We buy and convert empty offices into homes for people!

Formal Launch

This week (Weds 14th) we formally launched the first project at a small ceremony in St George. We now have six beautiful flats almost complete, and it was time to show them off to the media.

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Above: As you can see, they look particularly nice now the balconies are in place

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Above: And even nicer in the dusk

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The media came (the cameras are from Made in Bristol TV and local BBC)

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Above: Councillor Paul Smith cuts the ribbon to open the building


Councillor Paul Smith, Bristol’s cabinet member for housing, cut the ribbon to open the building for inspection.
The council was not involved in this first project, but he looked forward to AEOB’s next development. “Next time, I hope I can say we did put something in”, he said. “AEOB is one of a wave of community housing initiatives that can help transform housing in Bristol.

It was a great way to mark the culmination of three years work to convert unused commercial premises into social housing, backed by community investment. The flats are built to the highest standard, with triple glazing, solar panels supplying domestic energy, and underfloor heating. Chris Askew, of Askew Cavanna Architects, said “This is an amazing achievement, building affordable accommodation that is not mean”.

That’s him below on the left, with Tony Crofts and Paul Smith on the right.

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Above: Tony, one of our directors, thanked all AEOB’s shareholders
and all our donors, helpers. And supporters. And so say all of us!

The launch!

Our building nears completion, so it’s time to give it a launch. We’ll be doing that next week – when there will be a ribbon cutting and some words at the site at Battens Lane and, we hope, photos and some press coverage to link with our latest fund drive (see previous post).

That’s a small affair, because the site isn’t fit for a crowd. As some know, we were planning to follow it with an evening event to make it a larger celebration – at City Hall on the same day (Dec 14th).

However, lots of people are already committed in the week before Christmas. And we’d very much like to have the chance to thank all our investors, donors, supporters, helpers, contractors and advisers – everyone who has helped us get this far.

So, with apologies, we have decided it’s best to put the sparklier event off until the New Year. AEOB’s launch will now be in stages, NASA style. We will cut the ribbon and introduce the premises to special guests and media on Dec 14th, as already arranged. Then we shall have a proper, “thanks, and what next?” event at a date and venue to be advised.

Thanks for your understanding, and we hope to see you in 2017.

AEOB funding – one more stretch!

As visitors to this site probably know, our project at Battens Lane is in its final stages. Less welcome news will be that it’s become clear, as we process all the last commissions, and contractors’ claims, that we have a cash shortfall – one we did not anticipate.

It arises from multiple causes: some unexpected late costs, a hefty inflation rate in the construction industry, especially over the last 12 months, and some delays which mean that our occupation date, and hence income, has been put back a month, until January.

Please be assured that none of this jeopardises the project (or the launch, which remains scheduled for December 14th). We had a very constructive meeting with Triodos bank last week. It is not the first time they have heard of a building project with time and cost overruns at the margin, and they are happy to work with us between now and the Christmas break to agree new cost projections, and some additional finance.

Overall, the gap we need to cross is appreciable, but not unbridgeable – some tens of thousands of pounds. That is only a small fraction of the finance we have already raised. However, it will inevitably entail increasing our mortgage, hence our repayments, and reduce our scope to move expeditiously on to a new project in 2017. So key parts of our plan for the next weeks aim to reduce our demand on the bank, by combing through outstanding costs and reducing them whenever possible, and by raising any funds we can from other sources.

Which is where you may come in. Our share offer remains open, and you’ll notice that the target on our ‘Home’ page has risen to £450,000. We’re asking all our investors, donors and supporters: would you, at this point, consider finding a little extra to help us take these last steps to completion?

We know this is the time of year when other appeals will be coming your way, but it would be wonderful if you could consider this. Every little bit extra we can raise quickly now will help us come out of this first project in better shape, so that we can apply what we have learnt to do it again, and do it better.

Our deep thanks in advance for any help you can offer. We think the building when complete will be splendid, and one everyone will be proud of. If you don’t have money to invest or donate, perhaps you will have a moment, in any case, to help spread the word about this short-term funding drive.

Thanks!

The AEOB Board.

PS, if you know anyone who might be inclined to make a donation, they may like to know that we are now registered for Gift Aid, so any contribution will be worth 25 per cent more.

First tenants for Battens Lane

In the first week of October, the first AEOB tenants will learn that they have a place to move into at the end of the year at Battens Lane.

This is good news, but the kind that comes with mixed feelings. It’s a landmark for our project, and we’re immensely pleased – and proud – that we’ve almost finished a building that is the first realisation of AEOB’s aims. This is when it gets real!

