Can Co-housing provide a solution to the UK's housing crisis?By: Douglas Haig

As the housing crisis continues to bite and once proud financial institutions struggle to balance their requirements to lend more, not make obscene profits and increase their reserves, the country looks for as many creative ways to increase the housing supply in the fastest possible way for the greatest value for money.

Co-operative Housing, or Co-Housing as it is more commonly known, has been mentioned frequently as a panacea to our housing problems. People have a greater say on how their house is designed and a greater involvement in how their community is run. Overall, it fits well with the localism agenda. Jonathan Reynolds MP sponsored a Co-operative Housing Tenure Bill for Wales and it is currently at the Consideration for Amendments Stage and both the current and previous Welsh Housing Ministers strongly support the tenure, so has the time for co-operative housing come? It sounds fantastic in principal; but will it really get the country out of the difficulties it faces?

The essence of co-operative housing is to allow a group of like minded people to come together to establish a community. Very often the groups will have a specific goal in mind; eco-sustainability, demographic profile (one current co-operative is for women over 50) or even with the goal to ensure it is a mixed diversity of tenure. An example of this would see a mix of rental, owner occupied, supported housing and shared equity housing all on one site.

As a founder member of a co-housing group you can collaborate with your other members to determine this objective, among other variables. A site, its lay out, the type of housing, how the housing is built and ultimately the governance of the site and community would all need to be taken in to consideration. According to the UK Cohousing Network, there are just 14 existing co-housing communities with over 40 developing projects. The question is, why so few if the concept has been around since the 1990s?

Historically, anybody interested in putting together a co-housing community would initially need to find a number of people who shared their views, identity, goals and common interests. They would then need to find a developer, find a supporting funder, supervise the project and set up a governance network. As funding from mainstream lenders tends to be focused on known risks, this would not be easy to obtain and would likely need a substantial equity investment from the community group.

However, this begs the question, if you had that much money available; why not invest it in your own self build project on an independent site?

There is a big push towards green energy in housing and when coupling that with a greater focus on access to housing and a general encouragement of people to have more responsibility for their homes and communities there is a real focus to remove these financial barriers. Local authorities are talking about gifting land, housing associations are prepared to use their clout to get cheaper borrowing and there are government incentives for sustainable housing.

The online community allows us to find like minded groups that want to achieve the same objective within their neighbourhood and there is much more information and help to govern cohousing once it is built. If you add a legislative framework, which properly caters for this new tenure then it could very well get more people into homes.

Reports have suggested that co-operative housing will help control issues that are faced by many in terms of anti-social behaviour and a less supportive community. However, it is worth considering the ticking time bombs of leaseholds when comparing.

In many smaller blocks, the freehold has been sold to a limited company of which each leaseholder is a shareholder, almost a form of co-operative housing. The rise of tribunal cases and unsatisfied leaseholders where others are not paying their service charges are a warning sign. Many blocks do not have management in place because no-one wants to take it on. As such the buildings degrade, devalue, and increase in anti-social incidents and in some cases risk the wellbeing of the residents.

Admittedly, these buildings were not formed as co-operatives but it does point to what happens to co-housing once the initial engaged residents leave the community.

These issues for both sectors need to be addressed otherwise all that will be created is a series of buildings that in 40 years time our children will look and wonder what we were thinking. 

About the author

Douglas Haig is the Managing Director of James Douglas Sales & Lettings and sister company Seraph Property Maintenance in Cardiff. He is also Chair of the Cardiff Landlord Forum and Residential Landlords Association (RLA) Director for Wales.