[ccity88]

I grew up and live a short 5 minute walk from Battersea Power Station - I have some fond memories of playing in the (admittedly quite unsafe) industrial estate around that area. It's quite sad to see what it's become now; as much as I support the development of the local area, they had to add a bunch of shopping outlets, restaurants, and very expensive boutique outlets. It's completely antithetical to the local identity of the area - literally opposite a council estate. The area is essentially unaffordable and has transformed into a sort of camden/southwark esque hellscape of bourgeois gentrification. Everyone I know has been either priced out, or will be in the next couple of years. I anticipate having to move due to developers wanting to demolish this council estate - I get letters every day asking about private purchasing agreements.

[mmarq]

I’m not sympathetic at all with this idea.

They shouldn’t have built shops and restaurants because there’s a council estate?

On gentrification, if you own your flat then you have won the lottery, for its price is 8 times what it was 20 years ago. Similarly if you can use the so-called “right to buy”. If you are renting privately, you should get you MP to vote the abolition of section 21, which is an uncivilised law. That should sort out all issues related to people being priced out of the area.

[imajoredinecon]

> section 21

For any other Americans who were shocked British landlords could evict with 2 months' notice for any reason, I did some googling and it turns out section 21 _does not apply during your lease term_. It seems like a section 21-eligible lease in the UK is just like a US a month-to-month lease that requires 2 months' notice for the landlord to end. (For the Brits reading this unfamiliar with US leases, this is an eminently normal thing to have happen to a lease in the US at the end of its fixed term.)

Source: https://www.gov.uk/evicting-tenants/section-21-and-section-8... ("You cannot use a Section 21 notice if... the fixed term has not ended")

[rowanajmarshall]

This sounds about right.

On a fixed lease, the landlord generally can't kick you out. But when a fixed-lease ends, unless it's explicitly renewed, it automatically becomes a month-to-month lease which can be ended by the tenant with one month's notice, or the landlord with two months notice. In my experience landlords prefer to renew as a fixed-term.

[jlokier]

How would abolishing section 21 evictions sort out issues related to being priced out of the area for private tenants?

Tenants still have to leave when their 12 month fixed term tenancy ends (the most common type I've seen), if they receive an offer to start a fresh one at a raised price that's higher than they can afford.

[mmarq]

Contracts will be perpetual or will last decades, with rent increases linked to inflation. Tenants will be able to end their tenancies with 1-2 months notice, landlords won’t be able terminate a tenancy unless they have to move into the property or the tenant is not paying rent.

This is how renting works in Western Europe.

[lentil_soup]

Last time I rented in the UK it was 1yr contracts that I had to renew and hope it didn't go up in price. Is that not the case anymore?

[mmarq]

Nothing has changed since Thatcher, I was describing a scenario where the UK completes its westernisation process and abolishes S21.

[xnorswap]

Not quite true, they changed it a few years ago so agencies had to stop scamming both tenants and landlords out of massive fees (often charging both for the same thing) every time the contracts were renewed.

That and the tenancy deposit scheme overall has made renting a lot less stressful than it was a decade or two ago.

[Ekaros]

It really depends on country for Finland that is certainly not the way. 1 year contracts turning in perpetual ones are somewhat new standard, but this is by the landlord to protect their gains. Otherwise it is always 1 month notice from renter or 3 month in case of less than 1 year and 6 months for landlord.

[nly]

I really don't understand what the hate is with respect to Section 21. If you own property then you should be able to do whatever you want with it, whenever you want, provided you meet your obligations under any tenancy agreement.

As a tenant myself I have always accepted the possibility that my landlord could serve notice as my fixed term approaches its end. It literally says the landlord has the right to do so in the document I signed.

[jlokier]

For HN readers, section 21 eviction means a landlord can send a "no fault" eviction notice to their tenant at (almost) any time, and the tenant must leave fairly quickly (2 months), which is not long enough to plan around.

As a result, no tenant is secure where they live. I would guess most people who do not own property have had to move several times with little notice, usually to another area of town because it's not that easy to find somewhere else nearby at short notice. This can be particularly rough on families because it means the children must change school, and on people with care needs because their (typically unpaid) carers who live nearby don't live nearby after the move. And it's just generally shitty to be unable to settle into a community long term anywhere.

The move to remove section 21 in its current form (set the bar higher for a landlord who wants to reclaim the property), is a tenants' rights move. It's disagreeing with the parent comment that a person (or a corporation such as a pension fund) who owns properties should be able to do "whatever they want, whenever they want" because that results in unacceptably bad living conditions for tenants, who almost universally have no choice about being tenants, and no alternative type of tenancy available to them.

One of the most obviously questionable aspects of section 21, which would be easy to change without harming reasonable landlords, is that a landlord can evict a long-term tenant for no reason just to replace them with a different tenant, just because they feel like it. There is no requirement that the landlord intends to use the property for something else.