At the same time, the application process – a task which, (like everything else…) we were managing for the first time – brought home how bad the problem of finding affordable homes has become in our city. Choosing who will benefit from the few places we can offer this time felt a weighty responsibility. We thought long and hard about how to rate the applications, and how to treat everyone fairly if they were called for interview.

So we are very glad to have done the job; equally sad that we had to turn some people down. In the end, the interviews three of our board members conducted, together with evidence of acute housing need, were decisive. And the interviewers were unanimous about the six offers we have made, which have now been approved by the whole board.

That leaves some need unmet – as was always going to happen. But seeing the applications makes it clearer than ever why our project is needed, and inspires us to continue our efforts. There will be other AEOB projects after this one, we hope, and we’ll be reviewing our process when everything is signed and sealed to make sure we record what we’ve learned and can make the selection process run as smoothly as possible next time. It will never be painless, but we shall continue to work to make it as clear to everyone, and as fair, as we can.

AEOB Newsletter – September 2016

Here (at last!) is the second issue of our newsletter. We update our website, facebook pages and twitter feed regularly. But not everyone spends their life on the internet. This occasional newsletter is for shareholders, and anyone else, who prefers to keep up to date this way – whether electronically or in print.
Apologies that this one has been a while in the making, but we’ve been busy!

Getting legal

The basic tasks for a conventional landlord or developer are simple. Get a working building up, then sell or rent it for as much as the market will bear. Our mission means we need to do more. As well as turning a derelict building into decent accommodation, we are creating a community. That generates lots of work that is less visible than the stuff that involves people in hard hats and safety boots. As we move into detailed planning for completion – due in just a few months now – and then occupation, both the visible work and the efforts behind the scenes are moving on apace.

Underfloor Heating Pipes

Above: Underfloor heating pipes going in

Visit the site, and you can see the progress on the conversion and extension at Battens lane. The old roof is completely gone, and the replacement complete. The damp course is done, old pebbledashing off and exterior insulation added. The interior partitioning is all in place, so the layout of the six apartments is now set. Electrical installation is nearly complete. Thoughts are turning to ordering fixtures and fittings, laundry equipment, kitchen units, bathrooms. Things, in short, are really coming together.

Finishing a building like this is a complicated business. For this, our first project, the less visible work has also been quite complex. It’s all very well to decide in principle that we are going to admit people in housing need into new apartments, where they will have security of tenure, fair rents and a responsible landlord. That’s the whole point of the project. But making that happen in practice demanded laying down a myriad details that will regulate how it all works when real people are living in the flats, paying rent, and getting along with each other.

So we are working hard now, on finalising all the documentation that we’ll need to make it clear how this is going to work. We need a clear framework for organising the relationship between the tenants, as it will be, and AEOB as the owner of the property.

Mainly that means researching and writing our first tenants’ agreement, which involves study of the legal aspects of tenancies, how a socially responsible landlord ought to operate, and looking closely at how other organisations like Community Land Trusts and housing co-ops manage their affairs.

Finished Building

Above: now the scaffolding is down,
we can see how finished building will look

We need clear wording to cover a host of day to day questions, providing for guidelines for how everything should go, and for what will happen when not everything goes quite right. We need to be able to handle use of shared facilities, repairs, rent arrears, complaints, anti-social behaviour, and to make workable policies for pets, parking, sub-letting, people who are away for long spells, dealing with marriages, deaths and break-ups, and many other things that a community will experience some time or another.

Of course, there are templates out there, and plenty of advice. But we want to make sure all the fine print is a good fit for this project, and any that follow. It’s all a lot of work to get the details right – but worth it to move beyond the simple aim of providing places for people to live to the more complicated business of helping them live reasonably together, and ensuring they fulfil their financial obligations in a way that validates our business model so that we can do it all again. We are learning as we go, and hope to finalise all this shortly so that we can consult on the precise legalities and ensure our prospective tenants know exactly what they’re signing up for.


Tenants!

And speaking of tenants, we have now got to the stage where we are reviewing applications from people who hope to move into Battens Lane.

This is exciting – the real result of all our work. Also sobering: reviewing the applications from people in serious housing need reminds us whay we are doing this, and brings home the responsibility of choosing. Inevitably, some people will be turned away at this point, so we thought long and hard about our selection criteria, and how to handle interviews. We also have to comply with legal requirements for documention, and have some assurance that we will receive rents when they are due. But all being well, the offers to the first batch of tenants will be going out not long after you read this – a real landmark.


Into print

We’re proud of our project, and we want to tell the world – both to lay the ground for future fund-raising and to help others do similar things in other cities.

