Lower Rents Now Campaign

[Josherick3]

Hello,

Just a quick message about the Lower Rents Now campaign. We're a student group opposing the University's plans to replace 252 affordable beds in fife park (£55.52 a week) with 777 needlessly expensive luxury beds (estimated at £97-130 per week.) The amount of affordable accommodation in St Andrews is pitiful as it is, recently this town was found to be the most expensive town to rent accommodation in Scotland*. For an undergraduate population close to 6000, the proposed building work would leave less than 250 reasonably priced beds.

Quite apart from a moral obligation to make its housing affordable, the University has a legal obligation to the Fife council to provide 30% affordable accommodation and it is not even close to providing this at the moment. Indeed, the University even went as far as to petition the Scottish Government to change the law and redefine the word "affordable". This shows that they understand the extent of the problem and are trying to weasle out of their responsibilities rather than meeting them.

To find out more about our campaign, and how you can oppose the planning application, please visit our website: http://lowerrentsnow.org/index.php

It doesn't take long!

Thanks.



*http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2422057.0.0.php?act=complaint&cid=1823218

[Ewan Husami]

Have you contacted the Union about this?

[Jono]

From what I understand this is a campaign spawned from dissatisfaction with the way the Association was dealing with the issue.

[Admin]

But as Ewan asks - has the original poster contacted the Union about this? Better to have a united front than lots of little groups that the uni can swat away like flies.

[Jono]

I agree.

Splitters!

[David Bean]

Certainly lobbying the SRC would be the most effective way of altering the Association's attitude to a given situation, or at least would be if anyone ever bothered trying.

Something to think about when you're campaigning, in whatever form it ultimately takes: what's your proposal? Clearly Fife Park will need to be replaced pretty soon with something, so if the Association managed to cook up some alternative scheme to present to the university, or at least some general principles, this would be much more effective than simply saying 'we don't like what you're doing, so please do something else, although God alone knows what'.

Another issue it's worth looking into is that the university's business model would seem to rely upon income from conference and other such rentals during the summer, which requires high-specification facilities that naturally command higher rents. Though people have griped about this in the past, I haven't really seen any concerted effort to challenge it - another reason, by the way, why Association involvement will be paramount to any such effort, because the people who have the leverage to make this sort of argument, either to the key players or directly on Court, are the President and the SRC. If the Principal asks the President what the deal is with a certain campaign, and the President says that the group is independent and the Association knows little about it, the Principal would be perfectly within his rights to dismiss it out of hand.

[munchingfoo]

The University has done nothing but dismiss the union's position out of hand.

This campaign appears to take the issue to the Council level where there seems to be a blatent breach of the planning regulations.

I think the council planning department have a stronger voice than the union in affairs of accomodation, where the union have been piss week and mostly useless.

[Haunted]

Clearly Fife Park will need to be replaced pretty soon with something

The interiors perhaps could do with a patch'n'paint, but the buildings are sturdy things. Brick and mortar doesn't decay that fast. There's potentially decades left in them yet.

Another issue it's worth looking into is that the university's business model would seem to rely upon income from conference and other such rentals during the summer, which requires high-specification facilities that naturally command higher rents. Though people have griped about this in the past, I haven't really seen any concerted effort to challenge it

I personally would be very interested to learn what happens to the considerable amounts of money the university earns during the summer (DRA alone can make upto a £1,000,000 a week). Is this money ploughed back into services that will benefit students during term time? Perhaps subsidise the running costs of the buildings themselves?

What's also interesting is how the university constantly tells us that students all want underfloor heating and en suite bathrooms. Not any students I know. Are they pulling this information from the surveys they used to send out? I find it very hard to believe that this was the majority opinion of students. Anyone with any insider information?

[munchingfoo]

It was, but the questioning in the surveys was very leading. I can't remember the exact wording but the quetions were something along the lines of "If you could have one feature in your room what would you like

ensuite
underfloor heating
minibar
lolz"

Although the bottom two are obviously jokes the questions about prices and features were kept separate so that the figures from the features could be used in their favour.

Of course people want ensuite bathrooms. However, they won't want them if they have to pay £120 for the privelage!

[orra]

Juno, Ewan, David, Admin et al,

There has been some degree of the Lower Rents Now (LRN) campaign working with the union. I believe the "1000 signatures for 1000 beds" was an idea from LRN which was brought to wider student attention, and got 1000 signatures, with the help of the Union. I also attend some of the SRC Accommodation Committee meetings.

