July 23, 2024 • 51 mins
Dive deep into the innovative world of community-led housing with Levent Kerimol, Director of Community Led Housing London, as he unfolds the layers of collaborative design and development in the urban fabric.
Discover how grassroots efforts can shape the cities of tomorrow and what this means for architecture and housing sustainability.
Join us for an insightful conversation exploring new dimensions in urban planning and architectural practices through the lens of community initiatives.
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Episode Transcript
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Levent Kerimol (00:10):
Yeah. I'm Levin Caramel. I'm the director of
something called Community LedHousing London. We're a team
that supports groups of people,small community groups, trying
to provide their own housing,really, and we do that through
all sorts of routes. We also doa little bit of work with
councils and others in creatingopportunities for community led
(00:31):
housing.
Yeah. I we're, I can say a bitmore about what community led
housing is because it might be aterm for some people. Yeah?
Yeah. It's an umbrella term forlots of different approaches.
People might have heard ofhousing cooperatives, community
land trusts, cohousing, and Ithink, and there's various other
(00:54):
versions. But I think what theyall have in common is the idea
that residents or widercommunities control their own
housing, and that might be inthe development phase, which
might be of interest to Arctics,but also in the kind of long
term management of the homes.And there are various different
mechanisms that kind of allowresidents to input in it. You
(01:18):
you think about it as anequivalent of maybe of self
build, but instead of it beingan individual household, it's a
collection of households comingtogether to either to build
their own homes or maybe to workwith a professional developer,
be that a housing association ora private developer even, and
then to take ownership of thatin some form of collective way.
(01:43):
So either through a legalorganization and then to keep
control over how the homes run,who can live in them, how
they're how they're allocated,and all of those kind of
decisions being close toresidents.
And, yeah, that's very differentto the conventional way of doing
(02:04):
things where residents are rightat the end of the chain and
often done to rather done ontorather than doing things for
themselves. Yeah. So we have ateam of kind of advisers with
all sorts of different skills.Mainly, it has been on the
development side. We will workwith groups.
Usually, they're start up groupswho don't necessarily have any
(02:27):
real knowledge of anything to dowith the built environment or
housing at all. Sometimes youhave architects in the mix, and
that helps, but it you as youneed a load of different skills.
And we will talk through howthey might incorporate, how they
might come together as a a legalentity, how they might go about
finding sites, engaginglandowners, thinking about the
(02:50):
kind of overarching businessplan, if you will, of what is
the concept, what's therationale to what they're trying
to achieve, and then help tobring other consultants that
they might need on board. Soit's like a a mentoring process
that we sit alongside a groupof, say, prospective residents
or members of a local communitythat got together that wanna do
(03:13):
housing in one one form oranother and help them through
that process. The other bit isHere
Stephen Drew (03:23):
he is. Here he is back.
Levent Kerimol (03:24):
I don't know.
Stephen Drew (03:26):
Like,
Levent Kerimol (03:26):
you're you lost me.
Stephen Drew (03:27):
You're you're back. I've you're okay. It's a
task, isn't it? I was justsaying, if there's a chance it
will go wrong in life, sometimesit will. But the audio
listeners, you will never get tosee this on the podcast because
I'm gonna edit it out.
It will all be perfect.
Levent Kerimol (03:43):
I've switched Wi Fi, so we'll see. Happen to be
in the office today.
Stephen Drew (03:47):
But It's fine. Red Mike's been the
Levent Kerimol (03:49):
You know, basically, you're getting about
the kind of advice we offer.Yeah. And I suppose the further
thing that a group will need isfunding. Yep. So particularly
for the various differentconsultants that they might
need.
And some of those, thearchitects and the audience will
be aware of, architectsthemselves plus the engineers,
(04:09):
the quantity surveyors, thenyou'll need legal support. You
will need someone to look atyour financial modeling and
engage banks and lenders. All ofthat takes money and is quite
hard to do if you don't have anyresources. So there's a bit of
schedule for fundraising. To todate, we have had some funding,
(04:33):
which is recently which wemanaged that early stage to to
fund feasibility work to to helpgroups at the early stage of
incorporating and approachinglandowners and maybe getting to
maybe what you might call a preapp stage where you've got a
viable scheme that's got legs.
And and there was also fundingavailable from the GLA to, get
(04:56):
planning permission as well. Andthat's more or less used up, so
it's it's a kind of a funnyenvironment at the moment in
terms of what funding andsupport there might be because
that early stage of gettingplanning is something that
lenders won't lend on. You andthen also to think about, is
(05:17):
development the only way ofachieving community led housing?
But yeah.
Stephen Drew (05:22):
Makes complete sense. Thank you, Lev, for
getting there. I feel like theodds are have been against us,
challenging us to get this out,so I really appreciate it. Maybe
what would be cool isvisualizing this, and I touched
upon at the start that I liveddown the road in a place called
Ladywell, and you've beeninvolved in this fantastic
scheme. So maybe if you're happywith it, Lea, I'm gonna bring it
(05:44):
up on the screen here, and youcan just illustrate the audience
a little bit about it so that wecan start to see and visualize
all those components that you'retalking about.
So Yeah. First of all, what isthis RUS project that you've
been involved in?
Levent Kerimol (05:58):
RUS is a is a community land trust, and it
stands for rural urban synthesissociety. It was founded over 10
years ago by people that wereinvolved with some of the Walter
Siegel self build, timber frameself build projects Yep. In
Lewisham, and they were lookingat how can we create a community
(06:22):
led self build affordable andaffordable in perpetuity,
project that's alsoenvironmentally sustainable and
massive ambitions, likeeverything you would want out of
a a a housing scheme. And Ithink the rural urban is is
partly to do with food growing,but also that sense of community
(06:44):
within the city. And I've beeninvolved in various different
points.
It's not my project, but itillustrates the some of the
ambition that community groupshave. As a community land trust,
they have an open membership toanyone. It's not just the group
of residents. So they have overa 1,000 members, and anyone can
(07:04):
become a member for a pound. Itmeans you get to vote for the
board or you get to stand to beon the board.
In a sense, it's got this kindof democratic as an
organizational structure, it'sgot a democratic principle and
foundation of how it's governed.And, a lot of the way they've
worked has been, involvingprospective residents, and, they
(07:33):
came across a site. Theyapproached the council. They
tried to persuade the council tosell it to them. And I think my
involvement in those in theearly days was before the
community led housing teamstarted, but working for a
leadership council briefly in apart time role and working out
how the council could transferthe site to a a community group
(07:58):
who'd never done a development,who'd only just incorporated,
and how was this all gonna work.
And we managed to work throughthat with a mixture of showing
how it could be possible, andthey were able to do that, and
they had a number of supportersamongst them at the time. And
then since then, they've gone onto secure those little bits of
funding, bits of socialinvestment they had to borrow to
(08:21):
fund the planning applicationMhmm. And various, you know,
consultant fees. And since then,they've got bank lending and
other social investment lendingto get contractors on board to
deliver the scheme. And nowwe're they've recently got to
practical completion, and we'reat the point where they are
(08:43):
selling low cost ownership homesto resident members who some of
whom have been with the groupwith the organization for a long
time, but, obviously, thesethings take quite a long time.
So other people have come inpartway through the process, so
there's been a sort of gradualchange whilst maintaining that
vision. And then theorganization I am part of is
(09:06):
called CDS Cooperatives, andthey're a housing association,
so a registered provider ofsocial housing. And there's a
role there because they have 8rented, flats as well, and they
need a housing associationpartner for to be the landlords
of the rented homes. So we'renow involved in that, and also
(09:27):
the housing association willprovision of the block as well.
So it's been interesting to seeit the beginning and at the
towards the end of thedevelopment process, but it will
obviously evolve.
So Yeah.
Stephen Drew (09:38):
It will look I'm sure it'll be great, and I'm
down the road, so I candefinitely pop in. Now community
Levent Kerimol (09:44):
I need volunteers for gardening and all
sorts of things. It's it's allbeen a volunteer led, thing from
the beginning, really. So yeah.
Stephen Drew (09:52):
It would be good. I probably should do it. I'll
I'll admit. I'm not the bestgardener. Everything I tend to
do touch that that I touch tendsto go wrong.
I don't know why maybe yourcomputer is being touched by my
IT skills as well. Nice. Whoknows? But it's very
fascinating. One fingercommunity is a lot of people
involved.
I was wondering quick questionbecause a question on that point
(10:14):
then, Lev. When you got so manypeople involved, of course, it's
important. Of course, it'sspecial. When you got more
people involved, you got morepeople involved, which can mean
does that mean sometimes it canget complicated? Or in your
experience, how do you managethis process with lots of people
and make sure things go ontrack, things don't get stalled?
Or, I'd love to know yourexperience on that front, how to
(10:35):
coordinate a community effort toget the project going.
Levent Kerimol (10:39):
Yeah. I mean, some groups are very small. Some
only work for themselves as acommunity. So it might be a
group of 5 households trying todo, like, a collective self
build or a small co housingscheme, which is only for
themselves. Yeah.
With the sort of 1,000 members,it doesn't mean all 1,000 of
them are involved in everysingle detail. It, yeah, it has
(11:02):
to be set up in the right way,and the legal structure means
that there there are annualgeneral meetings where all
members can vote for a board,and the board is maybe made up
of 12 maximum 12 people usually.Sometimes it can be a bit
smaller than that. So decisionsare made usually as a smaller
(11:22):
group, but then you can havesubgroups and committees and
working groups on particulartasks, or you might have some
people and as I said, it's it'sall it's mostly voluntary, so
it's as much as people have timeand skills to input that they
might get involved in aparticular aspect and for a
(11:42):
period of time and then swapover. And even that board of 12,
there's usually a maximum timelimit you can serve on the
board, so it will get reelectedand refreshed.
So there's usually, in a healthyorganization, a churn of, people
who are volunteering and passingthe baton on between each other,
(12:05):
but all united behind a commonvision that hopefully stays
together throughout the life ofthe project. And it does mean
how do you deal you know, maybesome of your question is you can
have disagreements as well. Yep.It's how do you resolve those,
particularly when it's anorganization with a lot of
members and not all of them aregonna be residents. It's drawn
(12:27):
from the wider community, and Ithink a lot of the members
support it because they thinkit's a good project and it's a
different thing to to getbehind.
And sometimes just being amember is just showing your
support for it. And some peoplehave a bit more time to
contribute, and they might get alittle bit more involved, and
it's not necessarily aspersonal. In the Rust project,
(12:48):
they had some self finish flats,so they allocated the homes to
people fairly early on in theprocess.
Stephen Drew (12:55):
And
Levent Kerimol (12:55):
they also ran co designee sessions early on as
well. So maybe there was a bitmore of a sense of, okay. This
is gonna be my flat, but eventhat wasn't totally fixed
because the development processis so long. People have fallen
out of the list, and otherpeople have come in, so you
still get a little bit of thatchange. I think where it's a
smaller group and you all intendto be residents of the scheme,
(13:21):
then you can get conflict.
