Motion: De-commodifying Housing: Public Ownership and Mass Retrofit
Motion: De-commodifying Housing: Public Ownership and Mass Retrofit
(Passed at the SAW AGM 2025 - 25th October 2025)
This Branch Notes that:
1 – Architectural workers are part of the machinery of development, which treats housing estates and communities as frontiers for financial profit. This speculative model, fueled by the privatisation of council housing, is the root cause of the housing “crisis” and undermines the right to genuinely affordable, secure homes for all.
2 – While recognising the need for targeted new build council housing, the dominant 'build baby build' mentality - which fails to distinguish between housing tenure - drives gentrification, displacement, and ignores the massive environmental impact of unnecessary new build construction built as a financial asset.
This Branch Believes:
1 – SAW must stand in solidarity with communities resisting speculative development and advocate for de-commodified, genuinely affordable, and good-quality secure council housing for all.
2 – An immediate, industry-wide shift is necessary, moving away from mostly new build construction towards the mass retrofit of existing buildings to meet both housing and climate goals.
This Branch Resolves to:
1 – Call upon the Government to tackle the root causes of poor quality, insecure, and unaffordable housing by:
Immediately scrapping *all* no-fault evictions and introducing rent caps, set at reasonable levels determined by local average earnings.
Couple this with a large-scale public ownership transfer (buy-back) programme, focused on acquiring the portfolios of private landlords and converting them into secure council housing.
Underpin this with legislation and long-term funding to raise housing quality and drive the creation of green jobs. This strategy will begin the process of de-commodifying housing, establishing it as a public good, not a speculative asset.
2 – Actively support tenants’ unions and community campaigns fighting for improvements to their homes, resisting estate demolition and gentrification, and directing architectural skills in the service of working class community need.
3 – Establish a dedicated ‘Community Support Unit’ within 6 months of the AGM, mandated to coordinate solidarity efforts, direct SAW members to relevant community campaigns, and develop educational materials on de-commodified housing models and mass-retrofit strategies. Responsibility for delivery lies with the newly formed Unit, which will report updates at Branch Meetings.
