Where can I live …?

People visiting a sales house on a new estate in Wales. Picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/foilman/

By Tamsin Stirling

Rising costs are all around us. Utilities, food, fuel and housing. A recent twitter thread started by Alice Gray on the cost of housing in Cardiff went viral. Alice tweeted:

‘Cardiff was an affordable city, it no longer is. House prices and rent have skyrocketed. Houses in Tremorfa and Splott, which would have been £160-180k at the end of 2019, are now £220-250k. A 1 bed flat is £800-900 in rent a month - in Cardiff?! But wages haven’t increased…    

I’m honestly so frustrated. I cannot find a place to live - rent or buy - in a city that’s painted as affordable. I have a relatively good job for someone my age and I can’t afford it, let alone those who don’t.’

Alongside the monthly cost of a mortgage or rent, other barriers to somewhere to live are increasingly apparent. Letting fees have been banned by Welsh Government, but instead many landlords and lettings agents are asking for huge amounts of rent in advance – up to 12 months in some cases. And some landlords that specialise in student accommodation see the, often astronomical, rents charged in the purpose built student blocks as a legitimate reason for increasing their rents. 

Cardiff Council has recently highlighted the housing crisis in the city. There are over 8,000 households on the waiting list and many more households have not registered on the list as they feel that they have no chance of being allocated a council or housing association home.    

The Council has its own building programme, Cardiff Living which will deliver 1,500-2,000 new council homes over a 10-year period and housing associations are also building across the city. Between the Council and housing associations, 439 new affordable homes were built in the city in 2019-20 (305 in 2018-19 and 303 in 2017-18). 

Affordable housing can also be secured through the planning system. Cardiff Council’s own policy states that on brownfield sites, 20% of any scheme should be affordable and on greenfield sites, 30%. However, while affordable housing is usually secured on greenfield sites, we have seen many reports of new housing schemes on brownfield sites going ahead with few or no affordable homes. Dumballs Road is the starkest example - 432 flats with no affordable homes, compared to the 86 required by the Council’s policy. In negotiating away affordable housing requirements, developers claim issues with financial viability – in a market where average house prices and rents have risen by over 10% in the last year. Welsh Government statistics show just 75 new affordable homes in the city provided through planning obligations during 2019-20 (67 in 2018-19 and 66 in 2017-18). 

 The number of ‘build to rent’ schemes being planned and built in Cardiff is increasing. One such scheme has just been launched by Packaged Living. Trade Street Gardens will offer ‘331 privately rented affordable homes for key workers and those on average and below-average salaries’. An email query asking for details of rent levels and service charges generated the response ‘as we are in the planning stages, it’s too early to confirm the details of the rents and service charges.’ A follow-up query asking how Packaged Living define affordability has remained unanswered. Schemes such as this which claim to provide affordable private sector rents are likely to avoid any planning obligation to contribute financially to social housing. How many such schemes will be granted planning permission in our city?  

There is undoubtedly a housing affordability crisis in our city. And our Council is consistently failing to use all possible mechanisms to secure affordable homes, particularly when it comes to residential brownfield sites in and around the city centre.    

Maybe this approach to affordable housing through planning should not come as a surprise. After all, Councillor Keith Jones, chair of Cardiff’s planning committee, has been quoted as saying that the amount the council asks developers to pay towards affordable housing is ‘aspirational and abstract’. This has to change. The Council’s affordable housing supplementary planning guidance needs to be a reality not an aspiration. There are too many people across Cardiff asking themselves ‘where can I live?’