Re: affordable housing
From: Paul Milne (paulsmholyrood.ed.ac.uk)
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 05:27:54 -0600
Scott,

Scott Cowley wrote:
> We have 5 out of 26 of our homes on a lease-to-own program using federal 
> government tax
> credits administered by a state agency.  For info contact Steve Graham at the 
> Utah Housing Finance
> Agency, 554 S. 300 East, SLC, UT 84111

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply to your email.

The way we're funding our low-cost units is essentially the same. Grant money 
comes from central government via a regional housing authority (Scottish
Homes) which helps identifies projects in consultation with local authorities 
(eg. Midlothian District Council, Edinburgh District Council, etc.) and
then channels money to the local authorities which gives the money to projects, 
usually via Housing Associations, which are autonomas non-governmental
organisations that build low-cost housing.

We will be working with one particular Housing Association which will act as 
the developer for the whole project, and which will sell us the full-cost
houses,and partially subsidises houses (I think) and the common land, and act 
as landlord for the rental units. Or else they might sell us all the
houses with the Cohousing organisation owning the rental units. 

We haven't worked out the exact strategy yet, as this is all new over here, and 
the involvement of government grants and housing associations to
enable low-cost housing complicates matters. 

The important thing is that we will be working with the Housing Association as 
any cohousing group would work with its developer, i.e. designing site
and buildings, and managing the site after moving in. 

We will probably have a similar number of grant-assisted to full cost houses as 
yourselves, maybe slightly higher.

-- 
Paul Milne
EDINA
Edinburgh University Data Library

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