Green AM Darren Johnson has accused developers of “contempt for ordinary people” after an investigation with the Guardian revealed less well-off tenants are being forced to use separate doors in a growing number of London’s new developments.
In order to combat the capital’s housing crisis, Mayor Boris Johnson has set the target of delivering 55,000 “affordable” homes by 2015 (a target that he is expected to miss, for the second time). To achieve this target, London developments competing for planning permission need to contain an average of 50% homes that will be on the market at “affordable” rates.
Left, the luxury lobby of One Commercial Street, marketed to wealthy City workers. Right, the side-alley entrance reserved for affordable housing tenants. Photographs: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
The Guardian investigation found that developments are increasingly attempting to circumvent the resulting social mixing by creating separate entrances (dubbed “poor doors by papers in the US, where the trend began) for less affluent residents. Even lifts, bicycle storage spaces, rubbish disposal facilities and postal deliveries are often segregated in the “two tier policy” for new apartment blocks hitting the market.
Guardian journalist Hilary Osborne reported: “At one building bordering the City financial district, wealthy owners accessed their homes via a hotel-style lobby area, while social housing tenants enter through a side door in an adjacent alley alongside trade entrances.”
“In marketing information for another development currently under construction, would-be residents have been promised that the affordable homes will have a separate entrance, no access to car or cycle parking and that post and bins will also be divided.”
“As in New York, there are concerns that it is leading to increasingly divided communities.”
Greens in the London Assembly have consistently pushed for better housing provision for ordinary Londoners, whom Green Party politicians describe as getting merely “the crumbs” left over by rich investors.
Green AM Darren Johnson commented in the Guardian’s report: “This trend shows contempt for ordinary people, and is about developers selling luxury flats to rich investors who don’t want to mix with local people.”
He added: “The mayor and councils have been turning a blind eye to this for too long, they should simply refuse applications that have separate facilities or that refuse any affordable housing on this basis.”