The problem, as munchingfoo points out, is that the university is completely dismissive of the Union. The Union submitted the above petition to the university in early May. The union also presented a well researched report into the need for affordable accommodation. The university's first public response: deny they received it. Then in mid June, the university submitted the planning application for the Fife Park redevelopment. They'd totally ignored the petition, and this is clear because the plans were dated January, February, and March.

What are the alternatives? Well, one possible way of meeting council HMO requirements would be to turn a room per house into a common room. The university claims that this is not a cost effective option, but when I asked them for the feasibility study which demonstrated this claim, I was told it was "no longer held by the University". Hence I am very skeptical that refurbishment is not feasible, because the university destroyed the evidence behind the claim.

Another way of building cheaper would be to build fewer en-suite rooms. The planning application submitted has only 210 rooms not en-suite. The remaining 567 are to be en-suite. Figures given to me by Christopher J. Smith, the Proctor, to answer a Freedom of Information request say the estimated cost of building en-suite is 26% extra per bed compared to building not en-suite. The absolute figures are £48,000 instead of £38,000 per bed.

When a developer is unsure how to build the affordable accommodation required by Fife Council policies, Fife Council suggests (see Fife Council's Supplementary Guidance on Affordable Housing) talking to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) for help or advice. These are charities whose purpose is to build affordable housing, and recover costs to build more. It appears the university has not asked for help nor advice from RSLs. Instead, as mentioned above, the university asked the Scottish Government to redefine the word "affordable".

And it is possible to build new accommodation cheaply. The most recent figures I could find, at <http://www.lc.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/shr_scottishregiste_ia47f1dffb.pdf> show (see page 49) that evenly newly built housing from RSLs is relatively cheap.

As for the accommodation as a general university's business model, the university says that the learning and teaching (L&T) is run, and should be run, completely seperately from the residential and business services budget. We have been told money for providing (affordable) beds will not come from the L&T budget, so it shouldn't be the other way round either.

Only very recently has a document been released regarding the university's plans over the summer. They only expect 130 beds to be rented out each night for conferencing or business during the summer. See <http://www.ukplanning.com/ukp/doc/Other-6490959.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=6490959&location=VOLUME5&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=2>. So how building hundreds and hundreds of en-suite beds is meant to be prudent business, I have no idea.


Thanks.

[Haunted]

Thanks Orra.

Though they do quote that the 130 beds a night is an average and not a peak. I know they sell out completely whenever there the Open is on.

[David Michor]

On the subject of conferences...

Did you know the university charges *more* for accommodation in halls for people attending *academic* conferences during the holidays than they do for tourists? A couple of professors have raised this issue in Senate during the last year or two, making the point that the university is supposed to be a centre of learning. The Principal dismissed this and basically said that an academic conference should expect to pay commercial rates.

(Which actually means that some prestigious conferences will no longer be held in St Andrews, which, in the long term, will damage the university's reputation. For example, there's a big 4-yearly mathematics conference called "Groups St Andrews", which was first held here in 1981. It was held in St Andrews in 2005, but it only lasted one week instead of the usual two weeks because of accommodation being so expensive. Next year it's back to two weeks but it's being held in Bath. It's unlikely to be held in St Andrews again.)

It seems that the university views halls firstly as a source of income from commercial conferences, and student accommodation and academic conference accommodation a very poor second.

[Timata]

And it is possible to build new accommodation cheaply. The most recent figures I could find, at <http://www.lc.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/shr_scottishregiste_ia47f1dffb.pdf> show (see page 49) that evenly newly built housing from RSLs is relatively cheap.

Providing cheap accommodation has been stated at "not in itself a planning consideration" - the university's planners sent a statement to the council regarding student objection: (http://www.ukplanning.com/ukp/doc/Other ... ageCount=1)

[Josherick3]

Yeah, we saw that and fired off a counter-response email yesterday. It's not on the internet, but I'll try to summarize it...

1) In response to claims that Fife Park is unfit for use and too expensive to refurbish:

We made a request, under Freedom of Information legislation, to see the feasability study which showed this and were told that these documents were “no longer held by the University”. It's suspicious that the University would seek to destroy the copies of the study which would back these claims up. Either way they have no way of proving this claim.


