Hohbusplansummer17

Owning the future together

BUSINESS PLANNING:

Our Principles SUMMER 2017 HEART OF HASTINGS COMMUNITY LAND TRUST

OUR VALUES We are innovative and enterprising We are collaborative and inclusive We are community led We prioritise need, enthusiasm, contribution and local connection

OUR VISION Affordable spaces, diverse communities and fabulous neighbourhoods through socially driven investment and long term co-ownership.

• White Rock remains diverse, interesting and (at least partially) affordable with more of the uplift from rising house values reinvested in the local area.

• Ore Valley people get to reconnect with, transform and own the land that has blighted the neighbourhood for so long.

• Participants build skills, knowledge, confidence and positive relationships and are able to access opportunities for employment and enterprise.

• Housing security and quality of life is improved for local people, especially those in need or who might be displaced otherwise.

• New ‘self-renovating’ models are developed and tested with the potential for replication and ongoing adaptation.

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OUR MISSION • We reach out, build networks and support local people to take action together to protect and improve their neighbourhoods and their lives.

• We create new residential and workspace units through renovation/conversion and community self-build, capping rents with inflation checked against local earnings.

• We support local people to grow their skills and confidence to increase their employability and help them establish projects and enterprises in response to local need and opportunity.

• We highlight, research and evidence changes underway that could threaten the character and community of our local neighbourhoods, while always looking to create solutions.

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OUR ACTIVITIES • Buy one or more properties in the White Rock area into community freehold, renovate as necessary, and rent to people in need at a capped rent for living and/or working.

Increase the availability of affordable housing and workspace by bringing into use some of the difficult empty properties in the area.

• Using a bottom-up development (BUD) approach and the Organisation Workshop (OW) method, support a transformative community-build of new housing, workspace and other facilities on the former Power Station site in the Ore Valley.

• Create, test and refine workshops and courses such as ‘Development Economics for Citizens’ to better enable people to understand how development happens and hold developers and local authorities to account.

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OUR INSPIRATIONS

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MARSH FARM OW PILOT The Organisation Workshop (OW) method – a large-scale capacitation approach invented in Brazil in the 1970s and used extensively throughout the developing world. Working with a group of 100+ ‘excluded’ people, the OW offers an intensive reallife experience of autonomous enterprise which transforms the physical asset, the individual participants and their ability to work collectively. The approach had never been tried in the UK until it was piloted in 2015 by Marsh Farm Outreach of Luton.

They worked with 43 participants

of whom 23 went into employment and 14 have developed a series of enterprises under the umbrella collective enterprise, RevoLuton.

The Marsh Farm OW was independently evaluated by the Office for Civil Society. The results were very impressive but there are also some important lessons to learn. That’s why we have involved Marsh Farm Outreach from the start of our project in Ore Valley, and they will be involved in the Facilitators Team in order to pass on their knowledge and experience. We hope to be able to do the same for other places in the future.

OUR APPROACH TO COMMUNITY HOUSING ROCK HOUSE, HASTINGS Rock House has been both inspiration and pathfinder for the CLT. It has already made available 6 affordable apartments and 20 creative enterprise and community spaces, with capped rents and a strong ethic of contribution and collaboration. This underpins the self-management and ongoing development of the building by tenants and users.

We want to go further, both in the White Rock area and in Ore Valley. In both places CLT-owned properties will be affordable in perpetuity, with rents based on local income, and selection criteria based on need, enthusiasm, contribution, and local connection.

Internationally, Community Land Trusts prioritise the ‘usevalue’ of homes and workspaces above their ‘exchange-value’ as commodities, while locking in affordability through longterm community ownership and exemption from the Right to Buy. We are committed to affordability in perpetuity. We believe the only genuine measure of affordability is against incomes (not the market, not state benefit levels).

We plan to cap average CLT rents at around one-third of Hastings median weekly income. Our primary target group is people in the 30th–50th percentile of weekly earnings; our balancing group is 50–70th percentile.

People who live and work in CLT buildings will be directly involved in managing and developing them collaboratively.

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OUR FUNDING MODEL • We’re working with financial specialists Resonance on our overall funding strategy • Start-up grants: we’re famous for juggling 12 small grants to fund the process so far! Big Lottery Fund have fast-tracked us to Round 2 application stage (£400k), and HBC are holding £245k of Community Led Housing Fund. These grants would meet capacity needs for the Ore Valley project, contribute to core costs and create sturdier capacity for the CLT itself.

