Picture: Lowfield Green Housing Co-op, York.
Rooted In
Local homes, built by local trades for local families to meet the local needs. We are working with Leeds Community Homes to develop a community-led housing project that is on its way to becoming a registered Social Housing Provider with the aim of building high-quality homes for affordable rent.
YorSpace
YorSpace is a community land trust leading a revolution in how housing is funded, delivered and owned in York. YorSpace is passionate about changing how house building is funded and delivered to make it more fair, more accessible, more environmentally friendly and more community controlled. Our approach is distinctly different from conventional market housing.
YorSpace is a not-for-profit community housing enabler. YorSpace leads the strategic development of sites for community-led housing across York, with co-operative societies set up to deliver and manage individual communities.
YorSpace delivers it’s vision through its five main functions:
- Raise Community Share funding for the purpose of enabling community-led housing in York
- Use share investment funding to purchase land and carry out enabling works on the land so it can be developed for the benefit of the community
- Actively facilitate the creation of Mutual Home Ownership Societies by potential residents as the vehicle through which housing will be delivered
- Act as a foci to bring together potential residents with other stakeholders to reduce the time and complexity of community-led development for potential residents
- Create and make available a replicable mutual home ownership model for multiple groups to use
YorSpace is always looking for new members and Directors to join our volunteer board. Please get in touch if you want to get involved.
Contact YorSpace: hello@yorspace.org, Follow on Twitter, Like on Facebook
Halifax Opportunities Trust
HOT is a local regeneration charity with our roots and much of our activity in Park ward, which is to the west of Halifax town centre in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. We were set up in 2000 by local residents and our purpose has always been ‘to work to make a vibrant, multicultural and self-sustaining community’. We achieve this by helping people find good jobs; build new social connections and tackle low confidence; providing learning opportunities (including apprenticeships & ESOL); help parents to bring up healthy, confident and happy children; provide affordable business space to encourage local enterprise and job opportunities within the community.
All HOT activity is developed in response to issues and opportunities identified by local residents e.g. Elsie Whiteley Innovation Centre (which houses local businesses), Jubilee Children’s Centre (family support and early years provision) & The Outback (a community garden and straw-bale kitchen). Each day over 1,700 people come through the doors of our various places and spaces to work, learn, socialise and play. The majority of trustees, staff and volunteers live in the area so we are very much ‘of’ the community and part of the fabric of Park ward.
HOT is now venturing into community led housing by seeking empty housing to renovate and turn into affordable homes for local people. HOT is at the early stages of acquiring, renovating and letting empty homes in central Halifax. We have planning and feasibility support from Leeds Community Homes and are also working closely with other charities in Halifax and the local authority. We are always interested to learn from other housing organisations that have successfully brought empty homes back to use.
Follow HOT on Twitter and Facebook, Insta: halifaxoppstrust
Pride of Place Leeds
Pride of Place creating Leeds’ first LGBT+ housing project and community arts centre.
Visit the Pride of Place website to read all about this innovative LGBT+ community-led organisation that is planning to build:
- Pride of Place Living: a multi-generational housing complex of at least 70 high quality fully accessible, flexible and affordable homes in central Leeds. Approximately 50% of the homes will be for older people with care and extra care needs, the remainder will be for families and young people.
- Pride of Place: the creation of a Community & Cultural Arts Centre for the LGBTQ+ community in central Leeds.
Pride of Place is currently in the first stages of development, actively seeking new members, contributors and partners
Chapeltown CoHousing (ChaCo)
Chapeltown Cohousing is creating sustainable and affordable homes for up to 35 households. Transforming derelict land into a vibrant neighbourhood with low-energy homes, shared facilities and gardens, recreational space, opportunities for inter-generational connections and a diverse intentional community grown from the local area.
What makes this venture special is that it is run by local people to benefit local people. At least two-thirds of the residents will come from Chapeltown. We are also working hard to make sure that the group reflects the diversity of the local area in terms of age, ethnicity and wealth.
Follow ChaCo on Twitter and Facebook
New Wortley Housing Association
New Wortley Housing Association (NWHA) are aiming to address local housing need by building housing that is owned by the community, for the community.
They plan on building twenty-two social and affordable homes at Holdforth Place in New Wortley; fifteen of which will be three-bed homes for families and seven of which will be accessible two-bed flats for those aged over 55. NWHA will rent the homes to members of the community who are on the Leeds City Council housing waiting list and in priority bands A or B.
NWHA are aiming to build the homes to, or as close to, Passivhaus standards as possible with LEDA (Leeds Environmental Design Agency) as our Architects for this exciting project.
Holme Valley’s own Community-led Housing charity, Ecoholmes has come up with a vision of the sort of homes we should have in the future – affordable, energy-efficient and sustainable.
ShangriLeeds
| We are looking for more members to re-vive the group which has had a small core group and would like to expand. We are also up for joining forces with other groups to make it easier for a larger development if that could be mutually worthwhile. Contact shangrileeds@gmail.com |
Lowfield Green
| Lowfield Green Housing Co-op, in partnership with YorSpace, aims to build sustainable, low carbon, affordable housing. It is primarily aimed at families currently stuck in the rent trap who want to live in a self sufficient community, sharing utilities such as tools from the workshop, the same source of electricity and heating (solar powered) and the site will contain a common room to host events, regular classes and a space to connect with other members of the community. Contact via https://lowfieldgreencoop.uk/contact/ |
CLAN
Community Living for Aging Nerds (CLAN). We are a new cohousing group in the Yorkshire area, hoping to create a senior cohousing project within the next 4-10 years. The current committee for the project have a shared love of nerdy and geeky things, such as board games, video games, tabletop and live-action roleplay games, and enjoy science-fiction and fantasy books and films. We all have other interests too, but that’s the core love that gathers us together.
We hope to find a place where we can have private dwellings with a shared space to enable us to play games and watch nerdy things together into our twilight years.
Why just nerds?
You may not have heard much about it, but nerds have a strong subculture that many of us have been involved in for years. We meet up for conventions and events, and have friends across the country. We have a loose community already that has been forged over years of common interest, and we want to find a home for it.
If you’re wondering why we picked nerd instead of geek, it was purely down to the acronym (CLAG really doesn’t have the same ring to it). We hope to welcome anyone who is happy to live in an environment where conversation is likely to include Star Trek references, Warhammer paint comparisons, niche musical genres, or which roleplay system we want to try next (along with the inevitable “whose turn is it to clean the common house?”).
Is this a retirement home?
No. We hope to set this up before we retire, and don’t plan on having a minimum age. We’re sure some people will join us after retirement, especially those who would have to relocate to join us, but we want to get started creating this environment as soon as we can. Hence ‘Aging’, rather than ‘Retired’ nerds.
Are you accepting members yet?
No, we are still a bit new for that; we aren’t yet incorporated and don’t have a site. But we do have a mailing list, so please do drop us an email at CLANcohousing@gmail.com and we’ll get you added. We send out emails every few weeks at the moment, depending on what new developments have occurred.
