Community-led housing
The Mayor's London Housing Strategy sets out the key principles of community-led housing:
- meaningful community engagement and consent occurs throughout the development process. Communities do not necessarily have to initiate the conversation or build homes themselves
- a presumption that the community group or organisation will take a long-term formal role in the ownership, stewardship, or management of the homes
- the benefits of the scheme to the local area and/or specified community group are clearly defined and legally protected in perpetuity.
The Mayor wants Londoners to have the opportunity to play a leading role in building their own communities. To help them do this, he is acting to boost the development of new community-led homes by:
- creating opportunities for community-led housing at St Ann's in Haringey
- funding community-led housing groups through his Community Housing Fund;
- supporting the Community-Led Housing London Hub; and
- facilitating land for community-led housing through his Small Sites, Small Builders initiative
Community-led homes at St Ann's
St Ann's is a flagship development of 995 homes, being delivered through a partnership between the Mayor and Peabody. 60 per cent of the homes will be enshrined as genuinely affordable homes, and up to 56 of these have been ringfenced for acquisition as community-led homes.
In September, the GLA launched an opportunity for community groups to submit proposals to acquire 56 homes at St Ann's New Neighbourhood Scheme in the London Borough of Haringey. The selection process has now closed and the GLA looks forward to announcing the outcome of the process in coming months.
If you require any information in an alternative format please email [email protected].
Community Housing Fund
The Mayor has secured London's share of the Community Housing Fund and is delivering a programme for the capital. The programme outside London is being delivered by Homes England.
Funding Prospectus
The Mayor published the Community Housing Fund prospectus in January 2019. The prospectus sets out the fund’s objectives, which are to:
increase housing supply in London by boosting the number of homes delivered by the community-led housing sector;
provide housing that is affordable at local income levels and remains so in perpetuity; and
deliver a legacy for the community-led housing sector in the form of an effective and self-sustaining body of expertise.
The programme is providing the following funding:
- revenue grants to community-led groups to help cover the costs of project-specific activities that will support development of proposals for new housing schemes, pre-development costs and preparing for planning applications.
- capital funding for the delivery of new homes; and
- development finance to support delivery of CLH schemes
All organisations and groups interested in bidding for revenue and/or capital funding should contact the Community-Led Housing London Hub at www.communityledhousing.london in the first instance to discuss their application.
How to bid
Following an initial discussion with the Community-Led Housing London Hub, bids for advanced revenue or capital funding should be submitted through the GLA's Open Project System (OPS). OPS is a streamlined system which partners should find simple to navigate. If your organisation hasn't previously used OPS, you will firstly need to register and create a new organisation profile to be able to bid. This process, along with further information about OPS is detailed within this user guide. Organisations bidding for capital funding should also familiarise themselves with the GLA's Affordable Housing Capital Funding Guide. Organisations should email the GLA if they require further guidance on how to use it at [email protected].
The GLA has in place an Anti-Money Laundering Policy. This covers, in particular the checks we will undertake when we make interest free loans and recoverable grants to other entities and individuals.
Community-Led Housing London Hub
For the first time, there is a one-stop shop giving organisations the information, capacity-building and technical support they need to get their community-led housing projects up, running and delivered.
The Community-Led Housing London Hub was launched in July 2017 and is hosted by CDS Co-operatives. The hub provides information, capacity-building and technical support, to help groups get their projects up and running.
Small Sites, Small Builders
Through the Small Sites, Small Builders programme, launched in February 2018, the Mayor earmarked two Tfl-owned sites for community-led housing: Cable Street in Tower Hamlets and Christchurch Road in Lambeth, and has supported boroughs in bringing forward other sites for community-led housing.
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