Meeting the challenge of housing growth in Birmingham Clive Skidmore – Head of Regeneration and Development, Birmingham City Council.

Meeting the challenge of housing growth in Birmingham

Clive Skidmore – Head of Regeneration and Development, Birmingham City Council

• Projected increase in population up to 2031 of 100,000

• Birmingham Development Plan requires at least an additional 80,000 new homes by 2031

• New homes completions in Birmingham have fallen from 4,000 in 2005-6 to 1500 in 2011-12

• Increasing demand for social and affordable housing as result of economic conditions

• Housing waiting list at 26,000

The Birmingham Position New council-owned homes at Merritts Hill in Northfield

• Housing development contributes 3% to GDP - the impact of changes in the housing market contributed to around a third of total fall in UK GDP from 2007 to 2009.

• £1 million of construction work supports 12 jobs in the building and supply chain industries

• 90p of every £1 spent on construction remains in the UK

The economic case for housing

Birmingham achieves one full time apprentice for every £1M of contract value

What are we doing?

1. The Council is building new homes itself through the Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust

2. We have developed a Housing Growth Plan to accelerate housing development

3. We are working with developers and Housing Associations to bring forward identified sites in the SHLAA

The Birmingham Municipal

Housing Trust

• Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust (BMHT) set up in January 2009 to lead the development of the Council’s new build housing programme.

• The Council has successfully attracted £28M in HCA funding to build new 1360 homes for rent and sale through a number of programmes including Local authority new build, Public Land Initiative, Local Land Initiative and Affordable Rent Programme.

• The programme has already created 200 jobs and apprentice places.

• The BMHT has already completed over 650 new homes since 2009 – generating activity worth approximately £70m in the construction industry;

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First BMHT homes occupied by September 2010

The Birmingham Municipal

Housing Trust

• The number of new homes built by the BMHT has steadily increased annually since 2009;

* 375 completions (rent and sale) projected in 2013-14; 700 completions projected in 2014-15;

* currently 1300 BMHT homes in development on 20 sites across the city;

* scale ranges from less than half a dozen to many hundreds.

• Already building up to 25% of the city’s new homes – goal to increase that to 50%;

• The council’s integrated design team develop schemes with properties for rent and sale and secure planning approval

• Consult with developers at an early stage to inform design process

• The council tenders a contract for developers to both build the rented homes and to build and sell the market sale properties. The sale homes are built according to the Council’s planning approval with materials conditioned for sign-off by the Council

How it works

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• Landscape design is carefully controlled by an explicit design guide

• All BMHT homes for rent are built to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 4

Key Principles

The key principles are –

Using the Council’s land as leverage;

Reducing the “up front” risk to the private sector;

Sharing the sales risk.

Since July 2011 300 homes have been sold on through this model;

Most sales have been to first time buyers - First Buy and now Help to Buy have been critical to successful selling

Homes on some sites have been sold “off plan” and for others there is a waiting list of potential buyers.

Homes in Bartley Green

• Purpose of the Plan

• To set out how the Council will increase housing delivery in the city;

• To support the Birmingham Development Plan;

• To set out an Action Plan which ensures that we meet the housing needs of the city

The Housing Growth Plan

• How can we incentivise partners to build the new homes that we need?

• Revising the affordable housing policy

• Potentially using an element of the New Homes Bonus to incentivise development

• Ensuring flexibility in the Planning system

• Considering if the Council could assist potential owners to purchase homes

• Marketing the housing offer in Birmingham

• Finding ways to Incentivise the private rented sector

• Building quality homes at higher density

• Developing new partnership models with the private sector

Key themes within the Plan – risk

• Birmingham is a landlocked city, heavily developed

• Shortage of land has been an issue since the 1960s

• So how do we find the land?

• Developing surplus Council sites – large and small

• Building quality homes at higher density

• Developing new partnership models with the private sector

• Continuing to identify and release surplus land and work with private developers• Providing new homes outside Birmingham• Developing some of the Green belt• Ensuring that all viable sites in the city are identified and developed

Finding the land

• SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment 2012 recently published and on the website

• Projects that 45,000 plots will be available for housing development up to 2031;

• 35,000 of these sites are already identified;

• 11,000 already have outline or detailed Planning Permission;

The SHLAA

• How do we ensure delivery of the SHLAA sites?

• Encouraging land owners to bring SHLAA sites forward for development where these have Planning Permission

• Making developers aware of the SHLAA sites

• Encouraging Housing Associations to bid for SHLAA sites in the 2015+ Affordable Homes Programme;

• Joining up developers and HAs with the sites in the SHLAA

Being proactive

• Local authorities cannot build all the homes we need;

• Local authorities acting as developer can make a real difference though direct delivery;

• Local authorities need to be proactive in driving forward housing growth both through policy changes and by acting as enabler.

Conclusions