communityled.homes

We support people making homes together through Cohousing, Community Land Trusts, and Housing Co-operatives

Citizens House, London CLT

Initiated by the local community, 11 new homes will be built on a garage site in Sydenham and existing residents will be involved in the process. The homes will be genuinely affordable and protected in perpetuity. 

Number of homes 11 genuinely affordable homes
Location Sydenham
Stage Built 2023

How they formed
Lewisham Citizens, part of the Citizens UK charity, held an assembly with 400 people before the local elections in 2014 and persuaded the then Mayor of Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, to work with local people to deliver Community Land Trust homes in the borough. After extensive community site walks and a local membership drive, Lewisham Citizens brought in London CLT to discuss specific potential sites with the Council. They also engaged with residents and neighbours, and gradually built up a Residents Steering Committee to help with the plans.

Site
Having considered a report to Mayor and Cabinet in 2016, the council agreed that a small area to the rear of the Brasted Close estate should be declared surplus to the Council’s requirements and that officers work with London CLT for a period of twelve months to develop a fully affordable housing scheme for the site. Out of the 17 garages on the site, only 4 were let to residents of the estate. The Council wrote to all garage tenants advising them of the proposal and informing them of other garage locations. Given the proximity of the site to secure tenants, the council also carried out a statutory S105 consultation about the potential sale of the site to build new homes. In addition to the statutory consultation, officers also wrote to leaseholders on the estate. There was only one respondent expressed concern which the designs seek to address.

Affordability
Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a way of providing genuinely and permanently affordable new homes either for rent or low-cost ownership. They can be used to address the growing gap between people who qualify for social housing and people who can afford to buy their own home.

The CLT homes at Brasted Close will be for sale, priced according to local earnings, ensuring that local people are able to live in the local area. ‘Local earnings’ are taken as the average of median incomes using data published by the Office for National Statistics. Based on 2016 figures, the estimated price of a CLT home is around 40-50% of the full market value in the area. Although the scheme is receiving some grant funding from the GLA, these values are primarily achieved because the land value is effectively locked in to the trust in perpetuity through resale price covenants in individual leases, and governance mechanisms to ensure these are not varied.

Design
Lewisham Citizens held open meetings in late summer 2016 to discuss aspirations and fears about the scheme and to set the criteria for selecting architects. Several architects presented to residents at a ‘pick the architect’ event in September 2016. Residents chose Archio as their preferred architects. Archio spoke to residents on site to begin the design process. Approximately 30 residents and 48 students and staff from the neighbouring school attended. The community engagement has allowed Archio to develop a scheme addressing the key concerns raised by residents around pedestrian access, overlooking, height, privacy and parking. Planning permission was granted in April 2019, and construction started in 2021.

Who will live there
It is anticipated that the homes will be very popular. There is a clear allocations policy and process developed with the council focused around:

  • Those priced out of the housing market but able to afford a London CLT home
  • Those require a property more suitable than their current accommodation
  • Those with a minimum of five years’ connection to the borough
  • Those who belong to and participate in the local community
  • Members of London CLT

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architects: Archio

photos: French & Tye

Arcadia Cohousing

Arcadia are looking to build affordable, inter-generational housing in East London. As a group, they met through church, and have visited other community led housing projects and attended various workshops to establish their vision and values.

They hope to have shared spaces such as a kitchen and garden where residents can socialise, in addition to their own personal living space. They are looking to incorporate provision for the elderly and/or disabled in their scheme, and work on bringing the wider community in, living out the Christian principle “love your neighbour as yourself”.

They are looking to build 5-10 submarket leasehold homes. It is anticipated individual leases will have a resale price covenant imposed through a sec 106, to protect any affordability in the homes in perpetuity

How we’re helping
We have supported Arcadia to incorporate as a Community Interest Company, think through their objects and open a bank account. Households will be directors of the company working with participatory decision making. We also helped them commission financial modelling, and prepare proposals to redevelop a church site in Tower Hamlets.

 
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Cable Street

London CLT secured the site through the GLA’s Small Sites Small Builders programme, to deliver affordable homes linked to local incomes, following local organising and membership building around the site.

The local group drew up a brief together, with a vision for the site, and used this to tender for an architect. Nearly fifty people cast their vote for one of four shortlisted architects they wanted to work with to design the homes.

How we’re helping
We supported legal work to finalise a funding agreement with the Greater London Authority.

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Earlsfield CLT

People involved in local community spaces and organisations, such as Paradise Co-op garden and Kimber Skate Park coming together to form a Community Land Trust. They have identified a site and are working on a partnership with a private developer.

How we’re helping
We have offered support and advice for incorporation and membership building.

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Headway Self Build

The Headway Self Build Collective are Clarion Housing Association residents who came together to build their own homes on a disused garage site. A contractor built the structural shell and residents finished with joinery, fixtures and fittings.
 

Number of homes 10 rented
Location Walthamstow
Project Stage Built 2015

How they formed
In 2006, founding member John Struthers spoke with residents on neighbouring housing estates, put an ad in the local newspaper and leafleted homes to see who might be interested in a self build scheme. A group of twenty people came forward, many of whom were in overcrowded council flats and assessed by Waltham Forest Council to be in housing need but were unlikely to be eligible for re-housing in the foreseeable future. With the help of the Community Self-Build Agency (CSBA), they persuaded Circle 33 Housing Trust (now Clarion Housing Association) and the local authority to support a self-build scheme.

Site
The disused garage site was owned by Circle 33 and surrounded by the back gardens of neighbouring houses. The housing association had sought planning permission for affordable housing on three occasions which were all unsuccessful for reasons that included over development, loss of off-street parking and inadequate vehicular access. Because of this, they were prepared to take a different approach.

Finance
The group did not want wish to take on the financing and development risk of the project and remain Circle 33 residents. The site and homes remain in ownership of the housing association and residents pay social rent. Circle 33 included the project in their first Affordable Homes Programme, which means the scheme is part funded by the Greater London Authority.

Design and Construction
The Community Self-Build Agency recommended a ‘shell and fit out’ development whereby a contractor builds the structural shell of the houses and the self-builders carry out second fix carpentry and carrying out decorations. The composition of the group required a mix of 2, 3 and 4 bedroom houses including an accessible home for a wheelchair user. Jon Broome Architects produced three options for ten homes on the site and the group decided on a cul-de-sac arrangement with private front and back gardens.

Circle 33’s Project Managers negotiated a design and build contract with Kind & Co, a local contractor who built the infrastructure and conventional prefabricated timber-framed brick-clad shells for the two-storey houses. Waltham Forest College provided training in basic construction for the self-builders as well as tutors and apprentices to work on site. It took two years for all the planning applications, plans, transport studies, local consultations, designs and contracts to be agreed before they started on site in November 2014.

 

image copyright Nigel Howard