What do we mean by “Affordable Housing”?

Obvious isn’t it? – Housing that is affordable. But does affordable housing automatically refer to all housing that can be bought or rented at below the normal market price? Does affordable housing include both housing to buy and housing to rent? Does the term ‘affordable housing’ include the notion of social housing? And what part does the notion of ‘local needs’ play in the great scheme of things?

I get the feeling that ‘Affordable Housing’ has become a fashionable phrase bandied around with gay abandon by all manner of politicians but crucially, without any clear idea of how the term is to be defined. Here is one definition taken form Powys County Council’s Draft Unitary Development Plan, 2004:

“Affordable housing is property made available at a price below full market value to meet an identified local need for housing as determined by a local housing needs survey. Affordable housing encompasses both low cost market and subsidised housing, irrespective of tenure, ownership or financial arrangements, that will be available to those households who cannot afford to purchase or rent adequate housing generally available on the open market.”

This definition modelled I guess on TAN 2, seems to embrace all housing offered at below market price, including ‘social housing’. But is that what everybody understands by ‘affordable housing’? Here is a quote from one Gordon Brown in his speech to the Labour Party Conference on Monday:

"I've met too many young couples who've told me - we work hard, we save, we play by the rules, we want to get on and yet we can't afford to buy or even rent our first home.
So we plan to help first time buyers and we will increase house-building to 240,000 new homes a year - in places and ways that respect our green spaces and the environment. My aim by 2010 two million more homeowners than in 1997.

And for the first time in nearly half a century we will show the imagination to build new towns - eco-towns with low and zero carbon homes. And today because of the response we have received we are announcing that instead of just 5 new eco towns, we will now aim for ten eco towns ---- building thousands of new homes in every region of the country.

And for affordable housing and for social housing we will now invest £8 billion. This will mean a 50 per cent increase in funds for social housing. I call on all housing associations and councils of all political parties not only to support shared equity for first time buyers, but to help us build more social homes for rent, more homes for key workers and more homes to cut the unacceptable levels of overcrowding. Good homes to rent and buy for the British people."

Finally, I would ask why do so many commentators who coin the phrase affordable housing do so in terms of “first time buyers” and “getting one’s step on the housing ladder”? Housing policy is a mess and not helped by confusion in terminology or vague, bordering on the fantastic, aspirations of senior politicians who should know better.