2) In response to theiir argument that students had been consulted on two occasions about these plans and made no objections to them:

Firstly, they ignored the major objection that there was not enough provision for affordable beds. Secondly, only a few set designs were ever proposed to the student population, and not one of them had any provision for affordable beds. It's no surprise that the students did not choose an affordable option because there wasn't one presented.


3) To their claim that rent levels are "not [in themselves] a planning consideration."

Firstly, the plans that have been made factually demonstrate that rents will not be affordable, so it is a planning consideration. They do not deny that the figures of £97-130 a week for rent are accurate.

Secondly, there are a myriad of council documents and policies urging the provision of affordable housing, these include: the Fife Structure Plan; the adopted 1996 St Andrews Local Plan; the St Andrews Local Area Plan Finalised Draft; the Affordable Housing Policy Implementation Guide; Supplementary Guidance - Affordable Housing.

Also, the Scottish Planning Policy SPP 3: Planning for Homes (Revised 2008) explains the framework for councils to implement such provisions.


4) Responding to the final point that there is "no requirement for the provision of affordable housing on this site":

We're not sure if this is true, if it is, then it is profoundly disappointing that Fife council would seek to help St Andrews University evade strongly spelt out council policies.

However, the main point to note is that the documents quoted above state that even if dispensation is given not to have affordable accommodation on the site, there is still a requirement to build it off the site. It is council policy to ask for such an offsite development, and moreover to have it as a condition for the main development’s (Fife Park’s) planning permission.


Our response ends by again pointing out that St Andrews University specifically wrote to the Scottish Government consultation asking them to redefine the word "affordable", implying that they acknowledge their responisbilities and are trying to find any way possible to avoid them. The Scottish Government did not redefine it.

Phew! Tried to condense it as much as I could, apologies for length.

[Mr Comedy]

so if the Association managed to cook up some alternative scheme to present to the university,

We've still got Mr Reilly's communist housing manifesto, haven't we? Marvellous - let's build a hippy commune - problem solved.

[Mr Comedy]

Oh and Josherick, if you want anything done in a hurry I'd strongly advocate getting as much local and national press involved as you can. I think firing off emails to the university is unlikely to accomplish anything much, but I reckon a couple of inches in the rags about "Hooray Henry's kick hard-up Scots out of St Andrews" would do your case more good.

Follow that up with a decent couple of protests and more press stuff and quite possibly Robert could be your mother's brother.

[Josherick3]

Yeah, we're trying to stir up some press intrest. We've had a letter in the Scotsman, some coverage in the Courier and had an article in the Scottish Social Voice after the protest last May. You can see them all here: http://lowerrentsnow.org/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=14

The Saint ran an article or two last semester as well, we're hoping to get into one of this semester's issues. Plus the Big Issue, hopefully.

[Jono]

One thing I would suggest is to try and get as much local involvement as possible. I don't think there's been enough engagement with the local community on this one. 700-odd Luxury Condos being drop-podded into town is going to have a knock-on effect on local house prices and demand for rented accommodation. Considering the opposition we've seen on HMO's, there's obviously potential for a marriage between local and student opposition (If only for convenience-sake). That way, you will command far more political clout, and the campaign can no longer be dismissed as merely the self-interested complaints of a transitional student population!

[Timata]

One thing I would suggest is to try and get as much local involvement as possible. I don't think there's been enough engagement with the local community on this one. 700-odd Luxury Condos being drop-podded into town is going to have a knock-on effect on local house prices and demand for rented accommodation. Considering the opposition we've seen on HMO's, there's obviously potential for a marriage between local and student opposition (If only for convenience-sake). That way, you will command far more political clout, and the campaign can no longer be dismissed as merely the self-interested complaints of a transitional student population!

I mentioned this to someone last week - my housemate was very surprised to discover when talking to taxi drivers that they have no idea about the planned redevelopment. I suggested flyer-ing the local houses (particularly the ones closest to FP/DRA) - not sure how to go about it without just annoying people though.

[munchingfoo]

It's very doubtful that someone will be annoyed at you for putting an A5 paper leaflet through their door regarding something that directly affects them, and those that do will be the sort that are just looking for something to get annoyed about.

I think the flyering is a great idea. The union flyer rates are quite good, and if you could get the Sabbs on your side you might get them done for free.