Citizens House, Lewisham – Lewisham Citizens and London Community Land Trust with Archio Architects and Kinnear Landscape

Led by Lewisham Citizens, the campaign for affordable housing began in 2014. Once a site was agreed in 2016, Lewisham Citizens and London CLT engaged the local Sydenham community in transforming their own neighbourhood starting with this small piece of land with actions including design workshops and a community steering group.

Who is on the project team? 

Lewisham Citizens/Community Steering Group/local residents: Janet Emmanuel, Nano McCaughan, Fouzia Razvi, Gloria Wyse, Sue Williamson, Gianietro Valorsa, Jenny Lumley, Christine Smalligan, Hannah Gretton, Pete Brierly, Katie Milner, Debi Mills, Paul Weatherill, Christian Hayes, Vicky Price, Janet Bygrave, Joe, Daniel, Debbie

London CLT: Calum Green, Anne Frankel, Lianna Etkind, Colin Glenn

Archio Architects: Mellis Haward, Kyle Buchanan, Joao Garcia Sa, Tom Budd, Mike Slade, Ione Braddick, Robin Farmer

Kinnear Landscape: Lynn Kinnear, Ben Smith.

Describe the context of the community engagement. Why did the engagement take place?

Led by Lewisham Citizens, the campaign began in 2014 with people in Lewisham talking about what challenges local people were faced with. A lack of affordable homes came up time and time again. Community-led, permanently affordable homes in the form of a community land trust was selected as a campaign priority to ensure that there are homes available for key members of the community who would otherwise be forced out. Lewisham Citizens and a committed group of people who live in the neighbourhood started working with London CLT and other local organisations to try to make this a reality. 

The campaign started putting pressure on the council, lobbying politicians and building up support to access land and financing to support construction. Lewisham Citizens and London CLT held a series of community events, design sessions and neighbourhood walks to identify sites that were disused or vacant. 

On 23 March 2016, the Mayor of London directed Lewisham Council to start working with Lewisham Citizens and London CLT to develop a fully affordable housing scheme on a garage site adjacent to the Brasted Close estate.

This was a major win for local people – the possibility of genuinely community-led affordable housing to keep people in the neighbourhood they grew up in and have contributed to their entire lives. Lewisham Citizens and London CLT then embarked on an intensive community-led design process to engage the local Sydenham community in transforming their own neighbourhood starting with this small piece of land.

Tell us what you did, and how you did it. What was your approach in talking to the community?

Inclusion, responding to local needs, building capacity, listening and community ownership were all central to the community-led design process.

Once the site was agreed in 2016, Lewisham Citizens kicked off the design process with a July community picnic, followed by open meetings over the following months to engage more and more residents through leafleting and inviting neighbours. Local people discussed hopes and fears, as well as criteria for selecting an architect, culminating in a “choose your architect” event in September when Archio Architects was selected to co-design.

Archio held a three-day workshop, setting up a “temporary architect’s office” for local people to get involved with making, modelling and drawing ideas. 30+ residents joined and shared stories about the site and discussed how they would be affected by the development. 48 students/staff from nearby St. Bartholomew’s Primary School also attended a workshop about designing a community garden.

In 2017, London CLT convened a core group of residents to act as the Community Steering Group for the project, committing to meet monthly and play a valuable decision-making role, as well as helping to organise wider engagement events. 2017 culminated in a big Christmas workshop to update the community on the latest proposals and to ask residents about building materials, public space usage and more.

Since planning was submitted in 2018, local people have continued to be involved through workshops about landscaping and sites nearby, painting a mural a start-on-site celebration in 2021, tile-picking workshops with new residents, and site tours in 2022.

How were the results of the community engagement incorporated into decision making? Have you continued the conversation? Will the community stay involved?

Citizens House has been co-designed with the community, with local people making key decisions at every step of the way. The core campaign goal was to create genuinely affordable housing for local residents who were priced out. 

Community decision making led to Citizens House offering 11 genuinely affordable homes, with prices set at rates that are accessible for people on average local incomes, with 2-bedrooms sold at £272,500 and 1-bedrooms sold at £215,000 – 55-56% of open market rate. The homes are permanently affordable because when residents move out, they must sell at a similar level, giving new local families a chance to buy a home they can afford.

Homes are only available to Lewisham residents, people who otherwise might be faced with leaving their community because of rising house prices. To be eligible, residents must have lived in Lewisham for at least 5 years and must demonstrate housing need, with preference given for those living in the Sydenham/Forest Hill ward to ensure direct benefit to the local area.

Even with Citizens House now nearly completed and residents moving in from January 2022, community engagement is far from over. London CLT has been training and collaborating with the new residents to form a resident management company, to build relationships with neighbours on the surrounding estates, and to continue advocating the local council to create more opportunities for similar community-led projects.

Describe your environmental or social impacts and your sustainability approach. 

Citizens House now has families who have roots in Lewisham, and many in Sydenham, moving in from January 2023. They are an assortment of teachers, artists, NHS workers – people whose remaining aids the local economy by ensuring that people core to the running of local infrastructure and culture are not forced out, improving social cohesion in the area.

The building was also designed to facilitate social interaction and wellbeing, and to be low energy, incorporating sustainable materials and solar panels.

Residents at who otherwise would have been in insecure, overcrowded, overpriced living situations, now own a high-quality home, and have space and control, reducing the likelihood of broader health issues. Through a grant from nearby Guy’s & St Thomas Foundation, London CLT is researching the health impacts of Citizens House. So far, this has included interviews with residents before move-in about their circumstances before living in Citizens House, which will be followed by post-occupancy interviews in 2023.

The community engagement process contributed to bringing people together across the local Lewisham area to collaborate. Community capacity building included trainings in design and community organising, hiring local people to create media and film projects and more.

Local people who took part in the allocations process (as applicants or as panellists reviewing applications) enjoyed participating, noting how it helped them to reflect on their local connection and what community meant to them. Events over the last year where new residents have contributed have also already created a foundation for constructive relationships.