In practice, because these evictions are easy and common, sometimes they occur because the property agent (intermediary between landlord and tenant) feels like it, because it nets the property agent some extra fees to start a new tenancy. Sound unlikely? It happened to me a few years ago where I am currently living. It's only because I accidently met a representative of the landlord that we realised the property agent had lied to both of us, and the landlord intervened to let me renew!

[Ntrails]

I don't think many people would have strong objections to increasing notice to 3 months or something. But actually 2 months has never been a huge issue when i've been renting, and the idea that renting out a property for a non infinite period of time should be impossible is ??? to me.

I think one should absolutely be able rent out a flat for a year whilst working abroad. Or to rent out a house whilst saving up to renovate and move in. The ultimate irony is ofc that you can always just airbnb the damned things instead and skip all that pesky restriction

[jlokier]

> the idea that renting out a property for a non infinite period of time should be impossible is ??? to me

Nobody proposed that, especially for individual landlords with one property. However they do propose that a tenant can stay if there's literally no reason why not. Protecting tenants from unreasonable treatment, just like you have to make sure the electricity is safe, mould won't give them lung damage, roof doesn't leak, windows aren't broken etc.

> I think one should absolutely be able rent out a flat for a year whilst working abroad. Or to rent out a house whilst saving up to renovate and move in.

Under proposals I'm aware of, nothing would stop you renting out your flat for a year, or while saving to renovate. You aren't running a long-term housing business. You have a good reason.

Section 21 is when there's no justifiable reason. "The landlord doesn't like men who wear earrings / how you position the sofa / that you bring a girlfriend over at night / that you put up a shelf / you don't dust twice a week" type reasons, obviously not said or written.

Some landlords kick people out who ask for essential repairs (despite those being covered by the tenancy), as a sibling commenter said. Some corporate landlords want a certain "look" for the type of people in the property. Credit rating dropped? Getting old? Goodbye.

Try to think of older people who are settled and would buy if they could, forced to move every few years, have few choices locally, and daren't decorate and repair as they would like.

For some it means moving children to a different school where they lose friends and perhaps can't continue a key subject. Or moving far from their elderly parent's home, as I said. They can't lay "roots" in the community. And for the lower paid, moving costs months of discretionary income. That sort of thing is a huge issue and stressor.

Those burdens should only be imposed when there's a good enough reason.

> But actually 2 months has never been a huge issue when i've been renting,

It's not about the notice period. It's about being made to move, yet again, for no good reason. Summed up as "security of tenure".

(That said, in my experience it can take longer than 3 months to find a suitable new place. Once I was technically homeless (couch surfing) for a couple of months while hunting. I had the benefit of being single; imagine that with a family. In one town it took 35 viewings to find somewhere, and a lot of time off work. Many times I accepted a place, only to see it go to someone else who beat me to it.)

AirBnB is fine, if you can handle the work (it's hard work). Your wealthy guests will happily choose somewhere else if you run it badly. However if you want to run a business providing long-term housing to people who need it, there are standards.

[Ntrails]

> Under proposals I'm aware of, nothing would stop you renting out your flat for a year, or while saving to renovate. You aren't running a long-term housing business. You have a good reason. Section 21 is when there's no justifiable reason.

That is not how the white paper I read treats the situation. Maybe I misunderstood!

[mmarq]

First of all this state of affairs is unique to the UK, in continental Europe this section 21 business doesn’t exist and 99% of the population wouldn’t consider it a thing of a civilized country (because it isn’t).

S12 invalidates half of your tenancy agreement, to be precise it allows your landlord to renege on all their obligations. A window breaks and you want it to be fixed it? Bad luck, here’s your S21 and may the next sucker come in. It may not be a problem for you, but if you are poor and especially if you have a family, you may have to decide between living with broken stuff (that your landlord is being paid to fix) or being homeless. This is not a hypothetical, this is how millions of people live here.

[raverbashing]

The other side of S21 is for example Germany where you can't easily evict people from your apartment even if you want to live in it.

So yeah, while 2 months is a short time in some circumstances, allowing the contract to be terminated by both parties is an important aspect

Let's not do it like in Canada where you're pretty much forced to leave at the end of the contract or you renew it for a whole year (and in some cities, all contracts end on the same date oof)

[mmarq]

The German system is exactly what I would be aiming for. We should refuse the notion that renting flats is a business, especially as it’s intended in the UK, where it’s the less taxed than work. In addition, we should tax properties and use that money to cut NI.

[raverbashing]

"It's not a business" sure, then wonder why companies are managing ever more properties and private renters prefer renting it through AirBnb

I think there are points in protection but not being able to evict a tenant because you want an apartment for yourself (and no, in practice it can take even as high as 5 years) is simply ridiculous

[flir]

You've been locked into mobile phone contracts longer than that. Does that really seem reasonable for the roof over your head?