And, actually, we've got an anadviser now who specializes in
kind of some of that that thecommunication styles, and
there's something callednonviolent communication and
just a lot of kind of coachingfacilitation work and how you
talk to people and how you thinkabout your meetings and how you
(13:42):
get is it the decision makingcan sometimes be an issue. So is
it, consensus that everyone hasto agree on something? Is it a
democratic vote, which mightmean some people just don't like
what's happening? So there'sthere's a lot of stuff to think
about around, like, how we agreeto make decisions. Usually, I
(14:03):
think at an early stage, if it'sa small group of people, there's
enough to keep them together,and you usually get quite a
small core group really drivingthese projects.
And the and most often, they arequite sort of inspirational
people who, have a lot of energyto to make these things happen.
(14:25):
But you need all sorts ofdifferent kinds of skills and
personalities. So I think a agood group will have a range of
different skills and in beingorganized and as well as having
the energy and the ambition andthe vision to convince other
people, convince partners,convince land owners. Yeah.
Stephen Drew (14:43):
It's very interesting. And maybe to expand
upon that, because you mentionedthere a good group or a good
community behind a certainproject. Now can we what I'd
love to know is you've seen thatfew while there's been a range
of success, in your opinion,what makes a really good group
or drive a project forward? Doyou have any insights on that
(15:03):
front on what works really welland maybe things that you've
learned that doesn't work aswell, if that makes sense.
Levent Kerimol (15:12):
Yeah. There's not a 100% recipe. I do think
having tends to be having asmaller core group can be more
effective in making decisionsmore quickly. I think you
sometimes have to be fairlyagile. And Yep.
It's not necessarily aboutprofessional skills or
backgrounds. Although sometimesas an as an organization gets a
(15:36):
little bit more formalized, youcan try and recruit, mem you
know, members even even whereyou have a group of, people who
want to be the prospectiveresidents. You can co opt,
committee members, in in a in ahousing coop, for example, that
maybe have a finance backgroundor a legal background. Sometimes
(15:58):
that helps. I think the kind ofmentoring that that we provide
through advisers fills in someof the gaps.
So if you don't have a abrilliant kind of finance
person, we can say what's asensible decision or not or
what's likely to work or notwork if you don't have those
skills. And then the other bitof it, I think, is just
(16:20):
enthusiasm and passion, whichwhich is the easier said than
reality. It because we we oftenfind groups are enthusiastic to
begin with, and some of theseprojects take a long time. And
you sometimes have to thinkabout how long will that
enthusiasm last and how what'sthe kind of staying power and
(16:40):
maybe having, you might call itsuccession planning, but what
happens if key individuals areno longer around? Are you doing
enough to bring in the next sortof wave of people?
Really interesting example I canthink of is a community land
trust in Water Forest calledForest CLT. We've had really
good people, real energy, andtried lots of things, lots of
(17:05):
different approaches, looked atlots of different sites, tried
to engage the council, and forone reason or another, none of
those has really worked. And Ithink most groups probably have
given up, but somehow they'vemanaged to keep it fresh and get
new members and get new peopleinto the boards just to keep it
going and say, we're not here.We're not gonna disappear just
(17:25):
because you're saying no rightnow. And then you have some
other groups where, you know, soyou could say they're not
successful because they haven'tmanaged to secure secure a site
yet.
But equally, on the other hand,they're a very successful
organization, and they maybe doother things alongside the
housing SKUs. So they may doother events and other, social
(17:46):
gatherings and and all sorts ofother things. So there's more to
it than just housing or justdevelopment as well. On the
other hand, there's groups wherethey are doing quite well on the
development, but maybe they'renot as strong on the governance
side, Like, how are youorganized as a group, as an
organization? And there might bework to do on that, that maybe
(18:07):
gets either ignored or isn'tprioritized because the
project's moving.
So you need a bit of both, andthere isn't a one formula, and
it's not it's necessarily thatif you've got a good organized
group that you're successful.But equally, sometimes
successful groups aren'tbrilliantly well organized
either.
Stephen Drew (18:24):
Very interesting. I can feel the passion here. But
just before we talk about thatand how you keep going, your
background is very interestingbecause that's how we
accidentally met at the start.Can you tell me a little bit
about your background? Becausehow did you get here to where
you because this is the role youdo now.
You have these groups. But let'speel it back a second. How did
you get here there? How did youget involved with these kind of
(18:45):
projects?
Levent Kerimol (18:46):
Okay. So I I guess I started I I studied
architecture, which is probablywhy I'm here somewhat. I worked
for a couple of years in yearsout. They were fine. They were
small office in Clerkenwell.
I did a year in Holland, spent abit of time at OMA as well. And
those experiences wereinteresting, but I I think I
knew from my year out that Iwasn't as interested in the sort
(19:10):
of detailing stuff. Yeah. I wasbit more interested in the wider
things. And with my diploma, Iwas able to really just explore
that.
And I think that's a lot ofpeople talk about architecture
being a long course, and I thinkyou don't really find yourself
until you get to to diploma. Andand or maybe some people take
(19:31):
even longer than that to findwhat their thing was. But I
read, I think, some things oneof the writers was someone
called Colin Ward, who's morelike a an anarchist writer. He's
known as being an anarchistwriter, but he actually also did
some time as an architecturalapprentice. So he had an
interest in this stuff.
He wrote about self builds and,the idea that, residents should
(19:54):
control, their own housing wassomething that was always an
interest of that at that point.In my diploma work, I looked at
self build, but then that opensup loads of questions around
what is the politics and thefinancial stuff around
architecture. And when you'reworking in an office, you're
usually working for a client andyou're somewhat removed. I
(20:16):
suppose the only time you reallyget close to it will be if
you're doing a private house,but then you only end up working
for, like, fairly wealthyclients wanting to do a private
house or an extension orsomething. It was trying to
think about that, and thatinterest in the stuff around the
usual architecture led me alittle bit into the public
(20:37):
sector.
Yep. So I was part of a teamcalled Design for London that
some people might remember. Itwas originally the architecture
and urbanism unit under KenLivingstone and when Richard
Rogers was the his adviser for,I don't know, architecture and
design or whatever, which thenhas stayed in London government
(20:58):
for some time. And that wasinteresting because it meant I
could see more of how initially,we were just giving design
advice to, say, planning teams,but then we were also
commissioning projects andhelping with the selection of
architects. And we worked inquite an area based way.
So we might work on a masterplan at the same time as, being
(21:21):
involved in spending some moneyon some public realm projects.
We might be involved in aplanning application from a
private developer or a housingassociation, and they would all
be different architecturalteams, and it felt a little bit
like you were curating a placeand trying to make sure that
they all met up and tiedtogether. And often, they they
(21:45):
were places all across London. Ispent quite a lot of time in
East London when it was kind ofThames Gateway World, had a lot
of focus around regeneration andplanning, did a lot of work in
Barking Town Centre and Raynham,and then worked all over London
as well. The emphasis shiftedmaybe to start looking at high
streets as a thing and thinkingabout the retail spaces.
(22:09):
We thought and then I alsostarted to work on the what you
might call workspace, andaffordable workspace projects
was another thing. So thinkingabout the non housing bits of
regeneration, like thesocioeconomic side of
regeneration. And at the sametime, it was also another role
was looking with planning policycolleagues on the housing design
(22:34):
standards as they were, the theas space standards. And I was
involved in some of that,particularly when government was
trying to rationalize them. Theythey had a cutting red tape
initiative, and somehow,bizarrely, that the the London
standards became adopted as anoptional national thing.
And that was a reallyinteresting thing to be part of
(22:54):
as well-being involved with kindof government and and so on. But
I think I had always had thisinterest in how if we could
rather than trying to advise toget better design, what would
happen if prospective residentsare involved in that process? So
rather than saying, okay. It's atop down thing that we try to
(23:17):
get good design, it feels likewhat's really important is that
the future residents are barelyever in that conversation. Even
when a lot of well meaningpractices, do consultation,
you're usually asking existingneighboring residents, not
future residents.
The only time future residentsare included in that, process
(23:40):
will probably be as estate agentstatistics or waiting list
numbers, but it doesn't give youa sense of who's gonna live
there or what they might want.And in some ways, their views
are arguably more important thanthe surrounding neighbors. And
and you felt, okay. If they hadmore power in that process, we
(24:01):
might get better outcomes. So Ithink that's been there a long
for a long time, and I Icontinue to explore that on the
side a little bit and even did abit of part time sabbatical
where I ended up working forLewisham Council and did a
little bit of work for, housingassociation that's now been
(24:23):
taken over by Peabody out inThamesmeade looking at self
build opportunities and learningmore about housing cooperatives
and community net housing.
I think that oh, and the otherthing I should mention is I also
decided what I really needed wasto understand more about the
real estate side of it and thefinancing side of it. I ended up
(24:44):
doing a a part time masters inin real estate at Henley
Business School, ReadingUniversities. Frog started off
in architecture, leapfrogplanning a little bit, and did a
bit of stuff in real estate,which I'm still not a massive
expert in. It has to be said,but, enough of a working
knowledge to cover a lot ofthose size of the built
(25:07):
environment world. It has to besaid.
I'm not an expert in how youbuild a building because I've
never done a part 3. It it's onething or another. But, yeah,
definitely interested in earlyprocess of how things come about
and, you know, who's behind themand yeah.
Stephen Drew (25:25):
Yeah. Don't worry. I'm I'm the same. I'm forever in
the architectural assistant part2 camp
Levent Kerimol (25:31):
because I've
Stephen Drew (25:32):
I've never got my part free, but that's okay. We
we do weird and wonderful thingsin the wider industry. Earlier,
you mentioned that in thesecommunity led groups, sometimes
there's architects involved. Butwhat's quite interesting is
potentially in this audience, alot of architects listening. And
where do you think, Leva, thatthey could get involved and
(25:53):
really show value in terms ofgetting these community projects
moving along?
Levent Kerimol (25:59):
Most of them still need architects. Often,
you do get architects if it'sit's a tricky one because yours
I know there's a lot of debateabout how much work architects
should do for free, but it doeshelp to have a sent if if it's a
community group that doesn'thave any of that kind of skill
and can't assess whether a siteis a goer or a good site or what
(26:20):
you can fit on a site Yep. Atearly stage, no developer is
spending money. No housingassociation is spending huge
amounts of money to do designwork, and you have to have a
sense of what's possible with asite. And I think sometimes if
you can if you have theexperience of that's a very
valuable thing to be able tocommunity group, whether, it
(26:43):
leads to future work or whichrole you take in it, can can
vary, I think.
