5 Affordable Housing Priorities for a new government
A good home is the foundation everyone should enjoy, a human right that too many are living without. As architects we recognise the role we can play in helping to improve housing through design, planning and advocacy. We have come together to demand that the next government do better. We are calling for positive change that will take a collective effort to achieve. Please join our campaign.
Architects' Action for Affordable Housing
1. Prioritise Affordable Housing to deliver growth.
Policies:
1.1 National Plan: Establish cross party working group to produce 20 year National Affordable Housing Plan, to increase supply.
1.2 Minister: Elevate the importance of Housing to a Cabinet position, avoiding revolving door of Housing Ministerial appointment.
1.3 Planning: Better resources for local authority planning departments and associated design resource, with higher planning fees, with a shared vision and mission to provide more Affordable Housing.
1.4 Reward growth: Incentivise the industry with higher grant rates for higher % of Affordable Housing in each scheme.
Outcome: More Affordable Housing built, delivering economic prosperity for all.
With each Affordable Housing priority we have 4 policies, providing 20 policies for a 20 year housing plan.
2. Link Net Zero and Affordable Housing policies.
Policies:
2.1 Link social housing supply to net-zero goals. All social housing to be designed to adopt RIBA 2030 targets (operational energy/embodied Carbon/water/health & wellbeing). Ensure new housing is planned around low carbon public transport infrastructure.
2.2 Introduce a decarbonisation hierarchy. Retrofit first. Promote passive measures to reduce operational carbon.
2.3 Finance: Link energy efficiency to stamp duty: more efficient homes = less stamp duty. Equalise VAT between new builds and retrofits to level playing field.
2.4 Create incentives for regenerative building material supplies (UK forestry).
Outcome: Deliver climate change commitments through Affordable Housing.
3. Build a resilient, fair and sustainable industry.
Policies:
3.1 Establish a green building knowledge exchange with international partners to develop zero carbon construction skills and technologies capable of adoption at scale.
3.2 Grow the workforce of tomorrow by reforming the apprenticeship levy to enable a new generation of skilled construction workers.
3.3 Legislate to ensure suppliers and freelance contractors are protected from exploitative contract and payments terms.
3.4 Support regenerative material production skills to increase local supply chains and a green economy.
Outcome: A modernised and skilled housing industry, capable of delivering 1.5m homes over 5 years and more beyond.
4. Create equity in housing supply.
Policies:
4.1 Reduce Right To Buy subsidy: Steadily diminish subsidy over term or parliament.
4.2 Planned approach: Develop regional spatial plans to generate employment where housing is affordable and sustainable energy infrastructure available. Ensure Integrated urbanism- prioritise sites with social infrastructure and employment opportunities included in schemes.
4.3 Regulate: Local Plans to mandate sites mix of type, tenure, development quantum, and to address specialist needs (later living etc) and to set Affordable Housing % as a requirement not a target.
4.4 Establish a Royal Commission for the Temporary Accommodation emergency.
Outcome: Fair and equitable housing provision, the right homes where they are needed.
5. Empower a self-build and community housing drive.
Policies:
5.1 Create tax incentives for self build homes (zero stamp duty).
5.2 Establish fund for government mortgage finance for self build homes.
5.3 Allocate public land for wider adoption of self build and community housing.
5.4 Provide specific funding for community housing and to incentivise multigenerational communities and homes.
Outcome: More community focussed housing developments, more direct involvement of local communities, greater diversity in housing supply.
Supporters
We are a group of architects with a passion for delivering good quality affordable housing and are acutely aware of the changes needed to deliver more and better housing.
Pitman Tozer Architects
Mae
Grounded
Assael Architecture
Mikhail Riches
Bell Phillips
HTA
Henley Halebrown
Levitt Bernstein
Alison Brooks Arch
Tate & Co
Haworth Tompkins
Maccreanor Lavington Architects
Mole Architects
5th Studio
vPPR Architects
Pollard Thomas Edwards
Haptic
Morris & Co
ZCD Architects
CarverHaggard
BPTW
Allies and Morrison
Formation Architects
Metropolitan Workshop
PRP
nimtim architects
Weston Williamson + Partners
FeatherstoneYoung
Heatherwick Studio
Frank Shaw Associates
Andy Matthews Studio
Pentan Architects
AOC Architecture Ltd
Lyndon Goode Architects
Adam Khan Architects
Urban Mesh Design Ltd
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Ash Sakula
Threefold
Sergison Bates architects
iceni projects
Collective Works
TYPE
Soft Cities
Singh Fudge Architects
Kind & Co Ltd.