Hence a plan to produce an AEOB handbook – which we hope to have ready in time for a publicity effort when we “launch” Battens Lane as our first completed project. So far, we have an outline, and a plan to research what we need to fill it out, pulling together our existing documentation and interviewing all the people who’ve contributed to the project. How did we do it? What have we learnt? What help might you need to do something like it?

Then there’ll be writing, design, production – probably as a printed booklet and a web offering – and distribution. Sounds like another project in itself, in fact… But it’s an important part of this stage of our work, to help spread the word and contribute to the broader conversation about housing in the UK.

And there’s a simpler tenants’ handbook to prepare, and perhaps a separate pamphlet telling the AEOB story in brief, so plenty of writing in prospect


Funding and budget news

Our share offer remains open for now – with regular ads in the Big Issue continuing to attract investment. Although we have reached our initial target, the size of our eventual loan from Triodos for the building works will depend on how much we raise from the community, and the smaller the loan, the less interest to the bank has to be covered in our business plan, so for now the position is still: the more investors the better.

In addition, some of our site costs have increased, as happens with construction projects, but not enough to pose any danger of exceeding our spending limits. And we are hoping to use some of the donations we’ve received to help pay for work on our next business plan, and a new share offer. The Board is scheduling a meeting next month (October) to plot future strategy, and consider what kind of project to go for next. Watch this space…

A vacancy

Meanwhile, we lost our lovely treasurer a few months back, and are managing the finances and accounting as best we can until we find someone to take her place. We are keeping things on track by dint of Board members taking on lots of extra work, but if anyone reading this knows of a likely volunteer who can help with book-keeping or financial control, do point them our way, please.


Housing policy in Bristol – moving ahead?

Marvin Rees’s victory for Labour in Bristol’s mayoral election followed a campaign that saw housing emerge as a key issue. His newly appointed housing lead, Bristol West councillor Paul Smith set out his initial ideas for easing housing supply and tackling homelessness in a thoughtful piece for the Guardian in June.

There are strong constraints, of course. As Smith says, “I have seen the devastating impact of the governmentimposed rent cut on the housing revenue account, which will be compounded by universal credit, forced sales of higher value homes and the effective removal of affordable housing from the planning regulations.”

However, he goes on to list some early actions, including, “Eighty hectares of land were removed from the marketplace, and auctions of council houses deemed too expensive to repair have been halted. We intend to use our assets more creatively, establishing our own development arm.”

Then, intriguingly, the piece suggests that, “Rather than leave homes empty, we want to work with charities to refurbish properties that can then be used to provide specialist provision, or returned to council management.”

We haven’t seen the details yet, but he enlarged on this a little at a meeting of community housing organisations a few weeks later. The Council will no longer sell land, he declared, as it considers it holds it in trust for the community – as it has done for 1,000 years!

It’ll be interesting to see what he has in mind for using community organisations to boost housing supply, and what this leads too. Specialist provision seems to indicate refurbs for people with some special need, but we are hoping it will be worth having a conversation about any broader use of this idea. There must be council properties that would lend themselves to the approach AEOB is already on the way to proving in principle at Battens Lane. We were delighted that Paul took up our invitation to visit the site, and that he was very enthusiastic.

There may be other plans afoot next year, from Bristol Community Land Trust and the Schumacher; there is even talk of a Bristol Housing Bond to help finance social housing. AEOB will only be part of the big picture, but repurposing existing buildings must be a strategy that can be taken further.

From this…

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To this…

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More soon!

Battens Lane Potential Residents List Closed

Dear reader, we are sorry that applications for potential residents of Battens Lane are closed.

We have had a large number of requests and can accommodate only a few in the 6 units available.

We will be opening a new list as we move into our next project. Please check this web site for future opportunities.

Coverage From ACORN

ACORN have provided coverage of our venture.

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Too many ACORN members struggle with getting and keeping decent, secure housing. So when some new affordable homes come along looking for people to live in them we get excited! Read this guest post by Jono Jenkinson of “Abolish Empty Office Blocks, House People” to find out how you can join a new housing community…

Follow Link to Article: http://www.acorncommunities.org.uk/aeob

AEOB Newsletter – March 2016

Welcome to the first issue of our newsletter. We update our website, facebook pages and twitter feed regularly. But not everyone spends their life on the internet. This occasional newsletter is for shareholders, and anyone else, who prefers to keep up to date this way – whether electronically or in print.

By Jon Turney

How far have we got?

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As you can see above, building work on our first site in Battens Lane is well under way. That’s the timber frame for the extension going up. Everything is on schedule so far, and we’re starting to sort out who will be considered for tenancy, and how to frame agreements and leases. All looks set for completion… and occupation in October!

