Opinion

The RTPI London podcast on community led housing is finally out.

Our director, Levent Kerimol, was talking to Lubaina Mirza with Oliver Bulleid from London CLT, back in November. It was heartening to see several ideas on planning policy finding their way into the recent National Planning Policy Framework consultation.

Fast forward to 19 minutes below for our ideas on:

• percentage inclusion policies for CLH on larger sites/schemes,
• community-led exception sites, and
• greater flexibility in planning decisions around allocations, affordable tenures and whether these need Registered Providers.

We have have contributed to the CLT Network’s NPPF response and will be submitting a similar response focusing on London and urban areas.

 

 
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Coproduction is today’s buzz word in housing and regeneration, but can it deliver what matters for communities? 

Rowan Mackay considers the possibilities 

 

In the last few years, a method of public engagement known as coproduction has emerged from the niches of social care policy into the mainstream practices of sectors from transport to education and even banking. Within built environment sectors and specifically the fields of architecture, planning, housing and regeneration coproduction has raised the bar for the role communities can expect to play in how their homes, neighbourhoods and cities are managed and change.

Done well, coproduction can provide a mechanism through which communities are able to negotiate genuine control over the delivery and long-term ownership and management of urban development projects from housing to workplaces, community facilities and green spaces. Like any new terminology though, coproduction can mean everything and nothing, and definitions vary depending on who you speak to.

In a sector where superficial tick-box forms of engagement are continuously re-packaged to gloss over what can at best be extractive and at times exploitative experiences for residents and communities, coproduction is the gloss of the moment. So much so that the term is arguably well on its journey into meaninglessness, joining the likes of ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’, condemned to the copywriter’s box of synonyms for ‘doing things with people’ until enough time has passed for a re-brand – ‘collaboration’, anyone?

At a time when urban inhabitants have grown accustomed to their relative powerlessness in the face of urban development and the damaging social impact of ‘regeneration’, coproduction has become the buzz word for an industry desperate to demonstrate it can do things differently.

Beyond semantics then, what it is that coproduction offers that other forms of public engagement (or whatever you want to call it) do not? And what can we as practitioners do to ensure these ideas lead to lasting change for communities most at risk from the disruptive forces of urban development?

 

If you’re not talking about power, it isn’t coproduction.

The term coproduction was originally coined by political economist Elinor Ostrom in the 1970’s and has been common practice within health and social care services for many years. In this context it is commonly understood as a “a relationship where professionals and citizens share power to plan and deliver support together, recognising that both have vital contributions to make in order to improve quality of life for people and communities” ¹.

Outside of social care, this emphasis on power and re-shaping relationships between ‘users’ and ‘providers’ has made it an attractive proposition across a host of service industries.  In the UK in particular, interest in the concept grew in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, as the apparent transferability of the idea drew the attention of organisations, political parties and others looking for ways to reform parts of the economy.

For urban communities, and particularly those without the privilege of political or economic influence, for whom urban regeneration can be a violent and destabilising process, the prospect of re-shaping relationships and shifting power in these processes is a particularly attractive proposition. Putting coproduction into practice in an urban development context though has been less than simple. For the practitioners, activists, academics and others trying to do this, a major challenge has been the complexity of the development process itself. This may in part be the reason we see such diverse interpretations of coproduction in the field – as individual actors try to reform their own small areas of influence within the global machine of financialised urban development.

 

It’s all about building trust.

One intervention that has recently begun to make a difference in changing the role of communities within, as well as their influence over these processes is the resident steering group or project committee. This form of engagement, whereby representatives from both the community and lead stakeholder to a project – typically a local authority – share equal representation within a group established to advise or make decisions over the lifetime of a project, is certainly a progression on from the punctuated moments of ‘inclusion’ communities are usually afforded within conventional engagement processes.

In addition to increasing the frequency of face-to-face interactions between those with power and those without, the steering group or committee model re-focusses the emphasis of these interactions towards building the levels of trust necessary for a long-term relationship to function. By conceiving of engagement as an ongoing process that may even continue beyond the development project itself, coproduction is placing relational aspects – think trust, conflict and care – at the top of the agenda for public engagement practice. In doing so, actors including local authorities, housing associations and even some developers are having to learn an entirely new way of relating to and working with the communities they serve.

Of course, a steering group alone does not mean you are working in coproduction (and be warned anyone tries to convince you otherwise). The kind of cultural and structural changes required to realise a different power dynamic between communities and local authorities, tenants and landlords, those with and those without power in urban development processes requires buy-in at every level of governance and a willingness to un-learn deep-rooted paternalism within our institutions.

While this may sound like an impossible task, some are already exploring how coproduction can work in practice. In the London Borough of Newham, the local authority have been working with residents of Custom House Estate for over two years on plans to re-develop parts of their estate. Resident representatives are paid for their time and the procurement brief for a development partner was collaboratively produced and jointly signed by residents and Council officers. In Croydon and Waltham Forest, Community Led Housing London have been supporting two separate housing associations to work in partnership with community groups to enable them to plan, deliver, own and manage their own homes. While colleagues at the housing association, CDS Cooperatives are exploring an entirely new relationship with existing tenants and leaseholders, that could see the organisation hand power to residents to ultimately become their own landlords.