Sometimes I think a lot ofartists do have the idea that
they they might build their ownscheme with a with a group of
their friends, which is great.They they might be the
prospective residents.Architects can also be members
of the community that that youthat they live in or that
(27:05):
they're part of. Might, youknow, take a useful place on
boards as I was mentioning, orequally they might be as kind of
consultants or advisers togroups. But I think sometimes it
helped to be clear that you areonly giving architectural advice
and just make those lines ofengagement clear, like, what it
(27:26):
is you are giving advice on.
Sometimes because of the usuallythe widespread nature of what
architects know about, they knowa bit about the wider
development process. They know abit about some of the legals,
but not all of it. You need tobe able to say, yes. Okay. But
this isn't I think it's this,but it's not my area of
specialism.
(27:47):
And being clear with the groupthat you might need specialist
advice here and there, and if itis a group trying to say, I know
a bit, but I don't knoweverything. But, yeah, having
that as a as within groups isnot a it's not an essential
thing, but it can be a usefulthing. It does mean you're
probably volunteering, and Idon't know. It might depends how
(28:07):
people feel about that.
Stephen Drew (28:09):
Yeah. I will. And it depends. Sometimes it's quite
nice to do something pro bono orin between or have a passion
project, and this could besomething that you could lend
you could lean into, especiallymaybe if there's a project near
you or something like that. Itit makes complete sense.
Now what I'd love to talk aboutas well is it seems that there's
been a lot of tech technologicalchange in the news. We talk
(28:32):
about AI. We talk about all thiskind of stuff. What I'd love to
know, Lev, do you think that allthese new emerging tools could
help these community projects,could be a positive thing, or do
you think it's not gonna reallyinterfere with it or not gonna
get involved? Because you got itsounds like it's a very people
process.
So maybe there's an opportunitythere, but equally, maybe it
(28:54):
does make a difference. Do youhave any kind of thought early
thoughts on that potentially?
Levent Kerimol (28:58):
I don't know. I've played around with some of
the AI things, not in a hugeamount of detail. I think
there's they I suppose mygeneral sense is they'll they'll
be tools and they're just likewe've got current technology
tools, they're tools, and thepeople behind them will continue
to use them. They make thingsthey might make things easier to
(29:19):
do just as a tool does. We savesome of the labor saving ness of
things.
Yeah. Weirdly, I was reflectingon some of the projects from the
past and thinking they didn'teven have emails. Things were
drawn on drawing boards, and youyou you look at some of the
planning applications and someof the correspondence that they
have on, like, typewriters andanything, actually, it was a lot
(29:42):
simpler back then. Yeah. And itprobably because people didn't
have track changes on Worddocuments that they could spend
infinitely redoing or even CADdrawings that you can keep
editing and fiddling with.
So that's I think one of thethings that's happened with
technology is it possibly a goodthing. It just means we're
looking at things in a lot moredetail. And I suppose you could
even say that of planningapplications, the amount of
(30:05):
effort that it takes, the thethe layers of stuff that people
look for, I think, wouldn't havebeen possible if we didn't have
the technology that we do now.Mhmm. That that just creates, in
a way, creates more work.
I don't think that's all to dowith the technology. It's just
because the because it'savailable, we can make use of
it. But then in a way, everyonecan make use of it. And I think
(30:26):
that it's probably not I don'tknow, I I I'm really just making
stuff up here, but thetechnological change isn't gonna
be the thing that maybe makesmore community housing happen or
not. I think it is the reasonsto do it will be one more of
social justice, if you will, orthat sense of is it important
(30:48):
for where power sits in societyor in our built environment or
how decisions are made aroundhousing and and how that power
is distributed, is more thequestion.
And I think there's there's beenwaves around that and, maybe it
comes and goes, maybe it takesdifferent forms, but it's an
ongoing question. I know it'sit's an important topic around
(31:11):
what is if we can achieve betteroutcomes by working with with
people. So particularly if youare an organization that has a
lot of power, how can you sharethat? How can you divulge that?
So some of the work we're doingwith councils is to say, yeah.
Okay. You can deliver lots ofstuff, and it'll be interesting
to see what happens with futuregovernments. And the drive
(31:34):
towards council housing can bein in many ways, it's a it's
it's it's a good thing, but alsolet's not forget you have
massive corporate institutionsthat the individual residents
can get lost in. Same sort ofthing with the increasingly
large housing associations thatwe're seeing. You're emerging
and merging into ever largerorganizations.
(31:56):
Arguably gets some efficiencieseconomically, but equally
creates more and more layers ofgovernance and bureaucracy and
maybe makes the actual end usersmore distant from the process.
So there's, I think, a balanceto be found around those kind of
issues. Like, what does it meanto share power? What is the real
(32:18):
role of how an individual livesin their home? What control they
have over their home?
And even with, I think,community health is maybe
answering some of thosequestions in the the scope
around the private rentedsector, for example, where you
might not even have a largeentity, but it's the distantness
(32:39):
of who the landlord is and thelack of control around what it
means to live in your home andand to get a repair done or to
change the color of the walls orwhatever that that might make
you have a sense of belonging inyour own home that you're
removed from. And I think thatis as important a question as
(33:00):
the unaffordability of, privaterents as well. So if you're just
addressing an an affordabilityquestion, I think you're missing
out a lot more about what itmeans to live in in in a home or
what makes a home and what makesa community and a a group of
neighbors around.
Stephen Drew (33:17):
Mhmm. It well, I think it's an interesting time.
Sometimes I do agree with you,especially with all these emails
in you get meetings. Sometimes Ithink meetings upon meetings is
the death of innovation, isn'tit? You don't get anything done.
You end up just going intomeetings. Now I have one more
question before we do thatthough. Difree Star, who is an
(33:41):
architecture student in thePhilippines, asked, how do you
manage the residents andcommunity members to actively
participate in the decisionmaking process and contribute to
the design and development ofthe housing to meet their longer
term needs. He laugh at the end.How do you get how do you keep
people involved, Lev, notdrifting off and all this stuff?
Do you have any tips fordefinitely deeply on the on this
(34:04):
point? I know you covered it andwhat success
Levent Kerimol (34:07):
I've I've mentioned some of that. I
suppose the thing I might addis, you know, you having the
ability to step back a littlebit, and if you're losing
momentum and you don't have thetime and and so on, allowing
others to come in, is part ofit. Sometimes things need a bit
of a reboot. Sometimes it's alsosaying, okay. You might be tired
of this project.
We still think it's got leg as aas a kind of professional. It's
(34:29):
taken a long time. Yeah. But weit's got legs. And if you as
individuals want to pull out ofit, maybe there are others out
there who might want to step inand take over what you've done.
And it's not in a way, I wouldsay, it's not wasted time even.
Like, I think you have to maybesee it. As I said, these are
voluntary things that people doa lot of stuff as hobbies
(34:51):
outside. You might join a bookclub or something else, and
sometimes it's an opportunityjust to learn more about the
built environment or thedevelopment process if you're
not in it already. And if youjust see as, okay, the the
journey is interesting, and Imight not have achieved
something, but I've learnedsomething for a period of time,
and I'm now I'm gonna dosomething else, and I'll let
(35:13):
someone else in.
So that's one thing. The otherthing that I think it there's
something in there about thelong term needs. So that's that
can be quite interesting whereyou have like, many of the
housing cooperatives that wereset up in the 19 8 seventies
eighties Mhmm. Been going for along time and probably paid off
most of their sort of mortgagedebts, development loans,
(35:35):
etcetera. And they're now in theposition of going, okay.
We we now have rental income,and we're not having to pay off
the loans. What do we do withthat income? And many of them,
they sit in reserves and theyaccumulate. So they're nonprofit
organizations, so they can'tpocket them as individuals. And
(35:56):
there's a question there of whatthey then do with any surplus or
might have accumulated.
Stephen Drew (36:01):
Mhmm.
Levent Kerimol (36:01):
And do they put it into other similar projects?
Do they try to do another newdevelopment themselves? And
often, the residents who mighthave been very actively involved
when they were younger insetting this thing up in the
eighties, and now in theirsixties, they're now retired,
older, and they don't have thesame energy, and it maybe feels
a bit more of a risk to do a newdevelopment project,
(36:24):
particularly if it involvesputting their existing homes on
the line again. And I think thatwe need to think of better
mechanisms for helping thosegroups feel comfortable about
putting aside some of the moneyinto some other institutions
that maybe help develop newcommunity led homes and what
(36:47):
they might get out of that as anorganization. Because sometimes
I think it's a bit of amismatch.
I think sometimes they've beenput into the position of being
like mini housing associations,and really, that's not really
their main point in many cases.A lot of the people just wanna
live in their home as they getthey they make decision. The day
to day stuff matters. So gettingcontrol over repairs, deciding
(37:10):
what to prioritize in terms of arepair or a bit of a maintenance
or a bit of a change, butthey're not in the job of trying
to do another new development.Some people have the bug.
They get bitten, and they getthe enthusiasm, and then they go
on from project to project, andthey become a bit more of a
specialist in that. So it's Ithink it's a mixture of
organizational mechanisms tokeep energy and momentum going,
(37:34):
but also I think there might besome financial mechanisms
whereby established projectshelp to support new projects.
Because if we see each of themas one of tiny little projects,
then they don't really add up tomore than than some of their
parts, I think.
Stephen Drew (37:51):
Very useful in insights there. The last thing I
was gonna say, Lev, is becausesome architects have felt beaten
up over the last post pandemic.It's been a bit tricky in terms
of some projects. There hasn'tbeen as much work, particularly
in the residential sector, asone would have liked. It there's
(38:11):
some people think that there aresigns of it getting better.
I've spoke to some developerswho are waiting for the interest
rate, Wayne, because it's been abit of a turbulent time here. I
was just wondering your thoughtsand your outlook on on the next
few months to the next year or2. Are you feeling positive? Are
you cautious? What's yourthoughts?
Because you your feet are on theground here. You're seeing
(38:32):
things as they move.
Levent Kerimol (38:33):
We've seen that same thing that initially, the
construction costs, lots ofreasons, pandemic, maybe Brexit,
construction market doing reallyfunny things, massive price
rises, and then that feedinginto the wiser economy. Interest
rates, as you say, makes it verydifficult to develop anything.
And it's not just it's hardenough trying to do something as
(38:55):
a start up community led group,but professional developers,
private developers arestruggling, housing associations
are struggling. Yes. I see that.
I think we are trying to come upwith a model that maybe doesn't
put all the pressure oncommunity led groups to do
everything. It's it you couldsay it's some of the sharing of
(39:16):
power. I think also some of itis, do we always need to think
about development, or are thereways of taking on existing
housing and adapting that youknow, thinking about the
ownership of them, which is afundamental part of who's the
landlord. Yep. And that is stillaffected by interest rates, but
I'm not an economic expert, butthe government says that should,
(39:37):
at some point, ease.