[LightG]

I'm not sympathetic with locals being priced out of their area.

Your analysis around that is incredibly simplistic.

[_dain_]

They get priced out because it's so hard to build anything anywhere else. The restricted places where development can happen, end up with all the pent up demand flooding into them. The solution is not to prevent building from happening, it's to loosen restrictions everywhere else. The planning system is in serious need of reform.

[lostlogin]

If you want to see what happens if you let people build what they want, have a look at Auckland, New Zealand. Low quality building on large sections spread over a vast area. High infrastructure requirements with low population density. It's not good.

[_dain_]

When you say "low quality building on large sections in a vast area" that makes me think of American style restrictive single-family zoning. And hey, looks like they had something similar until last year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/15/new-zealand-ha...

>Planning law has long been criticised for being restrictive, unwieldy and slow. It is blamed in part for slowing down housing development, entrenching single-house dwellings, and creating urban sprawl, which has implications for transport, infrastructure and climate change.

>Building a standard single-story house in New Zealand comes with a lot of paperwork, but trying to build a multi-storey or multi-dwelling development could tie someone up in regulatory battles for months or years, at great expense.

>If an area is zoned as a single-family area, the standard residence is a single house with a garden. Anyone wanting to build multiple dwellings, or anything other than a standard house, requires consent from the local council. Councils can reject the application for a whole number of reasons, including, for example, an unhappy neighbour about to lose some sunlight.

So it just proves my point even more. Left to their own devices, people do not naturally make nothing but low density low quality suburbia. It didn't exist until government zoning was introduced after WW2. Same thing happens here: the Deanobox is a product of a restrictive planning regime.

If you really want to see what happens when people are allowed to build, look at Tokyo. A first world megalopolis, that is also affordable. They understand the revolutionary idea that homebuilding has to keep pace with the growth in residents.

[lostlogin]

My brief search leads me to think Tokyo has strict building regulations - mainly due to earthquakes and tsunami risks. Am I missing something?

[mmarq]

> Low quality building on large sections spread over a vast area. High infrastructure requirements with low population density. It's not good.

This describes perfectly everything built in the UK before 2010.

[easytiger]

Don't understand this view. For a start clearing up the area to make it buildable cost somewhere in the region of £1bn. If you are harking back to a time when it was an undesirable wasteland I can't agree that that constitutes a better world.

Much of London complaining about gentrification is complaining that the postwar desolation of London was a good thing; because that's what they are "benefitting" from.

[mmarq]

Yes, that area was an obscene wasteland, right in front of that monstrosity on the other side of the river: Churchill gardens.

Before the power station was renewed, the only place with something to do in the entirety of the Wandsworth borough was Northcote road (and 15 years ago not even that).

[TheOtherHobbes]

The displaced people still have to live somewhere, even if the bougies like to pretend otherwise.

[lmm]

Everyone has to live somewhere. The idea that those who were lucky enough to be born somewhere that's become desirable are entitled to live there forever at low cost, while those who were born elsewhere can never be allowed to buy a home there, has always struck me as odd.

[KptMarchewa]

There's no "displaced" people if the space was unused for 40 years.

[ChrisKnott]

It wasn't even residential it was an industrial area

[pcrh]

I lived nearby for a few years many years ago.

While I appreciate the sentiments you express, I can say that the site was all but abandoned for many many years. For a while it seemed likely that the iconic towers would be demolished, as there was no economic case to be made for keeping them. So I'm glad they were saved, somehow.

Even so, I agree that the recent developments south of the river are rather soul-less. Areas such as 9 Elms and along the river towards Wandsworth are particularly lacking in visual or any other interest.

[_dain_]

What, so everything has to be rubbish just because there's a council estate next door? If the area had remained undeveloped, that would have just made everywhere else even more unaffordable, due to the reduced supply. London has to build.

I mean, you were reminiscing about playing in an abandoned industrial wasteland, so to hell with the "local identity". I'd bloody love it if this happened to where I grew up. You southerners don't know how good you have it.

[detritus]

This seems to be the case across much of London, sadly.

'Synthetic' is the word that comes to mind whenever I see these developments. Frankly, as much as the effort impresses me from a technical point, I'm content enough only ever seeing it from afar when I pass vaguely nearby on a train going south. I suspect I'll never actually walk through it.

Having 'argued' with people on HN about this sort of thing beforehand, I know that my view isn't exactly unanimous, so clearly some people like this sort of 'development'.

[jl6]

Synthetic is the right word. They are trying to package and sell authenticity. I just went to the website of the development. Sorry, the “village”. They’ve even got a “street food festival”.