While each of these examples have faced challenges and none would yet claim to have got coproduction right (and recognising that there will also always be a need for more radical solutions to our unequal rights to land and housing in the UK) together these cases signpost to how coproduction can be used as the small end of the wedge for meaningful change. The interest in long-term social and economic benefit that underpins the missions of local authorities and housing associations, provides an entry point to explore the kinds of changes needed to re-balance power across our built environment sectors. It also begs the question – can those organisations reliant on short-term financial returns do coproduction at all?

What is clear is that coproduction is challenging the status quo in what public engagement in housing and regeneration can look like, raising expectations for the role communities can expect to play in these processes. By recognising two fundamental components of coproduction – in challenging power dynamics and building trust – we can even begin to do away with the term itself, leaving it to its inevitable demise, and focus our attention on what’s important – collective control over our homes, neighbourhoods and cities.

 

Rowan, Senior Project Advisor at CLH London, has been working with our Associate Adviser Sib Trigg to evaluate coproduction practices in London. Our Learnings have been published as guidance on effective coproduction in housing and urban regeneration.

 

¹ Filipe, Angela, Alicia Renedo, and Cicely Marston. ‘The Co-Production of What? Knowledge, Values, and Social Relations in Health Care’. Edited by Claire Marris. PLOS Biology 15, no. 5 (3 May 2017)

 
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Our director, Levent Kerimol reviews Hamburg’s support for community led housing

I’m always mindful about context before making generalisations and comparisons of community led housing in other European countries and note that this context is always evolving. I’ve visited Freiburg, Almere, Berlin, and Zurich over the past 10 years, and was in Hamburg this summer with my family, with only a short time to look into community led housing.

Hamburg is Germany’s second-largest city with almost 1.9 million inhabitants. It is also its own state within the federal system, which results in some variations in approach to different parts of Germany. Hamburg has a long history of co-operative housing linked to the trade union movement in the 1900s and then alternative anti-authoritarian squatting movements in the 1960s and 70s covered in more detail in David Scheller’s chapter in Contemporary Cohousing in Europe.

I met officers from the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing in Hamburg, including those working on affordable housing funding programmes and from the Agency for Baugemeinschaften (building/housing communities), a small team of 3 or 4 people, who work within regional government as a central contact point. The Agency keeps a register of groups, advising on process and funding, and offering public land / properties. There has been political support for this approach since 2003, and programmes have been developed and refined over that period.

Hamburg has around 977,000 dwellings, and 76% of households live in rented housing. The state-owned housing company, SAGA, owns 136,000 homes, and around 135,000 are owned by co-operatives. Developments over 30 units are typically required to provide a mixture of a third social housing, a third market rent, and a third private ownership. Market rents are subject to controls, and subsidised affordable housing has to have lower rents and eligibility criteria for a minimum period of 30 or 40 years, after which they can be let at market rents. There is funding for intermediate rented products, but intermediate ownership is not part of the general landscape. There are detailed tables breaking down funding rates for unit sizes, income levels, and how they are supported by a mixture of one-off grants and ongoing grants paid to the landlord to make up the difference. The state government also works closely with the state bank in offering low-cost loans.

Most Baugemeinschaften projects take the form of rented co-operatives, unlike some of the ownership focused schemes in Berlin of Freiburg. There are 3 funding programmes with their own rates and criteria:

• Small Baugemeinschaften developing their own schemes formed the bulk of projects in the 1990s and 2000s. This is has become more difficult with increasing values and the limited availability of public land, and these types of schemes currently form 20% of projects. Funding criteria state minimum numbers of households on the lowest incomes and maximums for higher income households to ensure mixed tenure schemes. Groups have to recruit a membership that fits these eligibility criteria. There are also adjustments to funding for energy-saving / sustainable building, accessibility, lifts, car sharing, compact buildings etc.
• Baugemeinschaften working with established bigger co-operatives (which could be equivalent to working in partnership with a housing association in England) now forms around 20-30% of projects. These established co-operatives are approved by the Agency to work with Baugemeinschaften. There are slight differences to the funding programme, but this is generally seen as an easier way to deliver projects, even if the social value may not be quiet as rich.
• Acquisition of existing properties by tenants’ co-operatives make up around 20% of projects. There are loans up to 90% of the building value, at market interest rates and ongoing grants for households within the income limits. At least 51% of resident households have to be within the small to medium income limits, and the co-operative needs to have 10% equity. The combination of these factors means many groups are currently finding this route challenging with high prices.
• Finally, there are around 20-30% of projects proceeding without funding, negotiating with private landowners or purchasing public land at market rates.

The Agency for Baugemeinschaften works with other teams to release municipal development land specifically for groups. This is like using the GLA’s Small Sites x Small Builders programme specifically for CLH, but the land is held in a single public body, and sites can be identified in a way that contributes to wider urban development strategies.

