Architect says measure is required to cut vacancy rates in prime areas of London and support principle of social responsibility

Richard Rogers, the architect behind One Hyde Park, says the responsibility on owners is social as well as economic. Photograph: Daniel Lynch/Rex Features

Richard Rogers has called for a "severe" new tax on empty homes and warned that prime areas of London are emptying because of wealthy buyers leaving homes vacant.

The international architect and urbanist, who advised Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, said taxes should be levied, possibly as soon as six months after a property becomes empty, to reinforce the principle that "owners of buildings have a social responsibility as well as an economic one".

Lord Rogers's comments came in response to the Guardian's expose of The Bishops Avenue "billionaires row" in north London, where a third of the mansions on the most expensive stretch are unused. The architect of the Lloyds building, Millennium Dome and Terminal 5 at Heathrow said he believed this was "a terrible way of looking at buildings" and warned the problem is spreading to other affluent areas.

He reported high vacancy rates in Kensington in west London, another area favoured by rich international buyers who often spend little time in their properties. The phenomenon was causing social "erosion" and had left shops and other communal facilities struggling for enough business to keep going, he said.

"It is not sustainable environmentally or in terms of urbanism," he said. "The government must take note. Houses should be used if we want to live in a humanistic society. Housing is not just a private matter, it affects the quality of public domain, which we all need and which gives us security. Instead, this is seeing housing as if it were gold bullion."

About 15% of newly built homes in Greater London are snapped up by foreign buyers, rising to over 70% in the city centre, according to the estate agent Knight Frank. Yet between March 2010 and September 2013, the number of families forced to move into bed and breakfast accommodation rose threefold to 2,100. On Monday, the free-market thinktank Civitas suggested a ban on the sale of all existing homes to non-EU buyers and limits on the purchase of new homes by foreigners.

Rogers is aware of the problem. He designed the luxury One Hyde Park apartments in Knightsbridge that have become emblematic of the foreign investment phenomenon. One five-bedroom apartment is on sale for £68m, and more than half the flats are registered with the council as empty or second homes.

"I regret some of it is standing empty," he said, but he added that, as an architect, he has no power over who lives in it and how often.

It has also emerged that town halls are struggling to use existing compulsory purchase (CPO) powers that should allow them to bring empty homes back into use. Across England, where there are an estimated 259,000 homes empty for at least six months, councils made only 51 CPOs at the last count, in 2011.

Town hall chiefs are now calling for a reform of the system. They complain that the process takes up to 18 months, requires approval for each deal from Whitehall and costs up to £75,000 in compensation on each property.

"During one of the worst housing crises this country has faced, with demand at sky-high levels, councils are being hamstrung," said Mike Jones, chairman of the Local Government Association's (LGA) environment and housing board. "It is high time they were given proper compulsory purchase powers, enabling them to 'revive' properties that are simply gathering dust."

The LGA, which represents 373 councils in England and Wales, wants new rights to acquire empty homes on a leasehold basis, undertake refurbishment work, rent them out and then return them to their owners at the end of the lease.

Over the weekend there was growing pressure at Westminster for a tougher tax regime for empty homes. The coalition has allowed councils to charge 150% council tax on homes that have been empty for two years, and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has urged more to use the power. Labour said it will increase this to 200%, while Clive Betts, the chairman of the House of Commons select committee on communities, has suggested trebling the tax.

> via The Guardian