And if we can do that, then Ithink mixing things into models
where maybe others might do thedevelopment side of it, take the
development risk, and maybe theyare more able to do that. And we
bring on board community groups,either existing community groups
(39:57):
that want to buy into a scheme,or we, one of the things we're
looking at is whether we cankind of form communities around
existing developments that mayalready be happening. So, if a
developer's got a scheme, isthere a way we can think about
how residents are brought onboard earlier in the process?
And maybe they don't commit tobe to like, as through presales,
(40:21):
but it always gets me how manylarge developments have these
kind of showroom marketingsuites, and they have their sold
under offer on the plans or themodels. And you just think,
okay.
Maybe we should just have anevent where all those people
could get together, have apicnic, a barbecue, or
something, and get to meet eachother before they move in. And
and maybe they can also be askedto decide things about the
(40:44):
schemes relatively non notmassively financially costly
things. Like, it might be howthe planting works or decisions
of maybe the ground floor, evenwhat the scheme is called could
be up to the residents. And thatwould help form a community, or
sense like, getting a bit moreof a neighborliness to what you
(41:05):
might otherwise move into as ananonymous kind of person on day
1. And you maybe hope thatsomething happens, but probably
doesn't, and everyone retreatsbehind their front doors of
their flats.
And then the management is doneby someone else anonymously who
you've never met and probablycharges you very large service
charge when what, you know, whatare the opportunities that the
(41:27):
community might do forthemselves as as residents? So I
think we're exploring those kindof communities, whether there's
whether there's building groupsaround developments, whether
it's buying existingdevelopments. And I think that's
from a community led housingperspective, but I I don't know
if it addresses the kind of, arewe building enough stuff? I
(41:48):
think there's maybe a questionof, should we be building lots
of stuff from scratch, or therethere's a whole massive debate
around retrofit at the moment,and I
Stephen Drew (41:58):
I
Levent Kerimol (41:58):
think it possibly plays into that as
well. And my sense is this mightbe a bit of a controversial
view, but a lot of people havesaid this in in terms of
housing. There is a decentamount of housing stock already
out there, and sometimes why itfeels like we need to be
building more is because we'renot building the right stuff or
we're not addressing some of theunder occupation, arguably.
(42:21):
There's a I think there's amassive potential in people who
could be freeing up properties.It it that's how to grasp.
And possibly the reasons whythey're not moving out is that
they feel very attached to wherethey have lived for the whole of
their lives, so they no longerneed the the number of bedrooms
that they have. And theyprobably move into something,
(42:42):
but they feel a bit scaredbecause they don't know who
they're gonna be moving in with,who are their neighbors, who are
their network of support. But ifwe can build some sort of sort
of co housing communities where,people have a sense of mutual
support and neighborliness,before they move in, that can
make you feel a little bit moreattractive and feel like, okay.
(43:02):
I'm not gonna be a stranger inthis new thing, and and maybe
that is an appropriate place tomove into. And I think we could
be, there's there's value inthose things for other reasons,
not just in building new unitsfor the sake of units.
Stephen Drew (43:17):
Got him. Wow. We were opening up Pandora's box
there at the end, Lev, becausethe audience has been peeking
up. We've got Deathly Starswrote back with some emojis. I
don't quite understand it, but,well, thank you very much.
While we were talking there, RedMike said, hell yes. Coming up
with a name could be a deepconnection for the community.
(43:39):
It's like hanging out andpicking a band's name. And also
passionately said, while youwere talking, do more with less.
So thank you, Red Mike.
And Red Mike, we put him as the3rd guest here because while we
were having a little bit oftechnical problems at the start,
Red Mike was keeping me company.Thank you so much, Red Mike.
Yogesh Taylor jumps in and goes,hi, Steven Lev. The interest a
(44:03):
high interest rate, invertedcommas for our audio listeners,
debate interest mean interestrates are now at a normal rate.
The lowest interest rates we had10 years ago, so it's an
anomaly, and that was 1 hour 2.
And then he says, so are wesaying that we can't build when
the interest rate are abnormaland only when they're
(44:25):
historically low? If so, whatdoes that say about the
industry? Oh, do you do you haveany thoughts on that quickly,
Lev, before we go?
Levent Kerimol (44:32):
Yeah. Yeah. You might be right. I think banks
it's not so much what the baserate is. I think banks have been
very reluctant, and it's theuncertainty.
And I think it's also theconstruction cost hasn't like,
there's just a lot of I see itlike a sort of number of ways
that that sort of just haven'tquite aligned and synchronized,
maybe. Mhmm. I think some of thechallenges are because
(44:55):
construction is relatively soexpensive. It's just not viable,
you know, if you're spendingthat much to build something and
what you can sell it for, andwhat people can afford to buy, I
think it it's that misalignmentthat we're going through at the
moment. So hopefully, it'll allslightly align a bit more.
Stephen Drew (45:13):
Hopefully. Fingers crossed. That would be nice,
wouldn't it? I think we've hadquite a little bit of a a weird
and wild ride here. And if Ihaven't scarred you to death on
on doing live streams, Lev, Ithink this has been a good one.
But in before you go, do youhave any questions for me at
all?
Levent Kerimol (45:32):
I I don't know really. I I'd be interested to
you were mentioning about notreally being an architect and
doing interesting things aroundthe side and Yeah. Around the
edges of architecture. And I Idon't know if you've got any
reflections on that and what's
Stephen Drew (45:44):
doing technical details drawing. So that was me
in a nutshell. I had my linemanager who's a project
architect, and he was like,Steve, you need to really care
when you're doing these details.Otherwise, it won't stack up.
And I was like, Barry, you hitthe nail on the head.
I don't care. And that's why Ihad to find something else.
However, I think the architectand this and I'm glad that
you've gone on and been involvedin this stuff because I think
(46:07):
just because you're notpassionate about maybe the
technical drawings of certainaspects doesn't mean you're not
an intelligent person. I findthat it's a shame sometimes when
architecture students, inparticular, they get a bit
disillusioned that they, quote,unquote, fail because there's
many different ways that you canadd value in the industry. And I
do think that listen.
(46:27):
If you wanna get your part 1,part 2, and 3, fantastic power
to you. I'm sure you can add alot of value to society, but
it's not the only way. And Ithink sometimes in the course,
the I don't know how you feltthat, but at the time, by not
doing my part 3 at first, thatfelt like a massive taboo. And,
initially, I had that kind ofimposter syndrome, like failure.
(46:49):
I'm not good enough to be anarchitect.
You're in this kind of world.Whereas I do genuinely believe
that a lot of people who studyarchitecture offer a lot of
value. That there's there isn'tone of the members of Pink
Floyd, I've studiedarchitecture. That's the one
that keeps popping up, but I Ilike to keep that one in my back
pocket. But what I would say ishow I go about my business
(47:11):
sometimes the the so thearchitecture social as a
business, I think I lean intothe ways you learn architecture,
that deep analytical thinking,and and there's lots of value
there.
Downside is, as architects, Ithink that we sometimes can do
those long hours and crazystuff, and I have done that.
Ironically, when I was in theindustry, I used to try and work
(47:32):
9 to 5. Now have my business, Ido the long hours like I did at
uni. So I don't know if that'sgood because it's Yeah.
Levent Kerimol (47:38):
Yeah. Yeah. That that's why I just think it's
that's really interesting. I dida year out in Holland, and I
think it's different in someother countries where they make
a distinction. It's differentskill set.
They say that they and they havearchitectural technicians that
study that as a separate course,and it is valued. Actually, some
of the kind of highest paidpeople in the office were the
architectural techniciansbecause they really knew how to
(48:00):
build stuff, and then they spenttime working for the contractor
as well, so they reallyunderstand that side. And then
there's the sort we might callmore the design architects. And
I think one of the things thathappens in the UK is when you're
studying, the earlier part 1,part 2 is give you the
impression that you can do allthis wonderful stuff, and then
Yeah. You realize that's certainpart of it, and then there's
another part of it as well,which doesn't doesn't quite
(48:22):
prepare you for that.
So, yeah, it's but, yeah, alsoagree with you that I I find one
of the things I think working inthe public sector, working with,
like, lots of other people indis different disciplines, I've
realized, you know, architectsaren't the be all and ends all
and every of everything. Lots ofother people that bring lots of
different kinds of values, yetat the same time, I'm drawn back
(48:43):
to something that is a referencepoint for me. And you look at
it, And it is a way of thinking,so it's an approach. And I think
it, you know, you can use it youcan use your architectural
thinking in lots of differentways. Yeah.
So it's
Stephen Drew (48:59):
definitely worth it. It's one of those things
that I always think, could I bean architect now? Would I do it
again? Absolutely not. But do Ivalue my part 1 and part 2,
like, immensely?
And, actually, I do still lovethe architecture community. And
I have really good deep friendswho are architects, and I still
go to the hang out with them.And they might argue about the
(49:21):
cladding and the facade, and Idon't have a clue why they're
arguing, but they are goodpeople. So it's a nice club to
be a part of, but some of usblack sheep go on and do
different things. I went moreinto sales.
You actually got involved incommunities, though, so that's I
do implore you for that. Lastthing, Lev, because we talked
about a lot. You really unpackedit really well. But if people
(49:44):
wanna see what projects you'reup to or start employing, how do
they find out all thatinformation again? I'll bring
the link back up, but could yourun through Yeah.
A little bit?
Levent Kerimol (49:53):
Yeah. We've got a website which lists loads of
projects in London. There'sprobably we get, new inquiries
from groups. Just get in touch.We're not it's not so big that
people don't know each other.
There's lots of kind of subworlds in London, and then there
are national bodies as well.There's various resources on
another national website. It canseem a little bit confusing
(50:16):
because there's so manydifferent terms which begin with
some sort of community or codeat the beginning of them. I'm
happy to talk through them andto do the kind of nerdy
technical explanations. So yes.
Stephen Drew (50:29):
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Lev. You've been an
absolute star. I'm gonna endthis livestream in a second, but
stay on the stage. Don't clickthe button just yet.
Stay on there for one more. Butthank you to the in the
audience, and it's I feel likeit's been a good episode, but I
appreciate. I could see a lot ofyou have been talking in the
background, and that's what it'sabout. And thank you for adding
(50:49):
comments and also perseveringwith me at the start. You know
what?
These technical things happen.What can you do? It's like, but
it's good proof that what you'regetting here is real and honest
conversations. Sometimes thingsgo a bit squiffy on. Anyways,
thank you so much.
More content soon. Thank you somuch for that for you being
(51:10):
here. These community projects,I think, is what's important.
Without it, I think we'restarting to one of the things is
we could be losing touch. Soit's really cool to learn about
that, but also nice to know thatwhether you wanna put your
architect hat on or not or justbeing part of a community, you
can get involved in theseprojects.
I will think about the rodentlady. I don't think they should
put me in the gardening part.Maybe they should put me
(51:32):
somewhere else. Picking up therubbish or something, that
sounds like a job for me. Thankyou so much to everyone in the
audience.