Hoskins Architects
StudioUrban
Donald Moir Architect
Weston Williamson
Wendover Partners
Benjamin Wells Studio
Levitate
Tsuruta Architects
LSI Architects
Shepheard Epstein Hunter
Ossian Architects
Goldstein Heather
Design ID
Patriarche
TROLLEY studio
Jane Simpson Access
Ealing Matters
Fuse Architects
London Community Land Trust
XERA Homes Ltd xera.uk
Paddock Johnson Partnership
Pace Architecture
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Archio Ltd
Chetwoods
HBD
Erbar Mattes Architects
COSTA+WOLF
Marchini Curran Associates
Redloft
Edgingtons
SoundBuild
Ann Nisbet Studio
Oberlanders Architects
Re-Format Architects
Studio Act
BuroHappold
HMH Architects Ltd
Tooley Foster
Formative Architects
Busby-Cozic Ltd
Cob and thatch
Studio otto
BakerBrown Studio
Llowarch Llowarch Architects
coombes everitt architects
DLA Architecture
MEPK Architects
dRMM
Design Haus Architecture
Jonathan Hendry Architects
Urban Projects Bureau
spring-consultancy
Matthew Lloyd Architects
One World Design Architects
Spaced Out
DMWR Architects
31/44 Architects
HAL Architects
Smith Scott Mullan
one50studio
FA&D
grahamford architects
Ackronica Arquitetura
doandco studio
Cousins & Cousins
mha-architects
Mike McMahon Studio
polescuk architects
Broadway Malyan
CarneySweeney
Bell Architects
rixon architecture
XCO2
Buttress
Belsize Architects
Stolon Studio
Child Graddon Lewis
fosterperpatidou
DS2
Benham Architects
Arka Works
Rural Solutions Ltd
Neil Wilson Architects
GRID
Studio Act
daab design Architects
Harper Perry
Studio Weave
Proptech Analytics Limited
Collective Architecture Ltd
Quality of Life Foundation
Chapter-haus
Queens Cross Housing Association & Maryhill Housing Association, Glasgow
Urban Projects Bureau
Matthew Lloyd Architects
One World Design Architects
Sml Studio Architecture
Trevor Horne Architects
John Cooper Architecture
Ullmayer Sylvester Architects
Kirkland Fraser Moor
Barbara Weiss Architects
Reed Watts
&U studio
SKArchitects
Max Fordham
Levitate Architecture
Frank Shaw Associates
The Architects
Borough Architects
sJAM architects
MEA Studio
Civic Engineers
Wates Group
Herbert and Taylor
Modernist Estates
Forest architecture
Autor architecture
RCKa
Nick Willson architects
MH Architects
Gibson Thornley
Colin Johns Architecct
POD Architects
KR.eativ: Architects Ltd
Denizen Works
51 architecture
CMI Architecture
Danielarchitecture
SUSD
Collective Architecture
Wilson and MacGarry
Backdoor Housing Coop
Kelly Studio Architects
Hawkins\Brown
Abhra
vPPR Architects
Pentan Architects
Baily Garner Architects
Metashape Architects
Britain Remade
Fraser/Livingstone Architects
Proctor & Matthews Architects
Waugh Thistleton Architects
Wilson Gunn Architects
CZWG
Lucy Bullivant & Associates
Camlins
Hayhurst & Co
Brown & Wallace
Jonathan Hendry Architects
stretto architects
Lewis Hubbard Engineering
OURI Labs
Forest community land trust
Gort Scott
Hugo Hardy Architect
Hockaday Consulting Ltd
ECD Architects
meme architects
McGregor White Architects
Tasou Associates
The Parva Workshop
Alan Power Architects Ltd
Mawson Kerr
IBAVI - Balearic Housing Institute
HUTCH design
Avanti Architects
Fourthspace
GRID
South Facing
Architecture Foundation
KLH Sustainability
Cartwright Pickard
Failed Architecture / Loom
Human Nature
Michael Taylor Architects
Urban Radicals
Stitch
Jas Bhalla Works
TRA Studio
Cascade
sargeant-architects
Catja de Haas architects Ltd
Twentysix.
Devlin Architects Ltd
Gary Kellett Architects
NM Jansson Studio
SS4 Architects
Useful Projects / Expedition Engineering
Ksquared
London Forum of Amenity & Civic Societies.
Architecture For (the) Reasonably Ordinary (A.F.R.O)
K Bava Architects Limited
Wates Group
Lincoln Consult