Report launching: Check out FMDV’s Financial Guide for CLT development in Europe
As part of the European SHICC program, and with the support of its European partners, FMDV is releasing a Financial Guide for CLTs development in Europe. This toolkit highlights 16 financial instruments enabling to deliver genuinely affordable homes in North Western Europe (NWE).
Building on knowledge gathered over the past two years (Mapping of existing financial sources,6 financial Case Studies), this Financial Guide for CLTs presents an operational response to some of the major financial barriers existing along the financial chain and which impede CLTs to sustainability thrive in Europe.
The Financial Guide highlights innovative financial instruments that have been proven efficient in order to deliver genuinely affordable homes. Aiming to be used as an operational toolkit, this document gives practical information to CLT staff and decision-makers.
It notably presents the tools’ terms of implementation (phase, scope, beneficiaries, sources of funds…) and provides feedback on the use of these instruments by existing CLTs. Additionally, the readers will be able to go further in their analysis through the assessment made of each tools’ social impacts and level of replicability.
For instance, the Guide details innovations such as Local Hubs or specific Startup Funds which enabled British CLTs to jointly mobilise funding and technical assistance at preliminary phases.
It also highlights the role of local and regional governments in enabling access to land through a call for projects and long term land loans, as well as in derisking the planning phase through the implementation of municipal funds, for instance.
Regarding construction, the Guide analyses tools such as crowdlending or organisation like energy cooperatives to see how they enabled to produce good quality homes at affordable costs.
It then digs into affordability allowances and subsidised loans investigating to what extent these mechanisms can favour access to homes for lower-income households. Finally, the Guide focus on how CLTs have been able to generate revenues through ground rent, resale formulas and capital increase.
It concludes with an analysis of several cross-cutting instruments such as the Community Housing Fund in the UK or other revolving funds.
The Guide thus showcases inspirational innovations and contributes to highlighting the model’s territorial and social benefits, as well as promoting sustainable finance frameworks.
It also questions the possibility of replicating these instruments at the European level to support what is today becoming a transnational movement.
Building on the analysis of these instruments, FMDV will indeed - with the support of the recently created Working Group on Collaborative Housing Finance - further develop some of the options presented here. It will produce a pre-feasibility study on how to best channel funding to support Collaborative Housing at a European scale.
The results of this prefiguration study will be presented at the Brussels Transnational Conference (On Common Ground, June 3-4) and will feed the extension of the SHICC project in 2021.
To know more about it don’t hesitate to >>register here<< to our online webinar. (Thursday, March 19, 3 PM, CET)
Community Land Trusts (CLT) and Organismes de Foncier Solidaire (OFS) can be defined as local not-for-profit organisations which develop and manage affordable housing and urban facilities in perpetuity. In practice, the OFS/CLT withdraw land from speculative markets, keeping it in a trust. In this way, they help control property prices and preserve access to housing for low-income households. They have thus been internationally recognised as legitimate participatory and anti-speculative models that strengthen social cohesion.
What is the SHICC programme?
The SHICC (Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities) project aims to develop, support and disseminate the CLT and OFS model in Europe. The SHICC programme is structured around three main themes: Firstly, recognition of the legitimacy of the model, the establishment of a financial and legislative environment conducive to the establishment and expansion of CLT/OFS, and capacity building for existing and emerging CLT/OFS.
This is a €3m European Interreg programme, carried out over a three-year period (2017-2020) by the City of Lille (France); the National CLT Network (UK); the CLT of London, Brussels and Ghent; and FMDV (France).
The Global Fund for Cities Development (FMDV)
FMDV is a network of cities working towards sustainable financing of urban development. It is engaged for many years in supporting and disseminating sustainable housing solutions.Within the SHICC project, FMDV is leading the “Financial Models Work Package” (FMWP), thus promoting the establishment of a favourable financial environment for CLTs/OFSs development in Europe