I'm gonna end the livestreamnow. And to you, Lev, I really
appreciate it. And thank you,Red Mike, as well for giving me
a good giggle. Take care,everyone. Bye bye.
Yeah. I'm Levin Caramel. I'm the director of
something called Community LedHousing London. We're a team
that supports groups of people,small community groups, trying
to provide their own housing,really, and we do that through
all sorts of routes. We also doa little bit of work with
councils and others in creatingopportunities for community led
(00:31):
housing.
Yeah. I we're, I can say a bitmore about what community led
housing is because it might be aterm for some people. Yeah?
Yeah. It's an umbrella term forlots of different approaches.
People might have heard ofhousing cooperatives, community
land trusts, cohousing, and Ithink, and there's various other
(00:54):
versions. But I think what theyall have in common is the idea
that residents or widercommunities control their own
housing, and that might be inthe development phase, which
might be of interest to Arctics,but also in the kind of long
term management of the homes.And there are various different
mechanisms that kind of allowresidents to input in it. You
(01:18):
you think about it as anequivalent of maybe of self
build, but instead of it beingan individual household, it's a
collection of households comingtogether to either to build
their own homes or maybe to workwith a professional developer,
be that a housing association ora private developer even, and
then to take ownership of thatin some form of collective way.
(01:43):
So either through a legalorganization and then to keep
control over how the homes run,who can live in them, how
they're how they're allocated,and all of those kind of
decisions being close toresidents.
And, yeah, that's very differentto the conventional way of doing
(02:04):
things where residents are rightat the end of the chain and
often done to rather done ontorather than doing things for
themselves. Yeah. So we have ateam of kind of advisers with
all sorts of different skills.Mainly, it has been on the
development side. We will workwith groups.
Usually, they're start up groupswho don't necessarily have any
(02:27):
real knowledge of anything to dowith the built environment or
housing at all. Sometimes youhave architects in the mix, and
that helps, but it you as youneed a load of different skills.
And we will talk through howthey might incorporate, how they
might come together as a a legalentity, how they might go about
finding sites, engaginglandowners, thinking about the
(02:50):
kind of overarching businessplan, if you will, of what is
the concept, what's therationale to what they're trying
to achieve, and then help tobring other consultants that
they might need on board. Soit's like a a mentoring process
that we sit alongside a groupof, say, prospective residents
or members of a local communitythat got together that wanna do
(03:13):
housing in one one form oranother and help them through
that process. The other bit isHere
Stephen Drew (03:23):
he is. Here he is back.
Levent Kerimol (03:24):
I don't know.
Stephen Drew (03:26):
Like,
Levent Kerimol (03:26):
you're you lost me.
Stephen Drew (03:27):
You're you're back. I've you're okay. It's a
task, isn't it? I was justsaying, if there's a chance it
will go wrong in life, sometimesit will. But the audio
listeners, you will never get tosee this on the podcast because
I'm gonna edit it out.
It will all be perfect.
Levent Kerimol (03:43):
I've switched Wi Fi, so we'll see. Happen to be
in the office today.
Stephen Drew (03:47):
But It's fine. Red Mike's been the
Levent Kerimol (03:49):
You know, basically, you're getting about
the kind of advice we offer.Yeah. And I suppose the further
thing that a group will need isfunding. Yep. So particularly
for the various differentconsultants that they might
need.
And some of those, thearchitects and the audience will
be aware of, architectsthemselves plus the engineers,
(04:09):
the quantity surveyors, thenyou'll need legal support. You
will need someone to look atyour financial modeling and
engage banks and lenders. All ofthat takes money and is quite
hard to do if you don't have anyresources. So there's a bit of
schedule for fundraising. To todate, we have had some funding,
(04:33):
which is recently which wemanaged that early stage to to
fund feasibility work to to helpgroups at the early stage of
incorporating and approachinglandowners and maybe getting to
maybe what you might call a preapp stage where you've got a
viable scheme that's got legs.
And and there was also fundingavailable from the GLA to, get
(04:56):
planning permission as well. Andthat's more or less used up, so
it's it's a kind of a funnyenvironment at the moment in
terms of what funding andsupport there might be because
that early stage of gettingplanning is something that
lenders won't lend on. You andthen also to think about, is
(05:17):
development the only way ofachieving community led housing?
But yeah.
Stephen Drew (05:22):
Makes complete sense. Thank you, Lev, for
getting there. I feel like theodds are have been against us,
challenging us to get this out,so I really appreciate it. Maybe
what would be cool isvisualizing this, and I touched
upon at the start that I liveddown the road in a place called
Ladywell, and you've beeninvolved in this fantastic
scheme. So maybe if you're happywith it, Lea, I'm gonna bring it
(05:44):
up on the screen here, and youcan just illustrate the audience
a little bit about it so that wecan start to see and visualize
all those components that you'retalking about.
So Yeah. First of all, what isthis RUS project that you've
been involved in?
Levent Kerimol (05:58):
RUS is a is a community land trust, and it
stands for rural urban synthesissociety. It was founded over 10
years ago by people that wereinvolved with some of the Walter
Siegel self build, timber frameself build projects Yep. In
Lewisham, and they were lookingat how can we create a community
(06:22):
led self build affordable andaffordable in perpetuity,
project that's alsoenvironmentally sustainable and
massive ambitions, likeeverything you would want out of
a a a housing scheme. And Ithink the rural urban is is
partly to do with food growing,but also that sense of community
(06:44):
within the city. And I've beeninvolved in various different
points.
It's not my project, but itillustrates the some of the
ambition that community groupshave. As a community land trust,
they have an open membership toanyone. It's not just the group
of residents. So they have overa 1,000 members, and anyone can
(07:04):
become a member for a pound. Itmeans you get to vote for the
board or you get to stand to beon the board.
In a sense, it's got this kindof democratic as an
organizational structure, it'sgot a democratic principle and
foundation of how it's governed.And, a lot of the way they've
worked has been, involvingprospective residents, and, they
(07:33):
came across a site. Theyapproached the council. They
tried to persuade the council tosell it to them. And I think my
involvement in those in theearly days was before the
community led housing teamstarted, but working for a
leadership council briefly in apart time role and working out
how the council could transferthe site to a a community group
(07:58):
who'd never done a development,who'd only just incorporated,
and how was this all gonna work.
And we managed to work throughthat with a mixture of showing
how it could be possible, andthey were able to do that, and
they had a number of supportersamongst them at the time. And
then since then, they've gone onto secure those little bits of
funding, bits of socialinvestment they had to borrow to
(08:21):
fund the planning applicationMhmm. And various, you know,
consultant fees. And since then,they've got bank lending and
other social investment lendingto get contractors on board to
deliver the scheme. And nowwe're they've recently got to
practical completion, and we'reat the point where they are
(08:43):
selling low cost ownership homesto resident members who some of
whom have been with the groupwith the organization for a long
time, but, obviously, thesethings take quite a long time.
So other people have come inpartway through the process, so
there's been a sort of gradualchange whilst maintaining that
vision. And then theorganization I am part of is
(09:06):
called CDS Cooperatives, andthey're a housing association,
so a registered provider ofsocial housing. And there's a
role there because they have 8rented, flats as well, and they
need a housing associationpartner for to be the landlords
of the rented homes. So we'renow involved in that, and also
(09:27):
the housing association willprovision of the block as well.
So it's been interesting to seeit the beginning and at the
towards the end of thedevelopment process, but it will
obviously evolve.
So Yeah.
Stephen Drew (09:38):
It will look I'm sure it'll be great, and I'm
down the road, so I candefinitely pop in. Now community
Levent Kerimol (09:44):
I need volunteers for gardening and all
sorts of things. It's it's allbeen a volunteer led, thing from
the beginning, really. So yeah.
Stephen Drew (09:52):
It would be good. I probably should do it. I'll
I'll admit. I'm not the bestgardener. Everything I tend to
do touch that that I touch tendsto go wrong.
I don't know why maybe yourcomputer is being touched by my
IT skills as well. Nice. Whoknows? But it's very
fascinating. One fingercommunity is a lot of people
involved.
I was wondering quick questionbecause a question on that point
(10:14):
then, Lev. When you got so manypeople involved, of course, it's
important. Of course, it'sspecial. When you got more
people involved, you got morepeople involved, which can mean
does that mean sometimes it canget complicated? Or in your
experience, how do you managethis process with lots of people
and make sure things go ontrack, things don't get stalled?
Or, I'd love to know yourexperience on that front, how to
(10:35):
coordinate a community effort toget the project going.
Levent Kerimol (10:39):
Yeah. I mean, some groups are very small. Some
only work for themselves as acommunity. So it might be a
group of 5 households trying todo, like, a collective self
build or a small co housingscheme, which is only for
themselves. Yeah.
With the sort of 1,000 members,it doesn't mean all 1,000 of
them are involved in everysingle detail. It, yeah, it has
(11:02):
to be set up in the right way,and the legal structure means
that there there are annualgeneral meetings where all
members can vote for a board,and the board is maybe made up
of 12 maximum 12 people usually.Sometimes it can be a bit
smaller than that. So decisionsare made usually as a smaller
(11:22):
group, but then you can havesubgroups and committees and
working groups on particulartasks, or you might have some
people and as I said, it's it'sall it's mostly voluntary, so
it's as much as people have timeand skills to input that they
might get involved in aparticular aspect and for a
(11:42):
period of time and then swapover. And even that board of 12,
there's usually a maximum timelimit you can serve on the
board, so it will get reelectedand refreshed.
So there's usually, in a healthyorganization, a churn of, people
who are volunteering and passingthe baton on between each other,
(12:05):
but all united behind a commonvision that hopefully stays
together throughout the life ofthe project. And it does mean
how do you deal you know, maybesome of your question is you can
have disagreements as well. Yep.It's how do you resolve those,
particularly when it's anorganization with a lot of
members and not all of them aregonna be residents. It's drawn
(12:27):
from the wider community, and Ithink a lot of the members
support it because they thinkit's a good project and it's a
different thing to to getbehind.
And sometimes just being amember is just showing your
support for it. And some peoplehave a bit more time to
contribute, and they might get alittle bit more involved, and
it's not necessarily aspersonal. In the Rust project,
(12:48):
they had some self finish flats,so they allocated the homes to
people fairly early on in theprocess.
Stephen Drew (12:55):
And
Levent Kerimol (12:55):
they also ran co designee sessions early on as
well. So maybe there was a bitmore of a sense of, okay. This
is gonna be my flat, but eventhat wasn't totally fixed
because the development processis so long. People have fallen
out of the list, and otherpeople have come in, so you
still get a little bit of thatchange. I think where it's a
smaller group and you all intendto be residents of the scheme,
(13:21):
then you can get conflict.