All this was made possible by our funders – shareholders, donors, and Triodos bank, who agreed a mortgage for roughly half the project cost last August. That was the signal to move ahead with work on the site we acquired at the end of 2014.

Lots has happened since then and for the rest of this update, we reproduce short versions of some articles from the website, that enlarge on how we got to this stage.

Battens Lane end of 2015 report – A visit to St George’s.

Nothing says you’ve got a real building site going like pouring concrete. And as the picture shows, that’s where we’re headed in BS5. Although AEOB’s overriding aim is building conversion, we are adding space at this site for two extra flats, and that means foundations.

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And now we have them. The screw piles we chose were carefully inserted over the last week – they don’t need to sit as deep down as conventional piles, which suits the stiff clay underlying the site and cuts the amount of concrete needed, too. The next stage was to lay the concrete, so all was ready to begin building the timber frame for the extension in the new year.

It’s been a foundational year for AEOB in more ways than one. That setting concrete shows how far we’ve come, and confirms the project is on course for tenants to move in next autumn. But that in turn depends on the work achieved in 2015 to move AEOB on financially, legally, architecturally, and in our dealings with the planning system, as well as recruiting site workers and signing up the contractors who you can now see on the front page of the website.

Elinor Kershaw, now well installed as project and site manager, says happily that the work “is all going reassuringly smoothly: we’re absolutely bang on schedule at the moment”.

The old floors and the interior have been stripped out (the pine flooring will be re-used for some of the flats) and door and window openings remodelled. The North facing side of the building was originally stone, contrasting with the unusual triple layers of brick on the other three faces – again we’re not sure why – and is now a pleasing patchwork of old stone and brick. Plans for installing the under floor heating are well advanced, which along with the solar panels will help ensure the flats are cheap to run.

The new year saw work start on the timber frame on Feb 1, on a contract agreed with Natural Design and Build in early December. Then there’s lots more detailed work on the whole building. Drainage on the extended site still needs attention. The under floor pipes will be laid. There are stones and bricks to sort. The outbuildings, one now in use as a well-equipped carpentry workshop, will be remodelled.

The team continue to document how the project has got this far, so what has been learnt can be passed on Lots of things about the project are locally specific. But Elinor sees lots to pass on from the processes and ways of working that have emerged in Bristol, and from experience here of the kinds of people and organisations to work with to move a project like this from a gleam in the eye to a real effort of brick, stone and concrete.

Funding news

We are closing in on our total project funding, but not quite there yet. The total raised so far from shareholders’ investments and donations is over £300,000. We have a £425,000 mortgage from Triodos bank. Most recently, the Quaker Housing Trust awarded AEOB £50,000, as a grant combined with a loan. That still leaves a few tens of thousands needed to match the projected total project cost – and the sooner the better – teel your friends! We will be working to spread the word over the next few months. Then come the big decisions about how and when to proceed with a follow-up project.

Our lovely architects

Behind every successful dwelling is an architect. Our project at Battens Lane is in the hands of Chris Askew and his colleagues, who specialise in sustainable, community oriented projects.

Chris helped AEOB assess a string of potential sites. “I worry sometimes about existing buildings, because I know there may not be much left by the time we’ve finished”, he says. However, Battens Lane had plenty to work with. He saw a sturdy, stone structure, a site with land that could be used, and with planning permission already granted.

newsletter-00-003And, crucially, it was mortgageable. That eventually allowed AEOB to secure the loan from Triodos bank that led to the start of building last year. “A twenty-year mortgage is perfectly supportable for us. This is a long-term project, and the figures work.” With planning and finance in place, the construction has now begun, guided by the detailed plans for, in effect, two buildings – one the conversion of the old structure, one the new, timber-framed extension which will add two flats to the completed complex. The two parts will offer a model of how to refashion an old structure to modern standards, and how to think about organising several dwellings in a single development.

The project architect, Nerea Gonzalez, qualified in Spain, in Pamplona, and came to Bristol to be involved in just such new ways of doing things. Together, she and Askew have worked on details that maximise the benefits of the site. The flats are relatively small, so there is much space-saving in the detailed design. High-performance, hence low-volume, insulation, under floor heating that obviated the need for radiators, and a common laundry room will all help here. Happily, these options are also in line with other important aims, including low-impact, sustainable construction, and low running costs for the tenants.

Anyone designing buildings for people to live in is looking for a long-lasting result. “People come and go, but the building will stay”, says Askew.

From this…

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To this…

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More soon!

Funding

Target - £900k
Actual - £628k

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