Lumiere project halted

[jonleeds]

I dont know if its true Chameleon, I think someone had just suggested it in this thread, although with the rate the government are buying into private business at the moment I guess anything could happen, imagine that, renting one of these so called luxury riverside apartments from the council for £56 per week while your private neighbour pays £500 per week! I think there would be some very unhappy tenants there! As I have already mentioned most of these inner city apartment developments are 'pie in the sky' anyway and they are overpriced to begin with hence anyone wishing to recoup the cost of the apartment they have bought is more or less obliged to set the rent higher than anyone with any sense is likely to pay. I do know of a couple of lads I sometimes meet for a drink in The Grove pub in Holbeck are renting a 2 bedroom 'loft' apartment on the riverside and they are not paying much more than a council flat costs to rent after they have paid their half of the monthly rent, I believe they are paying £78 per week each and the apartment is fitted out to a very high standard - hardwood floors, air-conditioning, 'wet' room and all those 'desirable' mod-cons. Beat that Leeds City Council! I guess the person they are renting it from has had to cut their losses and be grateful that they are at least getting some rent as opposed to the empty 90% of the development which is just generating interest on the whopping second mortgage that somebody will be paying. I hope the council does step in though and start providing some decent quality social housing for ordinary Leeds people.

[tyke bhoy]

I've seen/heard rumours to this affect in several places including I think the BBC's Politics Show regional slot. It would be controversial but so was bringing Mandelson back Also as the Afghan woman in the 7 bedroom house in London has proved there is nothing to stop councils paying private landlords rent for "social housing".

[raveydavey]

Technically, the legislation is already there for the council / housing associations to step in and take over empty propoerties, let alone buy them, but it is very seldom used.The government have talked about buying unsold properties from developers to get them off the market and use them to home people currently on the waiting list. Whilst I can see the funy side of it, it really would be hell on earth for people who've scrimped and saved to buy into "city centre living" and have got themselves and apartment (rather than speculative investors who took a gamble which has backfired), only to find that the government / council were going to take on half the block to get people of the housing waiting list. Whilst many council tenants are decent people who respect their surroundings, a sizeable number aren't and would quickly ruin any block they were moved to. Believe me, I know as I used to live in a high rise block which was turned into a nightmare by a couple of residents and their "friends".

[LandyDefender]

I do stress that i am not a property developer in any way before i say this...If you are buying an apartment to live in, then there should be no worries, property will always go up.If you are a speculative buyer and are buying as an investment, then you go in with your eyes open, you do your research. It's not the propoerty developers who are greedy, they will sell at what they can get for them. It's the investors that got greedy.The old adage of "INVESTMENTS GO DOWN AS WELL AS UP", has never been as valid.A case was reported recently, where a woman bought off plan, without checking, 6 appartments in a city in the north. They didn't say which one, but this lady bought them for cash. Now, she is reasonably bright if she had amassed that amount of cash, but she is now in the do do beacuse they are not worth what she paid for them, nor is she getting the rental values. She openly admitted that she did not do any research but assuned all was ok and that the market would continue to grow.... Anyone 40 or over will remember the cycles we have been through. Northern Rock was the first tremor......    

[chameleon]

As mentioned elsewhere, Lumiere is officially dead. What will happen to the extensive foundation works already completed I wonder?Doubtful that it will be possible to incorporate into a different design, I've a visson of an eduring Tony Robinson look-alike in a future incarnation of Time Team enthusiastically trying to make sense of the purpose of this stone circle and the large concrete 'post-holes'!

[BLAKEY]

Quite honestly I was always astounded that Planning Permission had been granted to build these towers in that particular location.    In the first place they would have been so close to the two existing apartment buildings that surely there would have been little daylight at all in the lower storeys. Add to that the extra traffic chaos resulting from even one car per new household. I wonder if any of those who've paid deposits had actually thought of that in their haste to buy a trendy City Centre "Pad." ??It is a great shame though that so much time and money has been spent on the now completed foundations which are, if I remember correctly (may be wrong), fifty metres deep.