Some context: this is a motion on draft agenda for the SNP conference.
>”Conference therefore calls for the development of a community-led housing model to help address the current housing crisis, taken inspiration from models such as Denmark’s Andelsboliger and adapting best practice to meet the housing needs of the people of Scotland.”
>The Andelsboliger system is essentially a half-way house between renting and owning in that a person buys a share in the co-op entitling him or her to live in one of the apartments in the development.
>When the owners decides to leave, they either sell on to somebody on the co-op’s waiting list, or to someone they know in the event that no one is on the waiting for the flat.
>However, unlike the free market where any price increases go straight to the vendor’s pocket, co-op dwellers cannot set their own asking price.
>Instead, the price is set as a percentage of the value of the entire development and takes account of any outstanding debts the building may have. Vendors are also compensated for substantial improvements, such as a new kitchen or bathroom.
>Housing features significantly on the SNP’s draft agenda with another resolution calling for the party to see the matter as a “common good.”
Another motion is:
>The motion submitted by the party’s West Fife and Coastal Villages branch calls for the Scottish Government to introduce a ‘Supplementary Land Tax’ which would be imposed on people who own more than one acre of land with the revenue generated to finance a Housing Land Corporation which would owned jointly by Scottish councils and deliver more affordable homes.
>The corporation’s aims would include:
> • increasing the stock of available, warm, secure, affordable homes for social rent, by up to 50,000 per annum, by 2030;
> • acquiring and retro-fitting existing properties to increase the availability of housing;
> • creating a range of standardised plans, sympathetic to the diverse character of Scottish communities, to help speed up housing development;
> • helping people who want to build their own home to do so using a similar model to that used in Germany;
> • ensuring that rural communities are revived and centuries of depopulation reversed as a priority.
>Crofters and those using their land exclusively for agriculture would be exempt from the tax.
>The motion notes that establishing a Housing Land Corporation (HLC) was a recommendation the party’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission and adopted as party policy in 2021.
Is the supplementary land tax per acre? Seems a bit unfair if someone owns a wee croft in the highlands they have lived in all their life paying the same tax as Anders Povlsen who has over 200,000 acres.
The land tax is it a fixed amount to anyone with more than an acre or per acre
An acre isn’t as large as it seems, that’s half of a football pitch
So a large tax applying equally to everyone over an acre seems like it would do more to discourage people living in rural communities than it would encourage it, the large garden is one of the benefits of rural living Vs the city or suburbs
We have an abundance of undeveloped space so it’s not even like that could be used to justify it starting at an acre
This doesn’t sound radically different to the way housing associations work, including their right or first refusal to buy back the property at a set price.
4 comments
Some context: this is a motion on draft agenda for the SNP conference.
>”Conference therefore calls for the development of a community-led housing model to help address the current housing crisis, taken inspiration from models such as Denmark’s Andelsboliger and adapting best practice to meet the housing needs of the people of Scotland.”
>The Andelsboliger system is essentially a half-way house between renting and owning in that a person buys a share in the co-op entitling him or her to live in one of the apartments in the development.
>When the owners decides to leave, they either sell on to somebody on the co-op’s waiting list, or to someone they know in the event that no one is on the waiting for the flat.
>However, unlike the free market where any price increases go straight to the vendor’s pocket, co-op dwellers cannot set their own asking price.
>Instead, the price is set as a percentage of the value of the entire development and takes account of any outstanding debts the building may have. Vendors are also compensated for substantial improvements, such as a new kitchen or bathroom.
>Housing features significantly on the SNP’s draft agenda with another resolution calling for the party to see the matter as a “common good.”
Another motion is:
>The motion submitted by the party’s West Fife and Coastal Villages branch calls for the Scottish Government to introduce a ‘Supplementary Land Tax’ which would be imposed on people who own more than one acre of land with the revenue generated to finance a Housing Land Corporation which would owned jointly by Scottish councils and deliver more affordable homes.
>The corporation’s aims would include:
> • increasing the stock of available, warm, secure, affordable homes for social rent, by up to 50,000 per annum, by 2030;
> • acquiring and retro-fitting existing properties to increase the availability of housing;
> • creating a range of standardised plans, sympathetic to the diverse character of Scottish communities, to help speed up housing development;
> • helping people who want to build their own home to do so using a similar model to that used in Germany;
> • ensuring that rural communities are revived and centuries of depopulation reversed as a priority.
>Crofters and those using their land exclusively for agriculture would be exempt from the tax.
>The motion notes that establishing a Housing Land Corporation (HLC) was a recommendation the party’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission and adopted as party policy in 2021.
Is the supplementary land tax per acre? Seems a bit unfair if someone owns a wee croft in the highlands they have lived in all their life paying the same tax as Anders Povlsen who has over 200,000 acres.
The land tax is it a fixed amount to anyone with more than an acre or per acre
An acre isn’t as large as it seems, that’s half of a football pitch
So a large tax applying equally to everyone over an acre seems like it would do more to discourage people living in rural communities than it would encourage it, the large garden is one of the benefits of rural living Vs the city or suburbs
We have an abundance of undeveloped space so it’s not even like that could be used to justify it starting at an acre
This doesn’t sound radically different to the way housing associations work, including their right or first refusal to buy back the property at a set price.