The Oliver Twist workhouse is becoming a block of luxury flats with a "poor door"

[doctorow]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/23/neovictorian-dickens-larpers.html

…

[L0ki]

@doctorow

Or when Hackney council approved a planning request to both knock down all the offices housing small tech startups, killing 90% of them, and replace their offices with a grifty hotel for overseas university students and rename a street nearby “Silicon Way” to celebrate the tech industry they’d just literally demolished.

That is traditional.

English street naming is aspirational rather than saying anything about the street in reality.

Hence the Such-and-Such “Avenues” that have never seen a tree or Chestnut Road which commemorates the fact that there used to be trees there once.

This one really does have the full package:

Along with a number of new-build affordable flats on about half of the site, there will also be new offices. The plans have been drawn up by the University College London Hospitals Charity, which owns the vacant site.

Profits will go back into the NHS and the affordable homes will be earmarked for health workers.

Ah, bless.

But while private owners will use an entrance at the front of the refurbished listed building in Cleveland Street, buyers of the affordable properties will reach their homes via a “poor door” down an alley.

Quite right too, we can’t have junior doctors or senior nurses mingling with the rich. I mean imagine how annoying that would be for the NHS workers. All those requests for free medical advice.

To add insult to injury, the ‘affordable’ flats will all be on pre-payment meters.

4. Our usual solution to metering and charging for energy usage from central boilers is the use of prepayment meters to each apartment. Is there adequate room to locate these and where would they be located? Adjacent to or within the flat is the best option.

Flat utilities (electricity + Heating) will be on a prepayment meter system. Met

from an application to alter the plans here:

http://camdocs.camden.gov.uk/HPRMWebDrawer/Record/7094549/file/document?inline

Although there is apparently also going to be an MRI scanning centre:

New Build Basement & Ground Floor
Middlesex Annex Basement Imaging Centre
3.1.5 It is proposed to establish a state-of-theart Imaging Centre in the Basement of the Middlesex Annex development. The unit will house a maximum of 6no MRI scanners for medical diagnostic purposes. The unit will be run by the Radiology Department of University College London Hospitals (UCLH) and provide vital services for the Trust. Its services will be used for initial diagnosis and follow-up examination and will significantly reduce waiting times for patients in the local
population.
It is understood that the Imaging Centre will work primarily in conjunction with the Macmillan Cancer Centre, a specialist centre for many types of cancer treating patients from both the local area and across the country.

3.1.6 The Imaging Centre will be complemented by ambulatory medical services on the Ground and First Floor, which will likely include Rehabilitation and Outpatients facilities.

3.1.7 This proposal offers the opportunity to establish clinical services and patient care in the heart of the community within a modern development.

3.1.8 The following section highlights the proposed changes to the basement and ground floor illustrating the new MRI scanner suite and associated space.

It’ll be interesting to see if that survives through to completion.

[generic_name]

In my lovely city developers made a concerted effort to do away with rent control in the late 90’s, their argument was “if we can’t raise rents we can’t make enough to build more housing, that’s why there’s a housing crisis.” So rent control was repealed, and developers build more luxury housing, while kicking out the tenants in their run-down buildings so they could refurbish them and charge more for rent. End result: even less affordable housing than when we had rent control.

[iquitos46]

of all the despicable names to call someone, I can think of few more damning than a developer. Greed beyond anything else is killing the world.

[Avery_Thorn]

If your “poor door” “subsidized” apartments are going to doctors and nurses then there is something seriously wrong with the housing market in the area.

(To be honest: if they are going to full-time cafeteria workers and orderlies, THERE IS STILL SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG.)

[HMSGoose]

Hear, hear. In Brooklyn Heights, where I work (but definitely not where I live) the income cap for the lowest income tier I saw on a new luxury building’s “affordable” units $90,000/year…

[anon41977465]

You should charge more for the scenic value of using the ‘poor’ door.

[L0ki]

That was just an assumption on my part but I think it’s a fairly safe one.

[anon78706664]

'Ow the fook else are we s’posed to get in then?