(Image: YorSpace)
The vision behind six affordable apartments due to be built in a York suburb could help solve the city’s “mad” and “completely unsustainable” housing market, according to the developer.
High housing prices have become part and parcel of living in York, with Office for National Statistics figures putting the city’s average house price in May (£309,000) £100,000 higher than the Yorkshire average.
But James Neward, chief operating officer at YorSpace, feels it does not have to stay that way.
YorSpace is preparing to start work on six new sustainable flats to be sold at 70 per cent of their market value at its Lowfield Green development in Acomb.
They will be owned through a mutual home ownership scheme with the Lowfield Green Housing Co-op collectively owning a single mortgage for the properties.
The first residents of Lowfield Green in Acomb, York, after moving in following phase one being completed last year
(Image: Provided)
All the properties, like the 14 affordable low carbon houses already built at Lowfield Green under phase one completed last year, will be locked into community ownership – protecting them from speculative sale – to create permanently affordable sustainable homes for communities.
It is an approach that means the homes will “never find their way onto the open market”, James said, ensuring they stay close to the price they were initially purchased for when being resold.
“That’s really a direct response to right to buy [allowing council tenants to buy their rented home at a large discount] and the issues we’ve got with affordable housing not always being affordable,” he said. “Because they find their way into the open market and become unaffordable.”
How the six flats due to be built at Lowfield Green in Acomb, York, could look
(Image: YorSpace)
Aside from the financial benefits, James said the resident-led co-operative housing model has also resulted in a positive community forming at Lowfield Green – where neighbours borrow milk, share childcare and enjoy meals together.
The addition to that community will come in the form of the six new mutual home ownership flats, with work due to start in autumn.
YorSpace has agreed an allocation policy for the flats with City of York Council, prioritising people in need of housing and those with a connection to the city. There is currently a call out for people to be part of Lowfield Green phase two.
James Neward, chief operating officer at YorSpace
(Image: Supplied)
Phase two is being supported by funding from the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority and the Nationwide Foundation, and YorSpace will also be looking at raising money from the community.
Raising money from the community is something YorSpace did successfully during phase one of the Lowfield Green development, with £422,000 raised to take the initial project forward. YorSpace started its first instalment of paybacks to the phase one investors in January, six years after the scheme closed.
'Many opportunities' that could come from community housing model - developer
James admitted that finding the money to deliver the projects affordably is a “constant challenge” and has previously pointed to it being the reason that YorSpace’s plans to redevelop Morrell House in Clifton into housing are yet to come to fruition.
But he said it is important for YorSpace to succeed with the next phase of Lowfield Green – and other projects – to inspire other organisations to build more genuinely affordable housing.
“We speak to people in North Yorkshire, like North Yorkshire Council, who are waiting for our project to be a success to point to – to say, ‘look it is possible’,” James said.
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He said the work under phase two of the development will represent YorSpace’s continued efforts to build affordable housing to stop York residents being priced out of their home city.
Mutual home ownership “isn’t the silver bullet” to fixing York’s high housing prices, James said, “but it does challenge the perception of home ownership and equity in housing and how much that equity should rise in value”.
“The idea is that we try and take housing out of the market,” he added. “It’s a race to the bottom and we need to change that model.”
YorSpace is working with the University of York to research how its community-owned affordable housing model could be scaled up across the county and beyond.
“I think there are many opportunities,” James said. “It’s just riding the wave of completing phase two and seeking investment.”