10 September 2013
An innovative co-housing project – allowing people to customise their own homes – is about to take off after signing up the required number of families.
The Cambridge K1 scheme, planned for a city-council owned site at Orchard Park to the North of the city, now has 36 members on board to help make the 40-home development a reality.
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Future residents – all part of a group which formed earlier this year – are to be fully involved in the design of the homes. A common house is planned with an entertainment space, a gym, a workshop, a laundry room and an art studio. The project will also be made as environmentally-sustainable as possible with all houses built and certified to Passivhaus standards; streets will be car-free, and a significant proportion of land will be used to grow fruit and vegetables.
Adam Broadway, K1 project manager, said: “To ensure that we could take K1 to the next stage, our agreement with the city council was to sign up at least 18 members to the group by July 2013. We held a series of open events as a profile raiser, and we were inundated with people who wanted to know more. Now, we’re so pleased to have exceeded our membership target.”
The K1 team has confirmed it is in the advanced stages of submitting a bid to the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) for funding to help submit a planning application. The HCA previously announced the allocation of £17 million to help community-led self build projects (including co-housing) with the cost of getting designs drawn up, or for securing planning permissions.
“This is currently our biggest hurdle,” Mr Broadway added, “If all goes to plan, we’d hope for a positive decision on the funding bid by October. The aim would then be to submit the planning application in January.”
A procurement exercise is starting now to get a development partner on board with construction potentially starting in Spring 2014.
