Glasgow development offers affordable renting 'solution'

The first apartments have been completed and are being rented out below market rates and with sustainability in mind.

Lord Haughey told The Herald: "I decided that if I was going to get involved in affordable homes I better go and learn a bit about it.

“I did a wee bit of research and saw people who were claiming to do things a bit differently. I went to Toronto, I went to Vienna, I went to Boston – all over.

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“When I came back it was obvious that none of them was doing anything radical, things in Canada were more expensive than anything we do.

“So I came back and I decided that I would talk to developers, I spoke to two large developers and three contractors, loads of sub-contractors, and most importantly about 67 people who were involved in renting houses.

“I asked them what they thought was good and bad about the rental market - most of it was bad.

“I tried to build a picture of what was wrong, and just at the same time Benny Higgins was working with the Scottish Government on putting a paper together about the next 10 years of growth.

“I got a form that said, ‘what is wrong with affordable housing?’. I had 48 pages of data but I just wrote ‘everything’ and sent it back to them, I didn’t send them any of the data."

Lord Haughey says the apartments in the Gorbals will never be for sale, as he and his company Craighead Properties aim to prove that renting is a long-term solution.

Rents are set at £695, with an optional extra £100 for furniture. Furnishings will be replaced every seven years, with a new kitchen every 10.

Lord Willie Haughey inside one of the affordable homes in the Gorbals (Image: Gordon Terris)

There are no factor fees for the development, with an on-site maintenance hub available all week to fix any problems.

Crucially, Lord Haughey says, long-term protections are in place for tenants.

He explains: "It’s written into the contract that the maximum rent can go up is 2%. And that’s for 12 months. Inflation could be 10% but it’s written that I can’t go above 2%.

“The only way you can get kicked out is if you don’t pay your rent or you trash the place. You can stay for one month or for 30 years.

"We want to show that if you’re a young doctor, or police officer, or fire service worker, whatever it may be, rent can be a better option than getting a mortgage – and your parents don’t have to come up with £35,000 to do it.”

Along with affordability, sustainability is the watchword for the flats.

All of the buildings are fitted with solar panels on the roof, with the company buying electricity in bulk for cheaper rates, though tenants have the option to find their own tariff. Lord Haughey says he'll be "disappointed if I can't get a 26% reduction in people's bills".

Lord Willie Haughey at the 'command centre' (Image: Gordon Terris)

To that end a huge command centre on site monitors the consumption of each property, providing long-term data trends which can be fed back into the equation.

Tenants use an app, MyHome, to operate all the electrics in their property and set a monthly budget for energy use.

The app will feed back in real time to inform them if they're above or below budget, while older or less tech-savvy tenants can receive an email from the command centre.

Plans are also in place to have a fleet of 20 electric vehicles on site, available to hire for £7 per hour.

There have, of course, been teething problems along the way. Taking The Herald through a finished apartment, Lord Haughey laments the door placement to the master bedroom which, moved just a little, could have allowed for more cupboard space.

(Image: Gordon Terris)

The top floor flats, he says, have proven to be around 5 degrees warmer than those on the bottom.

"That's why we're doing it in stages," he explains. "We don't want to make the same mistake 356 times.

"If we’d been having this conversation even six months ago, I’d have been giving you 48 pages of data – I’ve put that in the bin with what I’ve learned over the last six months."

Construction is almost unbelievably rapid.

Lord Haughey explains: "A Finnish company called Talot came to see me and they’ve built 40,000 of these pre-fab houses in Finland.

"It’s called a modular home, it’s not new or unique, but what blew me away is you have six people working on it and they’ve built six semis in 10 days, it’s a day-and-a-half to build a semi.

“So I find these guys up in Dundee who own a small company called InverTay Homes. They’re kind of doing a similar thing, they’ll maybe do around 30-40 units per year.

“I went up to see them because I wanted to see what the quality looked like, and it was magic.

“So having met these Finnish guys, I get the guys down from Dundee and I can’t wait to show off this wonderful thing. The two guys are sitting there and I say, ‘what about that? A day-and-a-half!’.

Lord Willie Haughey in front of the first completed phase of his sustainable housing development in the Gorbals, Glasgow (Image: Gordon Terris)

“They went: ‘eight hours.’.

“They said if we gave them the concrete slab they’d have a roof on it in eight hours, so they can build a 13,000 square foot bungalow or villa in one day.

“The great thing about that is that you take the weather out of everything then. That means nothing ever holds the job up, it’s wind and watertight in one day.

“From starting building the house and giving you the keys to move in it’s 14 weeks.

“So I’m dealing with a big development which looks like it’s going to take three years - with these guys it’s 14 months.”

There are those who would say that, rather than private sector investment, the answer is more social housing.

The private rented sector has more than doubled in Scotland since 1999, while social housing stock has declined 18%.

In 1980 more than 60% of Scots lived in local authority housing, the highest figure this side of the Iron Curtain.

Lord Haughey insists, however, that the two can co-exist.

He says: "I don’t think it should be called social housing. I grew up in social housing and there’s a stigma attached to it.

“I’m not trying to get in the way of building social housing, let the people who are doing that do it. We’re focused on affordable housing.

"We believe that if you look at all the things we’re doing here, it might be part of the solution.

“The housing minister has been here and loves it, so have Scottish Enterprise, the boss of British Gas was here two weeks ago.

“Not only have we tried to solve the housing problem, we’ve also tried to solve the whole problem with sustainability and more importantly we’re reducing people’s energy bills.

“I can claim without fear of contradiction that I’m probably the first guy to design a development where all the benefit has gone to the tenant. People can shoot holes in that - I’m happy to talk to anyone who knows about housing to prove that’s the case."