We are applying to Locality for the Community Buildings Support grant. All three funding sources depend on achieving land agreement for the Ore Valley site.

• Community Share membership offer launched on 9/12/16. £25 per share. No return for at least 3 years but long-term expectation of up to 3% pa interest. Aiming for £25,000 by end of 2017/18.

• Investors Collective – a blended loan (90%) & shares (10%) offer to support the purchase of the first White Rock property.

Pledges of £135k by Feb 17. Turned down for SITR, so offering 3%pa interest. Aiming for £300k by September 2017.

• Social lending: repay Investors Collective loan-stock through mortgage on the refurbished and let White Rock property.

Interest from Architectural Heritage Fund and Ecology Building Society.

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• In Ore Valley: seek grants to support the community-led approach (i.e. BUD and OW); seek equity capital from some participants and engaged agencies; seek affordable rent grant from Homes England; plan for some covenanted lease sales, including potentially shared equity routes; in order to reduce the ongoing borrowing requirement to below £3.5M.

OUR OUTCOMES AND IMPACT • People involved in our projects build relationships that improve their lives.

• Participants gain skills, confidence, networks and references that make them more capable, more employable and more likely to start enterprises. We encourage, facilitate and support their progress.

• In Ore Valley, we will rescue a site that has been derelict for 40 years and use modern methods of construction (MMC) and local labour to build 63 housing units, up to 10 workspaces, a community homestead, recreational and ecological assets.

• We anticipate that a minimum of 100 new jobs will result, along with a new MMC training and workforce development framework and a permanent on-site ‘factory’.

• In White Rock, we will rescue an empty heritage building to create 4 live-work spaces and 6 workspaces.

• This will include a showcase gallery for Project Artworks, a leading arts organisation bringing people with complex needs into the heart of social and cultural life.

• All our units will be affordable now and in perpetuity.

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OUR GOVERNANCE, TEAM & PARTNERS • Heart of Hastings CLT is a registered community benefit society (FCA 7289) with an open community share issue with over 50 shareholders already • Board of founder directors holding overall responsibility • Experienced chair Rodney Buse & project coordinator Jess Steele OBE • Strong local link directors Suzy Tinker in White Rock and Tania Charman in Ore Valley • Specialist financial advisors, Resonance, guiding overall financial strategy • Project group members bring additional expertise and commitment to the Ore Valley and White Rock projects (Ian Sier of Ore CLT, Dave Hinton from Hastings Works and Kate Adams from Project Art Works) • The ever-evolving BUD Team (Bottom Up Development), including the Site Stewards and the Outreach Team, plus additional and emerging volunteers • Assemble, our design advisors, helped us to prepare a Strategic Brief for Ore Valley. Now we are working with Zed Factory to develop detailed proposals • Enabling Partners group – sectoral specialists and agencies including JobCentre+, probation, NHS mental health and other service providers and commissioners • South Coast College Hastings – strong emerging partnership in Ore Valley focused on the development of a new workforce in Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) • Frequent events engaging directly with residents and wider interests both in Ore Valley and White Rock – for example the Power Up Ore Valley in April 2017 had 496 attendees • Commitment to creative outreach and community organising, including sustained door-knocking throughout the Ore Valley area

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OUR BUSINESS IN SUMMARY • We are not a property developer or a standard landlord. Instead, we focus on the transformation of people’s lives by engaging them directly in the acquisition, renovation, construction, management and ownership of land and buildings.

• The outcomes we seek are: enhanced confidence and self-efficacy; organised collective action to achieved shared goals; the building and sharing of skills and competencies; increased employability and entrepreneurship.

• We take a holistic approach to communities and neighbourhoods – contributing to the creation, improvement and protection of all kinds of physical, social, cultural and natural assets that can meet current and future needs and opportunities.

• We are a people’s organisation, supporting bottom up development and enabling people to change their own lives through collective action. Our work is rooted in sustained and inclusive engagement: bottom up development, doorstep listening, shareholder engagement, dweller control, collaborative management and peer-to-peer citizen learning.

• Our projects balance practical viability with social impact, learning from across the world and ambition for change here in the heart of Hastings.

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P H O T O © B R I A N R Y B O LT

Who has helped?

Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust Ltd Rock House, 49–51 Cambridge Road Hastings TN34 1DT Contact: info@heartofhastings.org.uk @heartofhastings Heart of Hastings Ore Valley Heart of Hastings White Rock

Find out more and learn how you can invest:

www.heartofhastings.org.uk