Createfuture, a subsidiary company of Citrus Group, has become the latest to join the growing list of developers entering the build-to-rent market.
It has lodged plans with Ealing Council for a 36-storey residential tower on the corner of Portal Way and Wales Farm Road, W3, in the emerging cluster of North Acton, entirely for the rental market.
Some 355 homes will be provided in total, including a range of now-customary amenities.
A mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom flats will comprise the scheme’s podium and tower element, with shared residential amenities on the 10th floor including a clubroom, Workspace business centre, conference room, cinema and gym.
The 35th floor will provide outdoor space, both covered and uncovered, affording views over west London.
Interestingly, this scheme proposes affordable housing linked not to market rents but to incomes.
Createfuture states in its planning documents that its “model provides an innovative response to the need of working people who are not eligible for more traditional affordable homes, yet who cannot afford to rent good-quality accommodation.”
It adds: “Our strategy is to focus on attracting residents who are key workers employed in the borough with incomes which would ordinarily be too low to be able to pay a market rent. They will be offered a discounted salary-linked, or what is also known as a ‘personalised’, rent.”
The developer proposes that the affordable rents will never exceed 35% of the household’s income, and that a total of 30% of the entire scheme will be offered to key workers on this basis depending on viability, on which it is currently in discussions with Ealing Council.
While London’s residential towers may have once been described by former head of City of London planning, Peter Rees, as “deposit boxes in the sky”, schemes like this are becoming more and more prominent.
As they are entirely for the rental market, they will be lived in by, as well as truly affordable for, key workers, with rents capped appropriately.
In fact, the scheme opposite, the Perfume Factory by Essential Living, is very much the same. Its 534 homes will be entirely rental too, as well as “tenure blind”, with the quality and specification of both private and affordable the same throughout.
How do affordable rents work?
• Young couple (both working)
Salary: £32,275
Salary-linked rent: £941 per month
Market rent: £1,200 per month
Discount: 22.8%
• Couple with child (single earner)
Salary: £31,505
Salary-linked rent: £919 per month
Market rent: £1,604 per month
Discount: 42.7%
• Three sharing (joint income)
Salary: £59,713
Salary-linked rent: £1,742 per month
Market rent: £2,099 per month
Discount: 17%
