I am looking for partners in a ground-breaking sustainability project – affordable home communities. If we can and we should then we must… make a difference!
This is an enquiry aimed primarily at local councils, property developers or existing site owners with the vision and the capacity to help. I have a strong interest in sustainable living, much experience in the property development business and have come up with an affordable way to easily construct truly sustainable homes (£700/€500 per m2) - a kind of holy grail for the all those who want low-cost, low energy homes.
”The heartbreaks and delays that self-builders experience are often not to do with the process of building itself, but, as Walter Segal used to observe, are the result of the inflated price of land, the rigidities of planning and building controls, and the difficulty of getting mortgage loans for anything out of the ordinary. They are all made worse by the assumption of both regulatory authorities and providers of finance, that a house should be a fully finished product right from the start, rather than a simple basic structure that grows over time as needs grow and as labour and income can be spared. Segal’s achievement was to devise a way of simplifying the process of building so that it could be undertaken by anyone, cheaply and quickly.”
I have been inspired by his work, and have now refined his approach for the needs and expectations of the 21st century.
After much time spent on research and prototyping the methods, I am now looking for partners with an interest in the following proposal.
- I'd like to propose an affordable housing project in collaboration with any local council or organisation that is interested to provide a site with a 99 year lease for the development of a small community of truly sustainable homes, the first of its kind. I am open to do this with partners in just about any western European country.
- It would be a project for local 1st time buyers only. In collaboration with an experienced partner, I would provide significant design, methodology and materials input to the project from start to end. An ideal partner would offer the experience of an established company/organisation fluent in their local planning procedures and building regulations, have an existing network of related contacts and trade specialists in their area, and have in-house expertise regarding design and project services.
- A potential site would be divided into individual leasehold plots on which each of the homes would be built. Leasehold means the site owner would never actually lose the Title Deed of the land. We would find financing on a staged funding basis and buyers would take over these loans at the time of completion in the form of mortgages. Even better if a council could offer mortgages through regional funding and gain the mortgage interest payments as a new source of revenue. Additionally in the case of local councils, they could charge an annual 'peppercorn' ground rent since the council would profit annually thereafter with property tax charges levied on each of the properties.
- This project could then be used as a model for other self-build community projects for which we could provide planning, design and project management services, along with the provision of all project materials in a kind of flat-pak supply chain like IKEA. It would be a business that directly involves and benefits the local community. It should be pointed out that these would in no way be pre-fabricated homes, think of it more in terms of ingredients and expertise delivered to site.
- The appeal of such a business model is that once up and running, the founding partners would simply keep the handle turning on a supply chain that becomes standardised and easy to control. This along with the design and management services provided on each project means we would maintain exclusive control of our revenue streams on the ‘factory' production of self-build home kits. This is a business model that can't easily be copied or undertaken without our involvement, since we hold the design and build expertise and the low-price cost advantage. No other larger company could compete with us and the private self-builder using our services would get the very best from his build for a relatively small premium. This type of business would be excellent for expansion nationally and maybe internationally by selling franchises to independent design studios - we would maintain contractual rights for the supply chain of materials and bespoke design tools, like McDonalds.
Example 2 bedroomed homes with a total of 75m2 of living space.
Build Costs: materials + construction costs = 50K (£700/m2 for a single storey bungalow, £600/m2 for a 2-storey house)
Sales Price; build cost + our fees = 50K + fees/profit.
Sustainable homes, sustainable construction - that is materials from renewable sources, that are low-energy and carbon-neutral with the capability to recycle 100% of all materials used.
I look forward to hearing from anyone with a potential interest.
Mike |