And, actually, we've got an anadviser now who specializes in
kind of some of that that thecommunication styles, and
there's something callednonviolent communication and
just a lot of kind of coachingfacilitation work and how you
talk to people and how you thinkabout your meetings and how you
(13:42):
get is it the decision makingcan sometimes be an issue. So is
it, consensus that everyone hasto agree on something? Is it a
democratic vote, which mightmean some people just don't like
what's happening? So there'sthere's a lot of stuff to think
about around, like, how we agreeto make decisions. Usually, I
(14:03):
think at an early stage, if it'sa small group of people, there's
enough to keep them together,and you usually get quite a
small core group really drivingthese projects.
And the and most often, they arequite sort of inspirational
people who, have a lot of energyto to make these things happen.
(14:25):
But you need all sorts ofdifferent kinds of skills and
personalities. So I think a agood group will have a range of
different skills and in beingorganized and as well as having
the energy and the ambition andthe vision to convince other
people, convince partners,convince land owners. Yeah.
Stephen Drew (14:43):
It's very interesting. And maybe to expand
upon that, because you mentionedthere a good group or a good
community behind a certainproject. Now can we what I'd
love to know is you've seen thatfew while there's been a range
of success, in your opinion,what makes a really good group
or drive a project forward? Doyou have any insights on that
(15:03):
front on what works really welland maybe things that you've
learned that doesn't work aswell, if that makes sense.
Levent Kerimol (15:12):
Yeah. There's not a 100% recipe. I do think
having tends to be having asmaller core group can be more
effective in making decisionsmore quickly. I think you
sometimes have to be fairlyagile. And Yep.
It's not necessarily aboutprofessional skills or
backgrounds. Although sometimesas an as an organization gets a
(15:36):
little bit more formalized, youcan try and recruit, mem you
know, members even even whereyou have a group of, people who
want to be the prospectiveresidents. You can co opt,
committee members, in in a in ahousing coop, for example, that
maybe have a finance backgroundor a legal background. Sometimes
(15:58):
that helps. I think the kind ofmentoring that that we provide
through advisers fills in someof the gaps.
So if you don't have a abrilliant kind of finance
person, we can say what's asensible decision or not or
what's likely to work or notwork if you don't have those
skills. And then the other bitof it, I think, is just
(16:20):
enthusiasm and passion, whichwhich is the easier said than
reality. It because we we oftenfind groups are enthusiastic to
begin with, and some of theseprojects take a long time. And
you sometimes have to thinkabout how long will that
enthusiasm last and how what'sthe kind of staying power and
(16:40):
maybe having, you might call itsuccession planning, but what
happens if key individuals areno longer around? Are you doing
enough to bring in the next sortof wave of people?
Really interesting example I canthink of is a community land
trust in Water Forest calledForest CLT. We've had really
good people, real energy, andtried lots of things, lots of
(17:05):
different approaches, looked atlots of different sites, tried
to engage the council, and forone reason or another, none of
those has really worked. And Ithink most groups probably have
given up, but somehow they'vemanaged to keep it fresh and get
new members and get new peopleinto the boards just to keep it
going and say, we're not here.We're not gonna disappear just
(17:25):
because you're saying no rightnow. And then you have some
other groups where, you know, soyou could say they're not
successful because they haven'tmanaged to secure secure a site
yet.
But equally, on the other hand,they're a very successful
organization, and they maybe doother things alongside the
housing SKUs. So they may doother events and other, social
(17:46):
gatherings and and all sorts ofother things. So there's more to
it than just housing or justdevelopment as well. On the
other hand, there's groups wherethey are doing quite well on the
development, but maybe they'renot as strong on the governance
side, Like, how are youorganized as a group, as an
organization? And there might bework to do on that, that maybe
(18:07):
gets either ignored or isn'tprioritized because the
project's moving.
So you need a bit of both, andthere isn't a one formula, and
it's not it's necessarily thatif you've got a good organized
group that you're successful.But equally, sometimes
successful groups aren'tbrilliantly well organized
either.
Stephen Drew (18:24):
Very interesting. I can feel the passion here. But
just before we talk about thatand how you keep going, your
background is very interestingbecause that's how we
accidentally met at the start.Can you tell me a little bit
about your background? Becausehow did you get here to where
you because this is the role youdo now.
You have these groups. But let'speel it back a second. How did
you get here there? How did youget involved with these kind of
(18:45):
projects?
Levent Kerimol (18:46):
Okay. So I I guess I started I I studied
architecture, which is probablywhy I'm here somewhat. I worked
for a couple of years in yearsout. They were fine. They were
small office in Clerkenwell.
I did a year in Holland, spent abit of time at OMA as well. And
those experiences wereinteresting, but I I think I
knew from my year out that Iwasn't as interested in the sort
(19:10):
of detailing stuff. Yeah. I wasbit more interested in the wider
things. And with my diploma, Iwas able to really just explore
that.
And I think that's a lot ofpeople talk about architecture
being a long course, and I thinkyou don't really find yourself
until you get to to diploma. Andand or maybe some people take
(19:31):
even longer than that to findwhat their thing was. But I
read, I think, some things oneof the writers was someone
called Colin Ward, who's morelike a an anarchist writer. He's
known as being an anarchistwriter, but he actually also did
some time as an architecturalapprentice. So he had an
interest in this stuff.
He wrote about self builds and,the idea that, residents should
(19:54):
control, their own housing wassomething that was always an
interest of that at that point.In my diploma work, I looked at
self build, but then that opensup loads of questions around
what is the politics and thefinancial stuff around
architecture. And when you'reworking in an office, you're
usually working for a client andyou're somewhat removed. I
(20:16):
suppose the only time you reallyget close to it will be if
you're doing a private house,but then you only end up working
for, like, fairly wealthyclients wanting to do a private
house or an extension orsomething. It was trying to
think about that, and thatinterest in the stuff around the
usual architecture led me alittle bit into the public
(20:37):
sector.
Yep. So I was part of a teamcalled Design for London that
some people might remember. Itwas originally the architecture
and urbanism unit under KenLivingstone and when Richard
Rogers was the his adviser for,I don't know, architecture and
design or whatever, which thenhas stayed in London government
(20:58):
for some time. And that wasinteresting because it meant I
could see more of how initially,we were just giving design
advice to, say, planning teams,but then we were also
commissioning projects andhelping with the selection of
architects. And we worked inquite an area based way.
So we might work on a masterplan at the same time as, being
(21:21):
involved in spending some moneyon some public realm projects.
We might be involved in aplanning application from a
private developer or a housingassociation, and they would all
be different architecturalteams, and it felt a little bit
like you were curating a placeand trying to make sure that
they all met up and tiedtogether. And often, they they
(21:45):
were places all across London. Ispent quite a lot of time in
East London when it was kind ofThames Gateway World, had a lot
of focus around regeneration andplanning, did a lot of work in
Barking Town Centre and Raynham,and then worked all over London
as well. The emphasis shiftedmaybe to start looking at high
streets as a thing and thinkingabout the retail spaces.
(22:09):
We thought and then I alsostarted to work on the what you
might call workspace, andaffordable workspace projects
was another thing. So thinkingabout the non housing bits of
regeneration, like thesocioeconomic side of
regeneration. And at the sametime, it was also another role
was looking with planning policycolleagues on the housing design
(22:34):
standards as they were, the theas space standards. And I was
involved in some of that,particularly when government was
trying to rationalize them. Theythey had a cutting red tape
initiative, and somehow,bizarrely, that the the London
standards became adopted as anoptional national thing.
And that was a reallyinteresting thing to be part of
(22:54):
as well-being involved with kindof government and and so on. But
I think I had always had thisinterest in how if we could
rather than trying to advise toget better design, what would
happen if prospective residentsare involved in that process? So
rather than saying, okay. It's atop down thing that we try to
(23:17):
get good design, it feels likewhat's really important is that
the future residents are barelyever in that conversation. Even
when a lot of well meaningpractices, do consultation,
you're usually asking existingneighboring residents, not
future residents.
The only time future residentsare included in that, process
(23:40):
will probably be as estate agentstatistics or waiting list
numbers, but it doesn't give youa sense of who's gonna live
there or what they might want.And in some ways, their views
are arguably more important thanthe surrounding neighbors. And
and you felt, okay. If they hadmore power in that process, we
(24:01):
might get better outcomes. So Ithink that's been there a long
for a long time, and I Icontinue to explore that on the
side a little bit and even did abit of part time sabbatical
where I ended up working forLewisham Council and did a
little bit of work for, housingassociation that's now been
(24:23):
taken over by Peabody out inThamesmeade looking at self
build opportunities and learningmore about housing cooperatives
and community net housing.
I think that oh, and the otherthing I should mention is I also
decided what I really needed wasto understand more about the
real estate side of it and thefinancing side of it. I ended up
(24:44):
doing a a part time masters inin real estate at Henley
Business School, ReadingUniversities. Frog started off
in architecture, leapfrogplanning a little bit, and did a
bit of stuff in real estate,which I'm still not a massive
expert in. It has to be said,but, enough of a working
knowledge to cover a lot ofthose size of the built
(25:07):
environment world. It has to besaid.
I'm not an expert in how youbuild a building because I've
never done a part 3. It it's onething or another. But, yeah,
definitely interested in earlyprocess of how things come about
and, you know, who's behind themand yeah.
Stephen Drew (25:25):
Yeah. Don't worry. I'm I'm the same. I'm forever in
the architectural assistant part2 camp
Levent Kerimol (25:31):
because I've
Stephen Drew (25:32):
I've never got my part free, but that's okay. We
we do weird and wonderful thingsin the wider industry. Earlier,
you mentioned that in thesecommunity led groups, sometimes
there's architects involved. Butwhat's quite interesting is
potentially in this audience, alot of architects listening. And
where do you think, Leva, thatthey could get involved and
(25:53):
really show value in terms ofgetting these community projects
moving along?
Levent Kerimol (25:59):
Most of them still need architects. Often,
you do get architects if it'sit's a tricky one because yours
I know there's a lot of debateabout how much work architects
should do for free, but it doeshelp to have a sent if if it's a
community group that doesn'thave any of that kind of skill
and can't assess whether a siteis a goer or a good site or what
(26:20):
you can fit on a site Yep. Atearly stage, no developer is
spending money. No housingassociation is spending huge
amounts of money to do designwork, and you have to have a
sense of what's possible with asite. And I think sometimes if
you can if you have theexperience of that's a very
valuable thing to be able tocommunity group, whether, it
(26:43):
leads to future work or whichrole you take in it, can can
vary, I think.
Sometimes I think a lot ofartists do have the idea that
they they might build their ownscheme with a with a group of
their friends, which is great.They they might be the
prospective residents.Architects can also be members
of the community that that youthat they live in or that
(27:05):
they're part of. Might, youknow, take a useful place on
boards as I was mentioning, orequally they might be as kind of
consultants or advisers togroups. But I think sometimes it
helped to be clear that you areonly giving architectural advice
and just make those lines ofengagement clear, like, what it
(27:26):
is you are giving advice on.
