Overview
The City Council in Leeds has a good track record of supporting a range of community-led housing initiatives, particularly but not exclusively, through its Empty Homes Programme.
The City Council is currently supporting community-led housing through:
- Leadership: a political champion is in place and there is strong support for community-led housing at Chief Executive and director level; an officer champion is based in the Housing Growth Team
- Officer support: helps community-led housing groups source external funding, identify sites, discuss public land disposals, and develop projects that comply with planning policy
- Funding: Right to Buy receipts are being use to fund 30% of the capital costs of new build, off-the-shelf and purchase and repair of empty properties by community-led housing organisations like Canopy, Latch and Gipsil
- Asset transfers: the City Council is leasing empty properties to community-led organisations for 99 years at peppercorn rents, enabling them to raise finance to buy long term empty homes. There is also an exclusivity period on the sale of some Council sites to help community-led groups raise the necessary development funding
- Proactively encouraging the growth of Leeds Community Homes, a community land trust that is aiming to provide 1000 new community-led homes across the City over the next ten years. £360,000 has just been raised through a community share issue to help fund 16 genuinely affordable new build homes in South Leeds, in partnership with an eco-homes developer
- Providing land and support for a £4 million, 33-home cohousing scheme (ChaCo) in Chapetown where the local community has already raised £600,000 through a loan stock fund
The City Council’s future policy on community-led housing will be set out in a forthcoming report to its Executive Board; it will include practical measures to support and encourage the sector. It is also drafting a Supplementary Planning Document on Community Led Housing to complement its Core Strategy. Copies of these documents will be added to the Toolkit when available.
Useful links
CCIN Case Study
Leeds City Council’s Empty Homes Strategy 2016-2019.
Leeds City Council’s Principal Regeneration Officer (Affordable & Specialist Housing) is sarah.may@leeds.gov.uk
A case study of Canopy Housing, one of the community-led housing organisations benefiting from the City’s Empty Homes Strategy and Leeds Community Homes.
More on Leeds Community Homes.
Published in April 2018
