdle for doing it in the capital is getting people used to the idea of doing it themselves the architect behind this project says he sees the way the world is looking at building homes changing I see an upcoming market or off say critics people that are more critical about their environment and that will have more ideals and it has to do with the acceptance of a younger generation basically to do more themselves this might seem a world away from London and maybe it is in this extreme version but from October this year UK councils legally have to show that they're doing more to consider self build homes soda Thomas and Uli's have any advice for potential self builders in London think twice no no no no that's too negative but it will take time I think that's the most important thing you should be aware I think that you still enjoy what you're doing because it's a great thing to do build your own house I still go around in the house and I'm getting a happy Berlin home - 3.7 million people like London rents here are rising - and people are worried which has led some to protest like this we want it to be loud and nice so not uncomfortable or anything but we just wanted to raise awareness and bring people together in a community this used to be a cheap area to rent but it's been steadily rising so that renters like Alfred are now paying double the original price well we live out here 33 years and we stay here in this flat well our children grew up here you can see although Alfred's flat isn't currently under threat he still doesn't feel safe what would happen if they increase your rents here well I think we have to go some day but we are old now yes but we have to fight as well for the young generation Berlin does have rent control and it's called mid-priced Renza it means that landlords cannot charge new tenants more than 10% above the local average and for some people it worked like Isabel incluye they realized their rent was much higher than their neighbors when they moved in they were nervous about challenging their landlord we were knowing about the me price Brenda I think from the beginning but we were quite not sure of you take action you really think that you're pushing your landlord to a cliff so it's really not not yes and you want to be a nice person they're private tenants organization negotiated their rent down by nearly 40 percent looking around you always feared that if we are paying too much and it said just rung and somehow in January Mayor Sadiq Khan said he wanted to look at ways to introduce rent control for London it's not something his office has control over at the moment after several years of rent control here the Berlin mayor has now taken matters a step further in fact plans for a rent freeze for five years of British didn't keep desiring demarked filters eyeliner fish there are many policymakers who believe the market will regulate itself that demand and supply will somehow work itself out without further intervention we've seen around the world that's not working we are all facing the same challenges I think this is an issue in London Amsterdam Barcelona and Berlin I'm stunned and Barcelona and Bailey in rent control is clearly on the political agenda here in Berlin but despite the reassurances made by the man and the different schemes that are on offer some tenants are worried that they will be priced out of the city and some would say they're right to be worried Alex Romo is a TV investigative journalist he's gone undercover to see the problem for himself sometimes you have about 100 200 also 300 people sometimes had to be informed the police because so many people wanted to have a look at at the at the flat why is it so busy yeah we don't have enough cheap small flats if there are simply too few flats available it means that some people are left behind politicians are still finessing rent control here so the long term impact isn't yet clear London will be watching to see what works and what doesn't Vienna population around 1.9 million and over 60% live in housing that's been subsidized by the city some of the homes don't look like other social housing so this is out earlier it was built 40 years ago and the builders who built it said the idea was to make luxury that was affordable to everyone around nine thousand people live in these six blocks for this our garden including Brigitte and her husband Heinz who was impressed from the moment he moved in 40 years ago it was absolutely fantastic you have terraces on East and on the west and have a few to the huge over the city it was absolutely impressive living across from them of our old friend Inga and Manfred who moved in as the blocks were being finished a very social life the all the doors were open and the whole the hallways were open and we were dancing on the hallways with people from the next stairs and next years some twenty or thirty people in the first ten years it was it was really awesome yeah it changed with the children it changed there is no better housing somewhere that's that's the ultimate here both families pay around a thousand euros a month for their flats and all the amenities the community is builded from the from the leisure time activities and there's quite a few to choose from the complex has a model airplane Club tennis courts a musical theatre club its own church indoor pools and six rooftop outdoor pools with swords unsurprisingly there's a waiting list for the flats currently around five years student money and her husband a Clements who works as a social worker moved in just under a year ago although money grew up here she's Hynes in Bridget's daughter because I was born and raised here and I wanted my kids to have the same as I had we pay 750 euro for 19 square metre flat and I don't think that it's anywhere else in Vienna like affordable like this across Vienna you can be eligible for subsidized and city-owned homes if you earn just under forty six and a half thousand euros as a single person or just over sixty nine thousand euros as a couple it means there's a mix of different incomes living in these homes do you think it's right that people who earn more money are subsidized in their housing what's the question of the question because if you put a marker on each head how rich or how poor is a man it's very very bad and stupid some blocks like out earlier were built by housing associations using cheap loans from the city government on the condition of controlled rents but Vienna also has a hundred year history of building itself as does the UK under the Social Democrats the city built more than 64,000 apartments in the 15 years from 1919 like the enormous complex of Karl Marx Hoth which stretches for over a kilometre in the north of the city the main idea here in this building was that all the apartments they had running water which was a big improvement and they also had open spaces and also a lot of community facilities for Vienna's government spending on housing is still a political priority which sometimes includes having more rooftop swimming pools couldn't that money have been better spent on building more homes those who've warned us if you mention you have on on warfarin see mostly we try to make sure people like living in their homes we don't simply want people to be able to afford somewhere and just have a roof over their head sometimes you just need to pull on the rooftop or a sports facility to make the neighborhood high-quality living the cost is high six hundred million euros a year for Vienna's population of less than two million even with this budget not all blocks are like out earlier all Karl Marx off there are some municipal housing estates that are quite rundown so there can be some problems social problems vandalism and the upkeep of the buildings so it's not all of this very high quality and the city of Vienna is trying very hard to keep basically the social fabric in place and integrate newcomers social housing in Vienna isn't a utopia but its century-old model shows the demands successes and limitations of what social housing Caroline Davis BBC London News Vienna [Music]

Channel: BBC London

Views: 516,124

Keywords: BBC, London, News, Housing, crisis, europe, solve, self, build, home, building, learn, vienna, berlin, amsterdam

Id: Nkrl4FR8LZY

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bringeroftruth92]

Please don't try to learn from Amsterdam, thanks.

[u/WongGendheng]

It fascinates me how people see Germany outside of Germany. These „rent caps“ aren’t working for shit and people are so mad at politics and housing companies for not being able to afford living in or near Berlin without paying at least 50% of your income for rent.

[u/Babo36]

Berlin rent caps just dont work.

[u/Maakolo]

None of those strategies works because they don't address the fundamental reason for high prices: Housing shortage. The shortage is propagated by highly restrictive zoning laws. City planning is a scam.

[u/StrawberryWodka]

London is already trying a new strategy to free up existing housing: Brexit.

[u/fyreNL]

Lol, using Amsterdam as an example of 'how to improve'. Please don't do that.

[u/Miserygut]

The UK deliberately decided not to continue an otherwise successful method of housebuilding back in the 1980s. This was a conscious choice not to build housing to increase profits for the private sector at the cost of everyone else.

Everything is working as intended. Why would we change it?

[u/matti-san]

I think London needs to build up more than it does out. I know there are issues with protected sightlines and whatnot and but it's ridiculous how large it's becoming. Not only that - where do you draw the line? There's an argument that the current boundary isn't big enough and it should increase by something like 30% - which is huge. At this point, London is just the borg, and it slowly assimilates South-Eastern England towns and cities into it.

[u/Werkstadt]

Could London learn from the rest of Europe.

FTFY