Sometimes because of the usuallythe widespread nature of what
architects know about, they knowa bit about the wider
development process. They know abit about some of the legals,
but not all of it. You need tobe able to say, yes. Okay. But
this isn't I think it's this,but it's not my area of
specialism.
(27:47):
And being clear with the groupthat you might need specialist
advice here and there, and if itis a group trying to say, I know
a bit, but I don't knoweverything. But, yeah, having
that as a as within groups isnot a it's not an essential
thing, but it can be a usefulthing. It does mean you're
probably volunteering, and Idon't know. It might depends how
(28:07):
people feel about that.
Stephen Drew (28:09):
Yeah. I will. And it depends. Sometimes it's quite
nice to do something pro bono orin between or have a passion
project, and this could besomething that you could lend
you could lean into, especiallymaybe if there's a project near
you or something like that. Itit makes complete sense.
Now what I'd love to talk aboutas well is it seems that there's
been a lot of tech technologicalchange in the news. We talk
(28:32):
about AI. We talk about all thiskind of stuff. What I'd love to
know, Lev, do you think that allthese new emerging tools could
help these community projects,could be a positive thing, or do
you think it's not gonna reallyinterfere with it or not gonna
get involved? Because you got itsounds like it's a very people
process.
So maybe there's an opportunitythere, but equally, maybe it
(28:54):
does make a difference. Do youhave any kind of thought early
thoughts on that potentially?
Levent Kerimol (28:58):
I don't know. I've played around with some of
the AI things, not in a hugeamount of detail. I think
there's they I suppose mygeneral sense is they'll they'll
be tools and they're just likewe've got current technology
tools, they're tools, and thepeople behind them will continue
to use them. They make thingsthey might make things easier to
(29:19):
do just as a tool does. We savesome of the labor saving ness of
things.
Yeah. Weirdly, I was reflectingon some of the projects from the
past and thinking they didn'teven have emails. Things were
drawn on drawing boards, and youyou you look at some of the
planning applications and someof the correspondence that they
have on, like, typewriters andanything, actually, it was a lot
(29:42):
simpler back then. Yeah. And itprobably because people didn't
have track changes on Worddocuments that they could spend
infinitely redoing or even CADdrawings that you can keep
editing and fiddling with.
So that's I think one of thethings that's happened with
technology is it possibly a goodthing. It just means we're
looking at things in a lot moredetail. And I suppose you could
even say that of planningapplications, the amount of
(30:05):
effort that it takes, the thethe layers of stuff that people
look for, I think, wouldn't havebeen possible if we didn't have
the technology that we do now.Mhmm. That that just creates, in
a way, creates more work.
I don't think that's all to dowith the technology. It's just
because the because it'savailable, we can make use of
it. But then in a way, everyonecan make use of it. And I think
(30:26):
that it's probably not I don'tknow, I I I'm really just making
stuff up here, but thetechnological change isn't gonna
be the thing that maybe makesmore community housing happen or
not. I think it is the reasonsto do it will be one more of
social justice, if you will, orthat sense of is it important
(30:48):
for where power sits in societyor in our built environment or
how decisions are made aroundhousing and and how that power
is distributed, is more thequestion.
And I think there's there's beenwaves around that and, maybe it
comes and goes, maybe it takesdifferent forms, but it's an
ongoing question. I know it'sit's an important topic around
(31:11):
what is if we can achieve betteroutcomes by working with with
people. So particularly if youare an organization that has a
lot of power, how can you sharethat? How can you divulge that?
So some of the work we're doingwith councils is to say, yeah.
Okay. You can deliver lots ofstuff, and it'll be interesting
to see what happens with futuregovernments. And the drive
(31:34):
towards council housing can bein in many ways, it's a it's
it's it's a good thing, but alsolet's not forget you have
massive corporate institutionsthat the individual residents
can get lost in. Same sort ofthing with the increasingly
large housing associations thatwe're seeing. You're emerging
and merging into ever largerorganizations.
(31:56):
Arguably gets some efficiencieseconomically, but equally
creates more and more layers ofgovernance and bureaucracy and
maybe makes the actual end usersmore distant from the process.
So there's, I think, a balanceto be found around those kind of
issues. Like, what does it meanto share power? What is the real
(32:18):
role of how an individual livesin their home? What control they
have over their home?
And even with, I think,community health is maybe
answering some of thosequestions in the the scope
around the private rentedsector, for example, where you
might not even have a largeentity, but it's the distantness
(32:39):
of who the landlord is and thelack of control around what it
means to live in your home andand to get a repair done or to
change the color of the walls orwhatever that that might make
you have a sense of belonging inyour own home that you're
removed from. And I think thatis as important a question as
(33:00):
the unaffordability of, privaterents as well. So if you're just
addressing an an affordabilityquestion, I think you're missing
out a lot more about what itmeans to live in in in a home or
what makes a home and what makesa community and a a group of
neighbors around.
Stephen Drew (33:17):
Mhmm. It well, I think it's an interesting time.
Sometimes I do agree with you,especially with all these emails
in you get meetings. Sometimes Ithink meetings upon meetings is
the death of innovation, isn'tit? You don't get anything done.
You end up just going intomeetings. Now I have one more
question before we do thatthough. Difree Star, who is an
(33:41):
architecture student in thePhilippines, asked, how do you
manage the residents andcommunity members to actively
participate in the decisionmaking process and contribute to
the design and development ofthe housing to meet their longer
term needs. He laugh at the end.How do you get how do you keep
people involved, Lev, notdrifting off and all this stuff?
Do you have any tips fordefinitely deeply on the on this
(34:04):
point? I know you covered it andwhat success
Levent Kerimol (34:07):
I've I've mentioned some of that. I
suppose the thing I might addis, you know, you having the
ability to step back a littlebit, and if you're losing
momentum and you don't have thetime and and so on, allowing
others to come in, is part ofit. Sometimes things need a bit
of a reboot. Sometimes it's alsosaying, okay. You might be tired
of this project.
We still think it's got leg as aas a kind of professional. It's
(34:29):
taken a long time. Yeah. But weit's got legs. And if you as
individuals want to pull out ofit, maybe there are others out
there who might want to step inand take over what you've done.
And it's not in a way, I wouldsay, it's not wasted time even.
Like, I think you have to maybesee it. As I said, these are
voluntary things that people doa lot of stuff as hobbies
(34:51):
outside. You might join a bookclub or something else, and
sometimes it's an opportunityjust to learn more about the
built environment or thedevelopment process if you're
not in it already. And if youjust see as, okay, the the
journey is interesting, and Imight not have achieved
something, but I've learnedsomething for a period of time,
and I'm now I'm gonna dosomething else, and I'll let
(35:13):
someone else in.
So that's one thing. The otherthing that I think it there's
something in there about thelong term needs. So that's that
can be quite interesting whereyou have like, many of the
housing cooperatives that wereset up in the 19 8 seventies
eighties Mhmm. Been going for along time and probably paid off
most of their sort of mortgagedebts, development loans,
(35:35):
etcetera. And they're now in theposition of going, okay.
We we now have rental income,and we're not having to pay off
the loans. What do we do withthat income? And many of them,
they sit in reserves and theyaccumulate. So they're nonprofit
organizations, so they can'tpocket them as individuals. And
(35:56):
there's a question there of whatthey then do with any surplus or
might have accumulated.
Stephen Drew (36:01):
Mhmm.
Levent Kerimol (36:01):
And do they put it into other similar projects?
Do they try to do another newdevelopment themselves? And
often, the residents who mighthave been very actively involved
when they were younger insetting this thing up in the
eighties, and now in theirsixties, they're now retired,
older, and they don't have thesame energy, and it maybe feels
a bit more of a risk to do a newdevelopment project,
(36:24):
particularly if it involvesputting their existing homes on
the line again. And I think thatwe need to think of better
mechanisms for helping thosegroups feel comfortable about
putting aside some of the moneyinto some other institutions
that maybe help develop newcommunity led homes and what
(36:47):
they might get out of that as anorganization. Because sometimes
I think it's a bit of amismatch.
I think sometimes they've beenput into the position of being
like mini housing associations,and really, that's not really
their main point in many cases.A lot of the people just wanna
live in their home as they getthey they make decision. The day
to day stuff matters. So gettingcontrol over repairs, deciding
(37:10):
what to prioritize in terms of arepair or a bit of a maintenance
or a bit of a change, butthey're not in the job of trying
to do another new development.Some people have the bug.
They get bitten, and they getthe enthusiasm, and then they go
on from project to project, andthey become a bit more of a
specialist in that. So it's Ithink it's a mixture of
organizational mechanisms tokeep energy and momentum going,
(37:34):
but also I think there might besome financial mechanisms
whereby established projectshelp to support new projects.
Because if we see each of themas one of tiny little projects,
then they don't really add up tomore than than some of their
parts, I think.
Stephen Drew (37:51):
Very useful in insights there. The last thing I
was gonna say, Lev, is becausesome architects have felt beaten
up over the last post pandemic.It's been a bit tricky in terms
of some projects. There hasn'tbeen as much work, particularly
in the residential sector, asone would have liked. It there's
(38:11):
some people think that there aresigns of it getting better.
I've spoke to some developerswho are waiting for the interest
rate, Wayne, because it's been abit of a turbulent time here. I
was just wondering your thoughtsand your outlook on on the next
few months to the next year or2. Are you feeling positive? Are
you cautious? What's yourthoughts?
Because you your feet are on theground here. You're seeing
(38:32):
things as they move.
Levent Kerimol (38:33):
We've seen that same thing that initially, the
construction costs, lots ofreasons, pandemic, maybe Brexit,
construction market doing reallyfunny things, massive price
rises, and then that feedinginto the wiser economy. Interest
rates, as you say, makes it verydifficult to develop anything.
And it's not just it's hardenough trying to do something as
(38:55):
a start up community led group,but professional developers,
private developers arestruggling, housing associations
are struggling. Yes. I see that.
I think we are trying to come upwith a model that maybe doesn't
put all the pressure oncommunity led groups to do
everything. It's it you couldsay it's some of the sharing of
(39:16):
power. I think also some of itis, do we always need to think
about development, or are thereways of taking on existing
housing and adapting that youknow, thinking about the
ownership of them, which is afundamental part of who's the
landlord. Yep. And that is stillaffected by interest rates, but
I'm not an economic expert, butthe government says that should,
(39:37):
at some point, ease.
And if we can do that, then Ithink mixing things into models
where maybe others might do thedevelopment side of it, take the
development risk, and maybe theyare more able to do that. And we
bring on board community groups,either existing community groups
(39:57):
that want to buy into a scheme,or we, one of the things we're
looking at is whether we cankind of form communities around
existing developments that mayalready be happening. So, if a
developer's got a scheme, isthere a way we can think about
how residents are brought onboard earlier in the process?
