Richard Lang (University of Birmingham and University of Linz) discussed Bringing real localism into practice through co operative housing governance. This was a presentation at the William Plowden Fellowship Lecture 2013, London, September 12, 2013. Find out about NCVO upcoming and past events: http://www.ncvo.org.uk/training-and-events

1. Bringing real localism into practice
through co-operative housing governance
The role and prospects of community-led
housing in England
Richard Lang, University of Birmingham and
University of Linz (Austria)
William Plowden Fellowship Lecture 2013
Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, London
September 12, 2013

2. Summary
• Aims and Methodology of the Study
• Localism Debate and Community-led Housing
• Structure of the Community-led Sector
• Infrastructure Needs of Community-led Groups
• Support Mechanisms: Self-help vs. External Help
• Lessons from International Experiences
• Discussion and Conclusions
• Developing Research Agenda

3. Introduction
• Thanks to NCVO and the Fellowship Advisory Group for
having made this exciting research in the English West
Midlands possible.
• Thanks to my supervisor David Mullins and the team at
Housing and Communities Research Group, TSRC in
Birmingham for their excellent support during the
study.
• Lecture can only cover a small part of the
research, based on preliminary analysis of the data.
• Full research report completed by the end of the year.
• Lecture provides an important contribution to this task.
I would welcome your comments and feedback during
and after the lecture.

4. Aims of the Project
• Assessing the relevance of the
localism agenda for the community-
led housing sector.
• Understanding structure of the
community-led housing sector and
support mechanisms.
• Exploring the potential of
international models of support for
effective localism (Austrian co-
operative governance model)
• Establishing research links with the
mutual housing sector in England
• Scoping study for a longer term
Fellowship Application (August
2013) to ensure relevance to sector
actors.

5. Research Methodology
• Project duration in Birmingham: April 9 –
June 30
• Systematic review of recent policies from the
Localism Act and forms of organizational
response emerging in the community-led
and mutual housing sectors
• 22 semi-structured interviews with
experts, stakeholders and representatives of
community-led and co-operative housing in
England (about 350 pages of transcripts)
• 5 case studies of innovative community-led
projects (incl. field visits) in the English West
Midlands region
• Developing a typology of co-operative
governance models derived from the
literature, empirical study and international
experiences.

6. The Localism Debate and Community-led
Housing
• Although housing is a very specific field, the project has shown
that it exemplifies many issues relevant to future development of
the voluntary and community sector as a whole.
• Issues raised by the Localism Bill and Big Society Agenda are
surprisingly similar to debates following New Localism initiatives
by former Labour government (see NCVO’s Voluntary Action
report in 2005).
– For example: Tensions arising from partnership arrangements between
community-based organisations and government bodies or larger third
sector providers (e.g. Housing Associations).
• Localism as good example for worrying gap between “big political
ideas” and practice on the ground with real communities 
highlights relevance of William Plowden’s principles for public
policy
– Still little clarity about political agenda among sector representatives:
“Localism, that’s politics, isn’t it? […] The shaping of the political end, I’m
not really interested in that. In terms of the practicalities on the ground […]
our approach is to try to see if we can develop more housing in various
different ways. And there are small amounts of success.”

7. Real Localism through Community-led Housing?
• With the Localism Act 2011 community-led housing gained increasing
attention and some resources in England.
• Community-driven social innovation but challenged by the dominance of
scale economies in ‘mainstream’ social housing. (Mullins 2012)
• Localism as active community engagement (Deakin 2005) builds on “linking
social capital” or the capacity of residents to leverage ideas and resources
beyond the neighbourhood level. (Lang/Novy 2013)
• Third sector organisations have a crucial role in building social capital in
general and especially residents’ capacity for active citizenship. (Stoker 2005)
• Co-operatives, for example, engage residents in social
entrepreneurship, civic engagement and democratic practices which can
create positive external effects for sustainable urban development. (Beetz
2008)
• Furthermore, housing organisations can act as intermediaries, linking
residents to the wider institutional environment. (Lang/Novy 2013)
Mullins D (2012) The Reform of Social Housing. Chapter 11 in Raine J and Staite C (eds) The World will be
your oyster? Perspectives on the Localism Act. University of Birmingham.
Lang R, Novy A (2013) Cooperative Housing and Social Cohesion: The Role of Linking Social Capital. European
Planning Studies, DOI:10.1080/09654313.2013.800025.
Deakin N and Stoker G in Robb C (2005)Voluntary Action: Meeting the challenges of the 21st century. NCVO.

