A solution to our housing problems: create an in-perpetuity '100 per cent affordable' development

There's 'affordable':
Futures Forum: A tale of two developments > affordable housing in Sidford ... but not at Knowle

And there's 'viability':

Futures Forum: Sidford and affordable housing > of 'viablity' and 'overage'

Futures Forum: ‘Viability assessments’ allow developers to drop affordable housing

Futures Forum: How to avoid affordable housing

There are also housing associations:

Futures Forum: A solution to our housing problems: "Allow housing associations, councils and municipal bodies to raise bonds to finance the building of desperately needed social and affordable homes to rent on public land."

And there are land trusts:

Futures Forum: A solution to our housing problems: community land trusts

And other community-led ideas:

Futures Forum: A solution to our housing problems: community groups putting forward their own development plans and working to build community-led housing on public land. 

The latest Architect's Journal showcases a very inspiring project:

Plans for ‘permanently half-price’ homes submitted by Archio

4 JUNE, 2018 BY RICHARD WAITE





Source:Niall Gallacher

2 COMMENTS

Emerging practice Archio has submitted plans with Lewisham Council for 11 ’permanently half-price homes’ to replace a row of garages in Sydenham

The 659m² scheme will be delivered by the London Community Land Trust in partnership with local civic society Lewisham Citizens and create an in-perpetuity ’100 per cent affordable’ development.

As Community Land Trust homes, the flats will be sold at a price linked to local wages, with one-bedroom apartments going for £192,000 and two-bedroom for £244,000 – less than half the market value of homes in the south-east London area.

Under the Trust agreement, home-owners will also have to reapply the same formula when selling the property, so homes will only rise in price in line with average incomes across the borough, rather than with the open market.

According to the practice, which was chosen following a Pick an Architect workshop with residents last year, potential purchasers of the new homes ‘must be in a certain income bracket and have strong ties to the local community’.

Mellis Haward, director at Archio said: ’These London Community Land Trust homes demonstrate the incredible opportunity to create genuinely affordable homes on the kind of forgotten garage sites that we see all over London.

’Our architectural proposals have emerged from a collaborative design process with the residents and the council, and we are hopeful of receiving strong local support for this planning application.’

Clad in pale brick, the proposed three-to-four storey building will have ’a stepped profile to address the change in height between the surrounding developments and has been carefully positioned to fit into the existing layout of the estate’. The practice has ’carved a series of insets’ into the block to bring light into the centre of the building.

The project is part of wider plan by Lewisham mayor Damian Egan to deliver 200 Community Land Trust homes over the next four years.



Project data

Location Lewisham, London
Type of project Affordable Community Land Trust housing
Client London Community Land Trust
Architect Archio
Landscape architect Kinnear Landscape
Planning consultant CMA
Structural engineer Price and Myers
M&E consultant Ingine
Quantity surveyor Ian Sayer & Co
Gross internal floor area 659m²
Form of contract Design and Build
Total cost Undisclosed



Workshop with local residents

TAGS
HOUSING
ARCHIO
SYDENHAM

Plans for ‘permanently half-price’ homes submitted by Archio | News | Architects Journal

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