Manchester sold itself to Abu Dhabi’s elite - Guardian article

[Corky]

Cheap land usually comes with contamination. The developers have to spend a fortune to clean it up and dispose it offsite. The land around the stadium was highly contaminated as a legacy of munitions factories....throw in an abandoned mine which the council had stuffed with landfill. I'm surprised they didn't have to give it away!

Doesn't excuse developers of every stripe and race weighing off their legal obligations to affordable housing under Section 106 (Planning). More than a little whiff of corruption.

Some land will have a negative value for development, and you package it together when disposing it to get it off your hands, it is often 'given away' as a wider deal. All land has different values, and this can't be scrutinised by some desk top exercise without knowing all the abnormals, what should be under scrutiny is the process for disposal.

If the developer gets away without s.106 affordable housing contributions it is is the Council's fault, however as the land owner the Council gets a higher receipt for the land without s.106 contributions, and a lot have double standards when selling off their own land.

 

[urban genie]

You could say senior councellors have been at it their whole career, I have no issue with the council coming under scrutiny, but they have been doing dodgy shit when it came to property since the days of the infamous Tommy Ducks affair, so the narrative that lays the blame with those they sell to seems specifically aimed

 

[domalino]

Do you think MCC have done the right thing, do you think they have severely undervalued their land, or somewhere in between where they sold off the first lot of land cheaply, shown other investors the opportunity and have raised prices accordingly?

I think the Centripetal Cities Report gives a very strong argument that they massively undervalued the land and the journalist has confirmed they didn't open it up to any other investors.

I think it's pretty obvious that excusing them from the affordable housing requirements was wrong, and their refusal to provide any information over how they're going to be repaid or make money from overage is unacceptable when it's a "joint venture" with public land and £55m of public loans.

Also part 4 of the report does make it look like the "joint venture" part that MCC actually own is a shell that simply moves money inbetween the developments and the Jersey based ADUG companies so it will never show any profits for MCC to take a share of anyway.

Lastly this part of the report seems salient given the "But it was a shithole" replies

[The second criticism is] the seeming inability to switch gears and strategy once momentum is established. Deals will always need to be cut in under-developed areas or in a context of uncertainty, but once the impetus of real estate investment returns, a city like Manchester should be able to negotiate better terms and experiment with different models of urban regeneration – one that tries to embed the circulation of value created from properties developed locally, rather than see it disappear into tax havens.​

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I think the Centripetal Cities Report gives a very strong argument that they massively undervalued the land and the journalist has confirmed they didn't open it up to any other investors.

I think it's pretty obvious that excusing them from the affordable housing requirements was wrong, and their refusal to provide any information over how they're going to be repaid or make money from overage is unacceptable when it's a "joint venture" with public land and £55m of public loans.

Also part 4 of the report does make it look like the "joint venture" part that MCC actually own is a shell that simply moves money inbetween the developments and the Jersey based ADUG companies so it will never show any profits for MCC to take a share of anyway.

Fair enough and if MCC are guilty of that, then they should be held accountable.

The point I was trying, probably badly, to make was the undervalued land could be similar to the Etihad stadium/CFA deal in reverse?

I.E. It wasn’t market value to begin with, but it became cheap over the years.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

And yet some people still pretend sportswashing doesn't exist.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

And yet some people still pretend sportswashing doesn't exist.

Maybe I’m being naive here, but why does it?

It looks as though I should be angry with MCC for potentially underselling our city and potentially helping hide funds.

Does the average person on the street care who the developer of any housing actually is? They all try to scam as much money out of any contract as possible, don’t they?

Is there an ethical developer that MCC should be selling to?

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

And yet some people still pretend sportswashing doesn't exist.

Define sportswashing.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Maybe I’m being naive here, but why does it?

It looks as though I should be angry with MCC for potentially underselling our city and potentially helping hide funds.

Does the average person on the street care who the developer of any housing actually is? They all try to scam as much money out of any contract as possible, don’t they?

Is there an ethical developer that MCC should be selling to?

Isn't this an all the same argument?

Lets people get away with low standards, deregulation and cynical self-interest.

The question is whether or not you think Abu Dhabi investment in MCFC had any influence on their business dealings in the rest of the city.

I haven't researched it all myself but @domalino's posts seem to indicate that it did.

 

[domalino]

The question is whether or not you think Abu Dhabi investment in MCFC had any influence on their business dealings in the rest of the city.

That's not the question asked by either the Gaurdian column or the Sheffield University paper.

The article, the report, the questions being asked have got nothing to do with MCFC apart from as background information on the explaining the fact the same wealth fund owns both projects.

The questions are why did MCC sell off public land to a developer for very little gain, why didn't they let anyone else bid and why is there so little publicly available information to justify these deals and show what the taxpayers are getting back for them. Further to that, what's going to be different in the next round of development.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Isn't this an all the same argument?

Lets people get away with low standards, deregulation and cynical self-interest.

The question is whether or not you think Abu Dhabi investment in MCFC had any influence on their business dealings in the rest of the city.

I haven't researched it all myself but @domalino's posts seem to indicate that it did.

A secondary question asking whether it’s because of City would then need to be asked if the answer to the first one is yes.

Its an easy assumption to make, but without actual foundation?