New and innovative approaches to delivering houses

14/04/10

A South East Housing Coalition and Kent County Council seminar on developing new and innovative approaches in housing delivery

This half-day seminar organised, jointly by the South East Housing Coalition and Kent County Council, highlighted the broad range of barriers to delivering affordable housing across Kent. And it provided delegates with the potential tools to get house building increased and incentives for improved partnership working.

Paul Carter, Leader, Kent County Council
Paul set the scene for the seminar, highlighting the particular issues facing Kent in making more affordable housing available and creating communities where people want to live.

The key issues highlighted in Paul's presentation were the:

impact of the current economic climate on the construction industry
need to ensure house building doesn't stop and that skills from the construction industry aren't lost
need for more efficient building regulations to enable high-standard homes to be built in the most effective way for the development, whilst meeting high environmental standards
need for clear and responsive planning decisions
housing trends for Kent and Medway.

Warren Finney, Regional Manager South East, National Housing Federation
Warren's presentation highlighted the current affordable housing issues in the South East region. He looked at why it will be critical for local authorities, housing associations and other stakeholders to work in partnership and how Kent County Council and Medway are to ensure affordable housing delivery in the future.

In Warren's presentation, the key issues highlighted were:

current housing affordability and waiting list statistics taken from the Federation's South East Home Truths publication
the current financial model used by housing associations to deliver affordable homes
why this model is unlikely to deliver the number of homes needed moving forward
a wide array of alternative models NHF is currently exploring with the potential to deliver affordable housing in the future
areas where local authorities and housing associations already deliver excellent service in partnership, using both the Federation's Councillors handbook and the Regional Housing and Regeneration Board's publication, Challenging Perceptions of Affordable Housing.

Michala Beacham, Senior Policy Officer, Shelter
Michala's presentation first acknowledged the unique economic times in which we live - times that have challenged and potentially broken the models we have been using to deliver new homes, particularly affordable homes.

She demonstrated the increasing agreement across the housing sector to create new models of housing delivery that are sustainable over the long term. And she presented new and innovative approaches to housing delivery put forward by a range of commentators from across this sector - approaches elicited and compiled by Shelter in its report, Ground Breaking new ideas on housing delivery.

Her presentation covered three main themes; new forms of investment, new ways of working and addressing long-standing issues. She also presented the role that Government will need to play.

Under each theme, Michala described some suggested approaches for making housing delivery possible. These included:

the local housing fund, consisting of a local housing bond and a local housing mortgage
private-rented sector investment
attracting new participants into the house-building sector
rethinking existing approaches to tenure
improving the efficiency of the planning system and the rules around disposing of public sector land for housing development at below-market values
the Government providing policy and financial backing to enable the house-building sector to undertake new and experimental approaches to housing delivery.

In conclusion, Michala stressed the critical need for all parts of the sector - central Government, private and social sector developers, and local authorities - to focus their collective attention and thought onto how we continue to build new homes. It is even more important, she concluded, that these new ideas and approaches are put into practice immediately.

Brian Horton, Strategic Housing Advisor, Kent County Council
Brian's presentation outlined the work already undertaken to produce a Kent and Medway Housing Strategy. He set out the areas to be addressed to ensure a fully-inclusive strategy, which is complementary and supports the current housing strategies throughout the Kent area.

The key issues in Brian's presentations were:

the idea behind a Kent and Medway Housing Strategy; current individuals involved and the need for other interested parties to become part of the strategy development process, which will aim to tackle some of the emerging themes such as:
- rural development
- infrastructure
- land supply
- supported housing services
- climate change
- demographic change
setting out the aims of the Kent and Medway Strategy such as:
- an opportunity to identify and develop actions to bring added value to the Kent region
- making the case for additional funding from central Government
- an opportunity to celebrate good practice and enhance partnership working across Kent
that the Kent and Medway Strategy was not:
- a replacement of the District and Borough lead role in responding to local strategic housing priorities
- a replacement to LDFs, local or sub-regional strategies
- a 'one size fits all' approach.
to ensure a strategically-planned balance of a wide range of tenures across the whole of the Kent region to ensure appropriate quantities of private-rented sector, social and affordable and owner-occupied tenures to meet local need.

Workshop 1
Exploring the potential and application of a new co-operative housing scheme to be a solution to local housing delivery

Context
Mutual home ownership (MHO) - what is it?
The essential concepts behind MHO are simple.

It's a new form of housing tenure designed to fill the growing gap between affordable rented housing and the open housing market.
It's designed for households on average earnings who can afford part of the cost of their home, but who can't afford the full expense of buying a home on the open market. As such, it is an intermediate-market housing product that is designed to remain permanently affordable.
It's a hybrid tenure - a household funds an equity stake in their home through a mix of a deposit and monthly rental payments.

