Affordable Housing

Keswick

Summary

After realising the desperate need for affordable housing in their area, members of Churches Together in Keswick put together a working group to think about the best response. None of them had experience in the property industry. As they researched, they came across the idea of Community Land Trusts, and Keswick Community Housing Trust (KCHT) was born.

A Community Land Trust is a non-profit organisation that is set up and run by ordinary people to develop and manage housing and other community assets on behalf of the local community. CLTs act as long-term stewards of their housing, ensuring that it benefits local residents and remains genuinely affordable in perpetuity. 

Priority is based on local connection, housing need, and proven contribution to the local community. Around half of KCHT’s homes are for shared ownership and the other half are let out at rents that are genuinely affordable – measured in relation to local earnings, as opposed to market rents. For the shared ownership homes, it is a requirement that anyone wishing to sell gives KCHT first refusal, so that they can be retained for local families, keeping them affordable in perpetuity.

Having strong links to local churches and the wider community has paid off, with all their land coming from other community groups. The Hopes was their first development, comprising 11 three-bedroom properties: 5 rented homes, 5 shared ownership homes, and 1 commercial sale (with a local occupancy clause) to make the whole project viable. It was built on land bought from St John’s church. This was followed by Banks Court. Transferred to the Trust by Allerdale Borough Council for £1, this old public toilet block in the centre of town has been converted into four single person flats. The total conversion cost was around £230k.

The opportunity for KCHT’s third development at Calvert Way in 2017 arose through the relationships already established with Impact Housing Association and Atkinsons Construction, who were contracted to build their first two developments. Atkinsons secured the site and invited Impact HA to take on management of the affordable homes, who then invited KCHT to take on responsibility for half of the properties – 22 homes in total (11 rented and 11 shared ownership).

The group are currently on their fourth development – the conversion of a Methodist church hall into four smaller family homes, helping in the process to pay for the renovation of the church, which will double up as a worship and community space.

Background

It all started back in 2009, with six open meetings of Keswick Churches Together about the issues facing the town. Housing kept coming up in these discussions. People who were born in the town, had gone to school there, and were working there, were living in substandard housing at unaffordable rents or were being forced to commute from miles away. This was partly because nearly a third of properties in Keswick are second homes, limiting supply for locals and driving up prices. With people forced out of the area, the community is being eroded – older people can’t be supported by their family as they’ve had to move away, and there aren’t enough volunteers for community organisations.

After KCHT had progressed considerably on their structures and model, at just the right time, the vicar of St John’s offered to sell the piece of land next to the church graveyard – impractical for burials, but ideal for housing.

Impact

Buying their own home in Keswick was completely out of the question for Jo and her husband, even though they both have good jobs. Luckily, she is now a shared owner in KCHT’s third development, as well as an active member of the committee. She says that the stability created by having a secure and affordable home is helping families to settle down and have the confidence to have children.

• All their housing is of a high quality, including many with Grade A insulation, bringing down costs for residents.
• The need is so high they often get enquiries about future projects, although they don’t keep a waiting list because demand is greater than they can meet. They receive five applications per property. 
• They know all their residents by name, making the experience personal.

‘What we do is essential for a healthy functional community’ – KCHT.

What do you need?

Keswick Community Housing Trust (KCHT) is a registered housing provider and a registered charity. The former enables it to access grants from Homes England, whilst the latter enables it to apply for charitable grants and protects its properties from the Right To Buy.

Personnel

• Led by Bill Bewley, who used to work in the bakery industry, the board claims to have had no specific expertise.
• What they do claim they have is sheer determination and a refusal to take no for an answer
• They say that having a leader with a vision is important
• Board meetings are fortnightly, and some members have additional meetings on top of this
• They got help from other groups, including the Community Land Trust Network
• They emphasise the importance of having professional management services 
• When using church land, they suggest that a ‘strong’ minister is important

Finances

• Grants from the council and the Quakers – alongside pro bono help – covered early development costs
• Land and build costs for their first development were covered through:
  • Community shares: investors can withdraw their investment but make no profit (£60k in total)
  • Homes England grants (£230k for the first project)
  • Loans (up to £1.1m for the first project, later converted into mortgages)
  • They sold one house for market rate (with a local occupancy clause) to fund it
• The overall cost is between £110k-130k for a three-bedroom home. The cost of land was £10k per plot and the build cost was around £100k for each home, with solicitors, architects and others making up the rest of the cost.
• They have a unique model for shared ownership which keeps it affordable. Shared owners purchase their homes at 50% of the market price. Unusually, no rent is currently charged on the unsold equity, although for legal reasons KCHT retain the option to do so if needed.

Real estate

The land from St John’s church’s graveyard had a covenant on it that it should only be used for burials. However, because of drainage issues it was not suitable for graves so the church negotiated with the estate of the donor to ignore the covenant in exchange for part of the profits of the sale.

Tips

• Do the work to set up structures and policies even if you don’t yet have the land
• They emphasise the need for a good business plan in order to attract funding
• If you want to be funded as a CLT, you also have to prove connections to the community, so membership must be open beyond the church
• When people say ‘you have to do it like this’, always ask ‘why’. A disagreement with the local highways department almost scuppered their first scheme, but a solution was found.
• Go at your own pace. If you can’t reach deadlines for funding, others will come along, and it’s not worth burning out. Also don’t rush to expand, instead ‘look after what [you’ve] got’.