I don’t really object to any of the commerce, but the fake brands and lifestyle are intense cringe.

[nradov]

Authenticity is a luxury for the privileged. Most people just want a decent place to live at an affordable price.

[_dain_]

Would you walk up to any of the people at that street food festival and tell them that what they are doing is "fake"? Why should they listen to you?

Are they fake people? Are they living fake lives? Do they not live up to your standards of personhood?

[jonwinstanley]

Unfortunately this is the way of the world. This is a major redevelopment and has cost hundreds of millions of pounds. To do it they take on huge investment, the investors expect a return so obviously they’ve built fancy shops, restaurants etc.

I understand that there are places where redevelopment has been handled more sensitivity but this area in particular has needed an enormous outlay to convert it such a primate area.

Hopefully within a few years it will start to gain its own identity and start again.

[mmarq]

> Unfortunately this is the way of the world. This is a major redevelopment and has cost hundreds of millions of pounds. To do it they take on huge investment, the investors expect a return so obviously they’ve built fancy shops, restaurants etc.

I always wonder what’s the alternative to fancy shops. Is it the usual English high street with store signs made of rotten wood? Cheap minicab companies?

> I understand that there are places where redevelopment has been handled more sensitivity but this area in particular has needed an enormous outlay to convert it such a primate area.

There’s nothing to preserve in that area. It was an industrial wasteland surrounded by council flats and dodgy pubs.

> Hopefully within a few years it will start to gain its own identity and start again.

Hopefully not, hopefully it will develop a new and better identity.

[stuaxo]

The template for most British town centres is terrible.

[detritus]

Quite. I suppose I'm ignoring the fact that London was developed in bygone years in similary large tranches that have eventually found their form.

[202206241203]

In a second-world country, they would just demolish the building and maybe sell some of the control room knobs on e-bay. It might be as good as it gets in terms of involving private capital.

I personally think that mid-century technological artefacts are underappreciated.

[SoftTalker]

Yes I love this era of technology. Just look at the photo of the control room. It feels like it's really scaled to be usable by humans. The large dials, levers and switches, all styled artistically as well as functionally. The natural light, marble walls, all the detail in the ceiling, floor, and woodwork. It looks like a very comfortable room to be in.

Compare to the more modern sterile industrial control rooms, windowless, cold, everything run on screens and keyboards, no sense of a connection with the massive machinery being operated.

[LightG]

The UK is a second world country.

[stevoski]

“Second world”: the former communist block consisting of the Soviet Union and some countries in eastern Europe.

[flir]

It's cold comfort, but gentrification isn't an end-state it's a process. Large parts of London have reached their soulless peak, and are going to start sliding down the other side of the slope. In a couple of generations they'll be filled with the marginalised again, and the cycle will start over.

[astrange]

The counterfactual to gentrification (no investment) wouldn’t help anyone; you’d just have some rotting empty buildings.

Though, what people call gentrification is often just younger people moving into an area replacing older people. So maybe you could fight it by building senior housing and whatever it is old British people like. Model trains maybe.

[OhyeahIfrgot]

My grandfather grew up in Battersea - just off Park Road - in the 1920s, and he told me that his first 'proper' job after leaving school was as a 'telegram boy' and that one of his first deliveries was to the base of the 'rear left' tower (as you look at it from the river) while it was still only about half way finished, to one of the stone masons. I have photos of him in his uniform and cap and its lovely to imagine him climbing up the scaffold to deliver the telegram.

[walrus01]

This is what happens when real estate developers and commercial landlord equity firms capture the interest and begin directing the activity of your local politicians.

The almost inevitable result is bougie commercialization of something into a bland market palatable shopping district. Look at the parts of NYC that are being gentrified for similar examples.

[gffrd]

East New York is the new LES!

[walrus01]

not to be confused with west new york, which confusingly enough, is in new jersey

[fumblebee]

I’m reminded of the (fantastic) documentary about a building I once lived in: Aragon Tower in Surrey Quays [1].

Since it was built in the 1960s, it was one of the tallest council estate buildings in all of London, but ~twenty years ago private developers bought it out and converted it into “luxury” flats. At the base of these flats however, is the notorious Pepys council estate, of which Aragon Tower was once a part of.

The documentary aims to shine a light on the disparity between the varnished lives of glossy marketeers and new residents of those in the “upgraded” tower, with the folks forcibly removed, and those in the Pepys estate with exceedingly hard lives.

Highly recommend.

[1] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4asu6x

[niffydroid]

Reminds of another documentary where something similar happened in Greenwich. Or maybe it was this one...

[fumblebee]

Very possibly! This is the Thames side of Deptford, so very close to Greenwich.

[MrsPeaches]

Not to mention that the view of the power station from Chelsea bridge is completely gone due to the development. Such a shame, it was one of my favourite views in London.