We’re pioneering a co-operative Mutual Home Ownership model that will create 19 sustainably built and permanently affordable homes for the York community.
Interested in joining the co-operative? Or learning about the project?
Find out moreYorSpace has been working with City of York Council since 2016 to bring this groundbreaking development to fruition. Working with the Lowfield Green resident group and key stakeholders we've been able to bring in the financial and professional resource needed to deliver against our three organisational aims to be: Affordable, Sustainable and Community-led.
This culminated in our first ever community share raise that closed in 2020 and which involved more than 180 social investors who together raised over £422,000 to take the project forward.
Lowfield Green Housing Co-op aims to create a resilient, low carbon, Co-housing community. There are a series of sustainable and communal features designed to combat the problems of traditional housing.
Our houses are built along One Planet Living principles, meaning that while they’ll meet the needs of the people who live there, they also use resources in a way that our planet can sustain.
And unlike most houses, the homes we’re creating won’t ever be sold on the open market for quick profit. Residents will be shareholding members of the cooperative that owns the houses, paying a deposit and monthly contributions to give them security and equity.
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If you're interested in finding out more about a YorSpace development, then why not become a YorSpace member, it costs £2 and allows you to join our residents' register. YorSpace will notify you when allocations are open for a new home with one of our partner Co-operatives.
Alternatively if you're specifically interested in joining Lowfield Green Housing Co-op then you can reach out and sign up to their mailing list via their website here.
Mutual Home Ownership (MHO) is a new form of home ownership with affordability at its heart.
People living in MHO properties pay a deposit and make monthly payments under the terms of a long lease. In making payments, they accrue collective ownership of a cooperative society.
Ownership is long-term and secure. If a resident wishes to leave, their lease and occupancy rights are transferred to a new incoming member, and their accrued equity in the society is returned to them.
By dealing in equity shares rather than ownership, the property is held outside of the market, and the affordability created is recycled from one generation of occupants to the next.
The model creates a new way of owning equity in the value of residential property. Although relatively new, the model is tried and tested.