Key features

It's built on land owned by a Community Land Trust (CLT).
The CLT grants a mutual home ownership society (MHOS) the right to build and occupy homes on its land.
MHOS members are the residents who live in the homes built by the society - they control the financing, management and maintenance of their homes.
Each MHOS member owns and finances equity shares in the value of the property portfolio owned by the society and leases one home giving them permanent occupation.
The cost of building the homes (property portfolio) is funded by a long-term corporate mortgage loan that is serviced by members' monthly payments, set a 35% of their net household income. As their income increases they pay more. If it goes down they can either sell some of their equity or freeze it and switch to standard rental payments.
When members leave they sell their equity shares at a rate linked to average earnings and not the open housing market.

Discussion conclusions
The group agreed that any new housing model must focus on what the end user wants, as its starting point. MHO may only able to provide small-scale developments and, as such, Kent local authorities need to adapt their existing delivery models to work across the board. No detail was given as to what this might involve and KHG may want to explore this further.

The group also agreed that any new housing model should be able to fund itself. Public land provision was seen as a means of achieving this and it was suggested that this land is leased as part of a joint venture, with an equity stake taken by the local authority on housing sales.

MHO was seen as a potential source of housing for rural areas - it was suggested that the approach be taken to a rural housing group that Kent County Council participates in.

Finally, while MHO was seen as a complex form of intermediate tenure, the flexibility it offered tenants was welcomed. The flexibility could be applied to existing intermediate products as these products are also complex and a single model is needed.

Workshop 3
Discussing the issues and options for meeting the housing and support needs of an aging population

Sheltered housing

There was concern that sheltered housing provision was being reduced across the county. Some thought the current mode and style of sheltered accommodation wasn't suitable or desirable for future generations of an aging community - its popularity was already waning and would only get worse if action was taken.
In many instances, older people wanted to stay in their own homes but there was not enough varied types of support to facilitate this.

There weren't enough joined-up approaches with the wide range of delivery agencies. More cross working with PCTs, social services, HIAs and extra-care providers needed to be established, so better provision could be offered to those that wanted to stay in their own homes.

More than one option or solution was needed as the needs for people living in the private-rented sector were very different to those who were owner occupiers and social rented in general needs accommodation.
The greatest need for support for the elderly is likely to come from the private-rented sector, but there's little in place to help people in this situation at the moment. The county needs to ensure the RPS is considered part of the council's general strategic planning to cover issues such as

housing management structures
new technologies available for people living in the PRS
support for the elderly in the RPS is included in all strategic discussions.

Freeing up accommodation was also discussed. All agreed that a portion of people living in their own homes or socially-rented homes would be happy to move to smaller accommodation but the right options weren't available to offer them the opportunity to move on. It was agreed that the issues around enabling elderly people to downsize are

a lack of suitable and desirable alternative accommodation
support to remove the stress associated with moving home
an acknowledgment that single elderly people don't want to live in a small one-bed flat but a home which meets their and their extended family's needs

Sheltered accommodation needs to remove the tag of an option of housing for 55 year olds as it was generally believed that this was simply unrealistic and that, moving forward, the lines between sheltered accommodation and extra care would become blurred.

Extra care support and accommodation

The group thought that new or redesigned sheltered accommodation needs to be adaptable and flexible. This will enable a shift in provision type without having to relocate individuals and without major capital renovation.
There is the potential for new residential accommodation to be designed as a suitable modern alternative to sheltered accommodation. It could be built in clusters around a core medical centre offering facilities for the sheltered homes and elderly members of the community. This would enable the occupiers of this sheltered accommodation to tap into the medical and support facilities as and when required.
Concern was expressed that this might work in affluent areas but not in the more deprived wards. There may need to be an alternative offering greater support for those who aren't socially mobile.
Concern was also expressed that this system has the potential to 'import' higher need into an area, without meeting any local demand.

Personalisation
There was a general view that some services (eg night care in a sheltered or extra-care scheme) had to be funded by everyone, whether they used the service or not, to ensure it could be offered.

Rural areas

Individual need had to be identified earlier in rural areas due to the logistics of offering appropriate support.
There were views that sometimes the elderly person's village option could work, but this was an 'as and when' model.
There needs to be greater consultation with an individual about what they want to happen - are they prepared to move? What support is needed?
Offer greater support to cope with the option of moving home or downsizing is possibly a role for Home Improvement Agencies (HIAs).
HIAs were viewed as having great potential in rural areas. For a small fee they could offer a wide range of services which might enable the individuals to continue to live in their own homes.
Transport infrastructures needs to be in place. It's not often seen as support service, rather a public transport issue, but if the elderly community in rural areas can't access food, banking facilities or opportunities to socialise, they could be isolated and vulnerable.

Home Improvement Agencies (HIAs)

It was believed that moving forward there was potential for HIAs to offer a much wider service as these services were usually run by either the local authority or a service provider on behalf of and accessed through the local authority. The additional work could include:

facilitating house moves
as an enabler to the rural community, offering help and support with fuel poverty, food poverty and availability
basic maintenance services.

It was thought that it was not unreasonable to charge a smaller amount to offer these services to help fund the expanded HIA work.

The views and discussions from Workshop 3 will be passed to the Supporting People team and Kent Housing Group to inform further debate and subsequent work.