UK – strictly Orthodox housing development to go ahead

THE JEWISH CHRONICLE – Proposals for a strictly Orthodox housing development in Hemel Hempstead have passed the first hurdle.

Planning permission has been granted for the Hertfordshire project, fronted by Charedi leaders in Golders Green, which its advocates believe will offer affordable housing. But organising group the New Kehilla Committee stressed that the scheme was in its “very early stages”.

Discussions on the project began last year and took on new urgency after the cuts to child tax credits and other benefit reductions in George Osborne’s Budget that will hit strictly Orthodox families hard.

Other projects aimed at creating housing for Charedim are ongoing in Brent Cross, Haringey and East Tilbury in Essex.

But Stamford Hill community leader Rabbi Abraham Pinter singled out the Hemel Hempstead venture as special.

“There’s been a lot of talk about different initiatives, but this is one that’s going to take off. It’s really exciting, particularly with the government’s new proposals which mean it’s going to be much more difficult to get housing in London.

“If you look at the high levels of rent – and how it’s very difficult to get anything [for a large family] for less than a million in Stamford Hill or north-west London – this is the future.

“It will surely establish itself as a solution for many young people. If I was a lot younger, I’d be considering going there myself.”

Providing the religious facilities would be “quite challenging. But they’re a very able group of people and I’m confident they will be able to achieve that.”

However, Ita Symons, chief executive of the Stamford Hill-based Agudas Israel Housing Association, warned against “pie in the sky” thinking.

“There are lots of people trying to make new settlements, but to make a new settlement you have to be altruistic. It’s not a business. And you can’t do something where you haven’t got infrastructure, otherwise people won’t move.

“Perhaps now there is time and room for something a bit further out, but that’s based on two conditions – Orthodox infrastructure, including a school, synagogue and mikveh, which costs millions; and affordable properties.”

By affordable, she meant that the Hemel Hempstead project needed to offer three-bedroom houses for £300,000 to attract 50 families. “You won’t get 25 families going on their own because we don’t have idealistic, pioneering Orthodox Jews.”