The Greater London Authority, under the auspices of mayor Sadiq Khan, is continuing to lead the way in providing more housing for the capital through developments that offer a mix of tenures.
Regeneration plans have been submitted by Opal, a joint venture partnership between Thames Valley Housing and Galliford Try, for a GLA-owned site in Canning Town, E16. The plans call for 975 new homes – 339 for private sale, 293 for private rent and 343 affordable – on a site to be known as Brunel Street Works. Also planned are a 152-bedroom hotel, commercial space and restaurants.
Fizzy Living, a wholly owned subsidiary of Thames Valley Housing, will operate the build-to-rent element.
The scheme, the fifth developed by Opal, provides a fairly even split between private sale, private rent and affordable housing, putting it in line with the GLA’s new guidance on housing policy.
Because of the scheme’s multi-tenure provision, Opal will not have to drip-feed 975 homes onto the private sales market, which would soften capital values. At a recent Estates Gazette roundtable discussion, Homes and Communities Agency chairman Sir Edward Lister pointed out that housebuilders “build only 50 homes on a site each year, because that’s all they can sell”.
This restricts supply in a city desperate for housing. Thus, a part private sale, part build-to-rent, part affordable approach will accelerate delivery. Mayor Khan’s housing manifesto encourages this strategy and an increasing number of housebuilders seem to be entering the market.
But the mayor can’t take all the credit for this new approach to multiple tenures across large schemes, however.
The GLA selected the Opal joint venture back in 2014, under the leadership of Boris Johnson’s Conservative administration, which envisaged a split of private sale, private rent and affordable.
JTP is masterplanning the scheme, and is also architect for Blocks C and D, the Malabar and Grafton buildings.
Another even bigger Canning Town site owned by the GLA, Stephenson Street, is also in line for this evenly split multi-tenure approach.
Berkeley was chosen as its partner for the scheme last year, under Boris Johnson’s administration. The scheme is to provide 3,500 homes. Once more, the three tenures will be split evenly.
An application for the project is to be submitted imminently.
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