As the planning system is generally less negotiable and more pre-defined than in the UK, what can be built on a site is more clearly known by all at the outset. This makes it easier to pre-determine fixed land prices. In marketing sites for Baugemeinschaften, a series of expected land prices are set, depending on the mix of affordability proposed by a group. This means there is no negotiation or scoring on the land price offered. Instead, proposals are selected on the basis of other factors, such as their governance, social concept, wider offer, community spaces, and specialist provision etc.

Successful groups have a fixed window to complete the transaction in which time they can carry out all necessary due diligence and get planning permission. Groups are advised to work with construction / development managers such as Stattbau or the Lawaetz Foundation who specialise in these kinds of projects. The planning process has similar costs as in the UK but is considered to be less risky due to the prescriptive nature of the planning system. Groups typically have to pay for the early stages and planning process themselves, often through their own member contributions, which are considered a form of deposit. It is acknowledged that members can’t necessarily get this contribution back if they leave the co-op in future, but this appears to be attractive to many in more intermediate circumstances, whose deposit contributions would not allow ownership anyway.

The process can still take a long time, from 5-8 years, and many groups do not progress beyond the initial formation and site identification stages. The success factors were identified as being communication within the group, and their flexibility around the project.

Between 1990 and 2022 there were 142 Baugemeinschaften who built 3,277 apartments. That’s roughly 100 homes per year. Although this is probably greater in recent years, as there are 370 units under construction from 15 groups, and 11 groups have 327 apartments in the planning phases.

The city-state intends to increase the numbers of Baugemeinschaften and move to around 20% of all public development sites, particularly in new development areas, as they are seen as bringing stability to new areas. In the Wilhelmsberg development area of 4,500 apartments, 900 are planned as Baugemeinschaften. Demand for these opportunities has continued to be sufficient with 40 groups applying for around 30 spaces, even though the location is somewhat less desirable. In more sought after locations demand for sites typically exceeds supply by over 10 times.

There are many examples to see. I only had time to walkaround the Mitte Altona masterplan area, where two courtyard blocks (out of 11) were built by the 8 Baugemeinschaften listed here, each taking a corner or part of a block. It would be nice to think these blocks were visually recognisable as community led housing, however they were indistinguishable to the other blocks. Shared courtyards with playgrounds and children running freely were not unique to the Baugemeinschaft blocks. Perhaps there was more differentiation internally, or in the social governance, or perhaps because the tightly controlled planning system and wider development industry adopts general good practice in housing design.

Perhaps if we are to see CLH as part of the mainstream, we have to acknowledge that it may not be as special, unique or innovative as we like to think of it. Although this could be a good thing if it raises expectations across the housing and built environment sector more generally. However either way it is clear the community led housing sector needs sustained support over several decades, as in Hamburg, to achieve this kind of mainstream impact.

 
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by Levent Kerimol

It has been great to run CLT Connect events with Forest CLT and facilitate discussion between Community Land Trusts in London. We caught up on projects and discussed common challenges; how groups were organised, and approached their membership; how sites, tenure mixes and resident groups were agreed; and we considered development partnerships, landlord partnerships, and allocations. These took place in the self-build community hub on the RUSS Church Grove construction site, which was inspiring to see going up.

But there is nothing like seeing a scheme after it is built and bedded in. So we were very lucky to be welcomed to 325 Fishponds Road by Bristol CLT on Sunday.

We met residents who moved in 6 years ago. The scheme converted a former school building and has a mix of shared ownership houses and 1-bed studios for affordable rent, allocated to CLT members on housing waiting lists. The scheme is managed by Brighter Places HA on behalf of the CLT. So far so normal.

But as we walked around the corner we saw people clearing breakfast they had eaten on the walkway which doubled up as shared patios, piled up with the relics of family life, barbeques, benches, bicycles. These overlooked a shared garden, where someone tending the plants climbed the steps followed by a dog. Children ran around and through each others’ houses.

There was no ‘common house’ or ‘intentional community’, but this looked and felt like intergenerational cohousing. The shady rear gardens also lacked fences. An informal path ran across and linked back doors where fences would have been. Individual and common spaces were blurred throughout the scheme, and reinforced our theory that community led housing is all about gardens.

A significant part of the project had been the requirement for residents to finish some of the internal fit-out of kitchens, tiling, and flooring, although no plumbing or electrical work was expected. Whilst this translated into a small additional equity percentage or rent discount, and allowed some customisation and a sense of satisfaction for residents, it’s main benefit seemed to be that residents got to know each other before they moved in.

This neighbourliness has persisted. If something needs fixing or doing, people know who to ask. This is informal, voluntary, friendly help, without written rules. Residents often meet to discuss mini-projects, to clear-out the shed, and add a green roof, and people feel free to express any issues they have.

What is interesting is the continuation of that culture over time. The first shared ownership sale took place last year. The new residents were not involved in the self-finish work, but have been welcomed into the community. Residents hope the same will be true of a rented home which recently became vacant.

Shared activities before people move in, sociable spaces, and a lack of fences, foster these relationships. These may only be small changes to conventional housing, but the value of children growing up in this way, the sense of belonging, knowing you have neighbours who can help, or casually leaving your front door open, are hard to value.

 
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