NW3
COMMUNITY LAND TRUST LTD
Minutes
from the 21 Dec
2017, 5:15pm Meeting
Location:
8a Belsize Court Garages, NW3 5AJ
Present:
Sanya Polescuk (SP), Johanna Ryan (JR), Lily Chan
(LC), Sorin Floti (SF), Bogdana Ghinescu (BG), David Saxby (DS), Niall Kirwan
(NK)
Apologies for absence: Barbara Orlando (BO), Robert Cassen (RC)
a) NW3 CLT Website
NK helped with fine-tune website and News.
Going forward, NK will
be the custodian of the website and will fine-tune it as he sees fit.
b) Community
Land Trust Network
-
SF attended CLT Network-organised
Housing Conference 27 November 2017.
Key points : 1. Financing and Funding ; 2 How best to
involve the Councils
Conclusion: need to seek a friendly relationship with
the Council, not to antagonise them. SP and SF to collaborate on the best way
of achieving
-
Advice from Bristol CLT Chair: need evidence
of local employers experiencing difficulties in recruiting due to lack of
affordable local housing - even anecdotal data would suffice as an answer:
-
SP (via NH) written to Chairman of Royal
Free Hospital mid-December, reply received “would action” – SP to report when ‘actioned’
-
SP to share the letter used
for RFH to those listed below to customize for:
o Heads of local schools – DS
o Royal Mail – NK
o
Local council -SF
o
Smaller local employers – JR (SP has many email
addresses but not always the names…..)
c) GLA
- funded Hub for Community Housing and LSE
-
SP attended GLA’s ‘London Housing Strategy’ & commented on London Housing
Plan
1
‘diversify who builds homes’ - include
Local Community-based groups
2 specific methods to bring forward more
Community-led housing: stimulate LCs to offer preferential rates at land
disposal to organized Local Community groups
3
term ‘genuinely affordable homes’ - importance of local homes
- SF has written to
Sadiq K 20/12/2017 to question the efficacy of GLA Housing Hub and ask for
specific person(s) for us to connect to. Revived a standard reply that the
answer will be delivered in 20 working days. SF to report
- SF and SP to attend a 2-day LSE-organised Community
Housing Conference in Manchester 6/02/18-7/02/18, self-funded, SF to seek assistance from LSE w
travel costs
d) VAC
-
SF attended 4th
October 2017 – a meeting as part of community cohesion agenda so to
identify council’s champion for community housing: local Cllr Lorna Russell now
a member
e) Camden Council
- SP met with Neil Vokes, Director of Development, Community
Engagement, 4/10/2017 – positive tone as per MMs posted on website/news.
- SP
continue communication w Neil re: 1) Results of Branch Hill Care Home site (see
below ‘Potential Sites’ and 2) Register of Brownfield Sites
- SP,
via Cllr Russell, to work on including further assistance/involvement from
Meric Apak (Head of Housing)
- SF talked to Richard Olszewski, the new Head of Finances, in
order to share our vision and explore potential opportunities, however, CLTs
are not seen as financial partners
f) Development Partners: Housing Associations and
Developers
- many HA are merging and creating large organizations not
interested in developing or running small number of affordable units. NW3CLT
should seek to partner with either locally-present HA or small HA such as
Octavia Trust. SP prepared HA Contacts List with the help of a contact
previously from Genesis
- DS and LC to approach one or two smaller HAs
- LC and SP tried connecting with One Housing HA - no
result
- SP made contact with Newlon Housing Trust re: BH development – interested, but not for a proposal
including only 13 affordable units, 6 of which social housing (see below)
- LC, SF, DS to search for contacts at smaller developers,
such as Ihabit Homes or Igloo (Igloo is Manchester-based…) and report
g) Publicly-owned
sites disposals:
Websites/Registers
- Camden issued a call for Site Allocations Plan
to update Current Plan from 2013 (identifies big sites for redevelopment in
Camden). Replies to be submitted by
9/02/’18 . The form is not user friendly, very hard to be filled in by a
member of the public.
-
SP to contact H&H via our member David Castle to ask for suggestion. Also
to offer our assistance with assessing local Major Planning Applications with
Affordable Housing obligation
-
SP asked Camden (Neil Vokes) about Brownfield Sites Register – will report when
hear and ask why is there a delay - GLA requested from all London LC to publish such
registers by the end of 2017
- LC
to enquire with fellow planner at Camden to establish if there’s a link between
the New Plan and the Brownfield Sites Register
-
LC to share Westminster’s Development Register to illustrate how Affordable
Housing obligations are dealt
Potential Sites/ Launch of NW3 CLT:
Branch
Hill - used as a launch platform (leaflets, emails) result: tripled
membership numbers but need more .
-
NW3CLT didn’t bid – bid would have been in the order of
£25m (site value + development cost) – no interested partners from our existing
contacts. More/wider network of contacts needed (see f) above)
-
Camden wants to maximize capital receipt from the sale
of Branch Hill so included only standard conditions regarding Affordable
Housing in the terms of sale (affordable units will only be required on site if
10 or more….)
-
SP asked Neil Vokes (Camden) and Sale Agent for the
results of sale – reply received from Camden that results be known mid-January.
SP will report.
-
If the winner is another Nursing Home, NW3CLT will stop our
campaign; if the winner is Residential we
will continue, possibly engage with the local paper Hampstodian (SP), Ham and
High and CNJ (SF and ?)
h) Membership
- Members: Total numbers: 71 (!!!)
- BG
keeps the Members Book updated and sends each new member a welcome message and
Share Certificate.
-
BG to identify all Camden living/working age-group under 40 – target group for
us as advised by Camden - and report
- To attract new members Facebook campaign in
connection with the NW3CLT launch / Branch Hill Sale / BG – generated no new
members – should we do another? Not decided
i) Other Matters:
- Fiscal
Matters – Operational Funding and Development Funding:
-
Operational: BO
to register her cheque book and activate her Metro Bank
card - all NW3CLT payments by cheque require both SP&BO as two signatories
-
NK and BG to seek alternative ways of collecting membership
fees as many limitations of PayPal Jotform/paypal, i.e. max 10 members can join
monthly for free, £8.85 p/m upgrade needed. Paypal not liked by
some….
-
Balance sheet 22nd December 2017– in bank= £178.95 - £71 worth
of members shares, operational funds=£107.95
-
Membership of National CLT Network due shortly = approx.
£170 – our current shortfall approx. £60 – where/how to find this?
-
SF/JR/NK/LC to check our Rules (found on our website)
and suggest ways of raising operational funding thro either/or : personal
donations, company sponsorships, multiple share issues
-
Tax return needed for HRMC by end March 2018 – NK
& LC to do it, SP to forward the necessary forms and latest In/Out Account.
-
Development
funding possibilities
-
Resonance Property Fund for Affordable Housing (Rental)
SF to enquire and report
-
DS to connect NW3CLT to Coop Housing to share info on Coop
Development Management via Linda Xx and report
-
SP to work on recruiting a voluntary Lawyer via
an ad on Team London, DOit.org website
or through personal contacts. Such expertise will be needed when/if the current
status (Community Benefit Society) transform into Charity – there are pros (no
stamp duty on purchasing of property) and cons (much more demanding operations
and accounting)