And maybe they don't commit tobe to like, as through presales,
(40:21):
but it always gets me how manylarge developments have these
kind of showroom marketingsuites, and they have their sold
under offer on the plans or themodels. And you just think,
okay.
Maybe we should just have anevent where all those people
could get together, have apicnic, a barbecue, or
something, and get to meet eachother before they move in. And
and maybe they can also be askedto decide things about the
(40:44):
schemes relatively non notmassively financially costly
things. Like, it might be howthe planting works or decisions
of maybe the ground floor, evenwhat the scheme is called could
be up to the residents. And thatwould help form a community, or
sense like, getting a bit moreof a neighborliness to what you
(41:05):
might otherwise move into as ananonymous kind of person on day
1. And you maybe hope thatsomething happens, but probably
doesn't, and everyone retreatsbehind their front doors of
their flats.
And then the management is doneby someone else anonymously who
you've never met and probablycharges you very large service
charge when what, you know, whatare the opportunities that the
(41:27):
community might do forthemselves as as residents? So I
think we're exploring those kindof communities, whether there's
whether there's building groupsaround developments, whether
it's buying existingdevelopments. And I think that's
from a community led housingperspective, but I I don't know
if it addresses the kind of, arewe building enough stuff? I
(41:48):
think there's maybe a questionof, should we be building lots
of stuff from scratch, or therethere's a whole massive debate
around retrofit at the moment,and I
Stephen Drew (41:58):
I
Levent Kerimol (41:58):
think it possibly plays into that as
well. And my sense is this mightbe a bit of a controversial
view, but a lot of people havesaid this in in terms of
housing. There is a decentamount of housing stock already
out there, and sometimes why itfeels like we need to be
building more is because we'renot building the right stuff or
we're not addressing some of theunder occupation, arguably.
(42:21):
There's a I think there's amassive potential in people who
could be freeing up properties.It it that's how to grasp.
And possibly the reasons whythey're not moving out is that
they feel very attached to wherethey have lived for the whole of
their lives, so they no longerneed the the number of bedrooms
that they have. And theyprobably move into something,
(42:42):
but they feel a bit scaredbecause they don't know who
they're gonna be moving in with,who are their neighbors, who are
their network of support. But ifwe can build some sort of sort
of co housing communities where,people have a sense of mutual
support and neighborliness,before they move in, that can
make you feel a little bit moreattractive and feel like, okay.
(43:02):
I'm not gonna be a stranger inthis new thing, and and maybe
that is an appropriate place tomove into. And I think we could
be, there's there's value inthose things for other reasons,
not just in building new unitsfor the sake of units.
Stephen Drew (43:17):
Got him. Wow. We were opening up Pandora's box
there at the end, Lev, becausethe audience has been peeking
up. We've got Deathly Starswrote back with some emojis. I
don't quite understand it, but,well, thank you very much.
While we were talking there, RedMike said, hell yes. Coming up
with a name could be a deepconnection for the community.
(43:39):
It's like hanging out andpicking a band's name. And also
passionately said, while youwere talking, do more with less.
So thank you, Red Mike.
And Red Mike, we put him as the3rd guest here because while we
were having a little bit oftechnical problems at the start,
Red Mike was keeping me company.Thank you so much, Red Mike.
Yogesh Taylor jumps in and goes,hi, Steven Lev. The interest a
(44:03):
high interest rate, invertedcommas for our audio listeners,
debate interest mean interestrates are now at a normal rate.
The lowest interest rates we had10 years ago, so it's an
anomaly, and that was 1 hour 2.
And then he says, so are wesaying that we can't build when
the interest rate are abnormaland only when they're
(44:25):
historically low? If so, whatdoes that say about the
industry? Oh, do you do you haveany thoughts on that quickly,
Lev, before we go?
Levent Kerimol (44:32):
Yeah. Yeah. You might be right. I think banks
it's not so much what the baserate is. I think banks have been
very reluctant, and it's theuncertainty.
And I think it's also theconstruction cost hasn't like,
there's just a lot of I see itlike a sort of number of ways
that that sort of just haven'tquite aligned and synchronized,
maybe. Mhmm. I think some of thechallenges are because
(44:55):
construction is relatively soexpensive. It's just not viable,
you know, if you're spendingthat much to build something and
what you can sell it for, andwhat people can afford to buy, I
think it it's that misalignmentthat we're going through at the
moment. So hopefully, it'll allslightly align a bit more.
Stephen Drew (45:13):
Hopefully. Fingers crossed. That would be nice,
wouldn't it? I think we've hadquite a little bit of a a weird
and wild ride here. And if Ihaven't scarred you to death on
on doing live streams, Lev, Ithink this has been a good one.
But in before you go, do youhave any questions for me at
all?
Levent Kerimol (45:32):
I I don't know really. I I'd be interested to
you were mentioning about notreally being an architect and
doing interesting things aroundthe side and Yeah. Around the
edges of architecture. And I Idon't know if you've got any
reflections on that and what's
Stephen Drew (45:44):
doing technical details drawing. So that was me
in a nutshell. I had my linemanager who's a project
architect, and he was like,Steve, you need to really care
when you're doing these details.Otherwise, it won't stack up.
And I was like, Barry, you hitthe nail on the head.
I don't care. And that's why Ihad to find something else.
However, I think the architectand this and I'm glad that
you've gone on and been involvedin this stuff because I think
(46:07):
just because you're notpassionate about maybe the
technical drawings of certainaspects doesn't mean you're not
an intelligent person. I findthat it's a shame sometimes when
architecture students, inparticular, they get a bit
disillusioned that they, quote,unquote, fail because there's
many different ways that you canadd value in the industry. And I
do think that listen.
(46:27):
If you wanna get your part 1,part 2, and 3, fantastic power
to you. I'm sure you can add alot of value to society, but
it's not the only way. And Ithink sometimes in the course,
the I don't know how you feltthat, but at the time, by not
doing my part 3 at first, thatfelt like a massive taboo. And,
initially, I had that kind ofimposter syndrome, like failure.
(46:49):
I'm not good enough to be anarchitect.
You're in this kind of world.Whereas I do genuinely believe
that a lot of people who studyarchitecture offer a lot of
value. That there's there isn'tone of the members of Pink
Floyd, I've studiedarchitecture. That's the one
that keeps popping up, but I Ilike to keep that one in my back
pocket. But what I would say ishow I go about my business
(47:11):
sometimes the the so thearchitecture social as a
business, I think I lean intothe ways you learn architecture,
that deep analytical thinking,and and there's lots of value
there.
Downside is, as architects, Ithink that we sometimes can do
those long hours and crazystuff, and I have done that.
Ironically, when I was in theindustry, I used to try and work
(47:32):
9 to 5. Now have my business, Ido the long hours like I did at
uni. So I don't know if that'sgood because it's Yeah.
Levent Kerimol (47:38):
Yeah. Yeah. That that's why I just think it's
that's really interesting. I dida year out in Holland, and I
think it's different in someother countries where they make
a distinction. It's differentskill set.
They say that they and they havearchitectural technicians that
study that as a separate course,and it is valued. Actually, some
of the kind of highest paidpeople in the office were the
architectural techniciansbecause they really knew how to
(48:00):
build stuff, and then they spenttime working for the contractor
as well, so they reallyunderstand that side. And then
there's the sort we might callmore the design architects. And
I think one of the things thathappens in the UK is when you're
studying, the earlier part 1,part 2 is give you the
impression that you can do allthis wonderful stuff, and then
Yeah. You realize that's certainpart of it, and then there's
another part of it as well,which doesn't doesn't quite
(48:22):
prepare you for that.
So, yeah, it's but, yeah, alsoagree with you that I I find one
of the things I think working inthe public sector, working with,
like, lots of other people indis different disciplines, I've
realized, you know, architectsaren't the be all and ends all
and every of everything. Lots ofother people that bring lots of
different kinds of values, yetat the same time, I'm drawn back
(48:43):
to something that is a referencepoint for me. And you look at
it, And it is a way of thinking,so it's an approach. And I think
it, you know, you can use it youcan use your architectural
thinking in lots of differentways. Yeah.
So it's
Stephen Drew (48:59):
definitely worth it. It's one of those things
that I always think, could I bean architect now? Would I do it
again? Absolutely not. But do Ivalue my part 1 and part 2,
like, immensely?
And, actually, I do still lovethe architecture community. And
I have really good deep friendswho are architects, and I still
go to the hang out with them.And they might argue about the
(49:21):
cladding and the facade, and Idon't have a clue why they're
arguing, but they are goodpeople. So it's a nice club to
be a part of, but some of usblack sheep go on and do
different things. I went moreinto sales.
You actually got involved incommunities, though, so that's I
do implore you for that. Lastthing, Lev, because we talked
about a lot. You really unpackedit really well. But if people
(49:44):
wanna see what projects you'reup to or start employing, how do
they find out all thatinformation again? I'll bring
the link back up, but could yourun through Yeah.
A little bit?
Levent Kerimol (49:53):
Yeah. We've got a website which lists loads of
projects in London. There'sprobably we get, new inquiries
from groups. Just get in touch.We're not it's not so big that
people don't know each other.
There's lots of kind of subworlds in London, and then there
are national bodies as well.There's various resources on
another national website. It canseem a little bit confusing
(50:16):
because there's so manydifferent terms which begin with
some sort of community or codeat the beginning of them. I'm
happy to talk through them andto do the kind of nerdy
technical explanations. So yes.
Stephen Drew (50:29):
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Lev. You've been an
absolute star. I'm gonna endthis livestream in a second, but
stay on the stage. Don't clickthe button just yet.
Stay on there for one more. Butthank you to the in the
audience, and it's I feel likeit's been a good episode, but I
appreciate. I could see a lot ofyou have been talking in the
background, and that's what it'sabout. And thank you for adding
(50:49):
comments and also perseveringwith me at the start. You know
what?
These technical things happen.What can you do? It's like, but
it's good proof that what you'regetting here is real and honest
conversations. Sometimes thingsgo a bit squiffy on. Anyways,
thank you so much.
More content soon. Thank you somuch for that for you being
(51:10):
here. These community projects,I think, is what's important.
Without it, I think we'restarting to one of the things is
we could be losing touch. Soit's really cool to learn about
that, but also nice to know thatwhether you wanna put your
architect hat on or not or justbeing part of a community, you
can get involved in theseprojects.
I will think about the rodentlady. I don't think they should
put me in the gardening part.Maybe they should put me
(51:32):
somewhere else. Picking up therubbish or something, that
sounds like a job for me. Thankyou so much to everyone in the
audience.
I'm gonna end the livestreamnow. And to you, Lev, I really
appreciate it. And thank you,Red Mike, as well for giving me
a good giggle. Take care,everyone. Bye bye.
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