Build-to-rent tenants jump queue for family-size homes

Faced with a 10-year wait for scarce two- and three-bed houses, group in London will help build 10 to rent themselves

Peter Walker
The Guardian, Thursday 28 November 2013 14.47 GMT

Building your own house as a way to accommodate your family at a reasonable cost is nothing new. But for John Struthers and a group of people in north-east London, the capital's property shortage and price boom has prompted a more innovative solution still: constructing your own rental property.

Faced with a possible 10-year wait for a housing association home big enough to fit his three-child family, Struthers persuaded his landlords to hand over a plot of derelict land on which he and others will help to build 10 new homes, which they will rent themselves at affordable prices.

Build-to-rent tenants jump queue for family-size homes | Society | The Guardian

Houses don't have to be built by one family for one family

▶ Intro film to collectivecustombuild.org - YouTube
Collective Custom Build

Useful Points of Reference

National Self Build Association (NaSBA) – http://www.nasba.org.uk
The Self Build Portal - here.
Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) Custom Build Homes Fund - http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/custom-build
Urban Self Build‘s Helpful Links page - here.
Dos and Dont’s for first-time self-builders from The Self Build Portal - here.
How to build a home (in London) - great tips on finding land from Ruth Bloomfield in Homes & Property’s online magazine - here.
The Land Society – support for the development of rural economies, primarily through facilitating transition to land ownership – here.
Selfbuilder.tv - A programme and community for the serious self-builder broadcast every Tuesday at 9pm on Sky Channel 231 and Freesat 402 - here.
downtoearthsolutions.org - A web-resources started by self-builders Kim Siu and Mark Thomson, reflecting on their own experience of self-building and offering pointers.
Flexible Housing - ‘Honour Oak Park – Walter Segal, John Broome and self-builders’ - can be found here

Other Research Projects

Dr. Michaela Benson – Department of Sociology, University of York, UK - “Self-building: the production and consumption of new homes from the perspective of households”. Michaela’s project examines self-building in Britain today, to find out who is using self-build as a form of housing provision, what their characteristics are, and to what extent they succeed in their aims. An overview of Michaela’s project can be found here, and her survey can be completed here. Her project blog can be found here.
Policy Exchange – Independent policy think-tank publishing on (amongst other things) how government can support self-build. Read their report here.
DownToEarthSolutions – Shared Equity Ecohousing Opportunities (SEE-HO) – Down to Earth are currently conducting research into the potential to create a Shared Equity Eco-Housing Opportunity Scheme (SEE-HO) as an innovative, affordable housing solution for those who find it difficult to achieve a secure and affordable home of their own (through reasons of social and economic “disadvantage”). A brief over view of the project can be found here.

Video Examples

We want to make a film that can be used as an advocacy tool to raise awareness of the real need to promote custom build as part of the solution to the UK’s housing crisis – and show that it is possible. Below is a list of videos that are a useful reference for us as we develop this film in terms of style, tone, use of music, characterisation, length and content. Please get in touch with recommendations.

The Plant, Chicago, US – here. – Great format for talking an audience through a complex concept in 2 minutes. Talking person, zooming in and out, looks simple to achieve technically.

Canada Shared – here. - Crowd-sourced selection of lo-fi video created on camera phones and collated by the producers. Currently in cinemas. Good music selection, happy, positive. Potential production method to get videos from people who have self-built?

LILAC – here. - Low Impact Living Affordable Community (LILAC)’s story of how their collective self-build project evolved. Nice happy graphics, soft-fades, simple film. Bright white background evokes clarity and freshness, as does the crystal clear audio (plucked strings and reverb…)

Tibby’s Triangle, Southwold – Film made by Design for Homes for the Housing Design Awards 2012 – here. Aimed at the same kind of audience we have / simple use of characters (2 or 3 on the design side, 2 or 3 on the resident side – each with a mix of characters in case as a viewer you don’t like one of them) / kids are important / titling people is important (like ‘resident’ – this says ‘electorate’ to local authority politicians). Backdrops, soft-focus, nice light on site. Highly resourced. Film crew camped on site to get just the right shots, they know techniques, they have equipment. Its more BBC-like, but its still creatively put together. More about the project here.

Leicester Waterside – here. Film made by Ash Sakula. With a good storyline, this is achievable with our resources.

Wikihouse Rio – here. Film made to clearly and concisely describe the wikihouse concept and its application in Rio de Janiero. Simple technology, camera phones, skype video calls, but a good storyline and well scripted.

Applewood – here. Short film updating progress on the Applewood development in Cashes Green, Stroud. Led by the Cashes Green CLT group.

Motivating Collective Custom Build | AHRC funded practice-based housing research
AHRC Home Improvements - Home Research Projects - Home - Research at SSoA - School of Architecture - The University of Sheffield
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Futures Forum

Monday, 2 December 2013

Innovative solutions to the lack of affordable housing....... self-build alternatives...

Number of affordable homes

Build-to-rent tenants jump queue for family-size homes

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