8. Community-led Housing Fields
Selection of Case Studies for this Project
Co-Housing
Community Land Trusts X
Co-operative Housing X
Self-build Housing
Self-help Housing X
Tenant Management Organisations
Asset Transfer Models and Community
Mutuals
X

9. Structure of the Community-led Housing Sector
• The concept of cooperative housing is widespread and has a long tradition in
the UK.
• Advocates of the community-led housing point to 40 years of co-producing
well designed and managed places, with high levels of resident and neighbour
satisfaction. (housingforum.org.uk)
• Nevertheless, co-operative housing practice is still little-known and just being
rediscovered as an innovative alternative form of housing provision and
neighbourhood management (e.g. Rowlands 2009, CCH 2009, Bliss et al.
2013).
• In contrast to other European countries, co-operative housing accounts only
for less than 1% of all homes in the UK. (Poland: 20%; Sweden and Norway
about 15%; Austria: 8% co-operatives and 10% limited-profit housing
companies; Moreau/Pittini 2012)
• As a response to the need for affordable housing, new community-led housing
initiatives emerged.
• Self-help housing, the co-housing movement (with Danish and North
American roots), the community land trust sector (with North American and
Scottish strands) sprung out of different social movements, not always linked
to the cooperative housing tradition, but clearly exhibiting co-operative
principles in their governance (e.g. Moore and Mullins 2013; Moore and
McKee 2012)

10. English Case Studies

11. Infrastructure Needs of Community-led
Groups
• The coop movement and the other
community-led sectors are in different
stages of development as organisational
fields.
• Newer community-led movements lacking
the support structures the coop movement
has established over several decades.
• Two key lessons for newer community-led
sectors from the early coop movement in
England:
– Considering early on how to Secure
essential resources such as
funding, technical expertise and
legitimacy to support activity.
– Building management and governance
competence among residents who will
be running the schemes.
• How can these infrastructure needs be
met?

12. Sector Umbrellas an Intermediaries
• The community-led sector is made up of
different types of
organisations, governance models, and
labels.
• Mutual Housing Group (MHG) as a
reaction to this identity problem of the
sector. Its goal is to share learning across
the fields, lobbying government and build
a supportive environment
• Nevertheless, MHG remains a rather lose
group of actors and is still emerging.
• Competing meta-identities: Each sub field
of CLH, has its own umbrella organisation
with links to other housing sectors and
government bodies.
• Some members see the cooperative idea
as overarching. Others do not really feel
connected to the cooperative movement.
• Different support and facilitation strategies
for the sector: “scaling up” or “going viral”
(Moore/Mullins 2012)

13. Paradoxical Relations with Housing Associations (I)
• Two possible ways the sector could grow:
– either, the grass roots communities mobilise the resources needed
(bottom-up approach), or
– the sector goes into partnerships with local authorities and/or
housing associations/secondary coops for funding and other
resources (bottom-linked approach).
• Parts of the sector, such as the co-operatives, have decided to pursue a
bottom-linked approach to develop new homes.
• Having an external service and management provider is a traditional
approach of cooperative housing in England, particularly in urban
settings.
• The external service partner was traditionally a secondary coop but in
some cases changed to housing associations as it was not sustainable.
• Housing associations can play a key role in supporting community-led
initiatives through management and governance
competence, consultancy, funds, or even by establishing their own
community-led projects.

14. Paradoxical Relations with Housing Associations (II)
• Key challenge of partnerships between community-led initiatives
and housing associations: how to make the latter work in a
community oriented way (e.g. speak language of the tenants, and
foster local community leadership)
• Some parts of the housing association sector seem to be
committed to cooperative principles and support community-led
housing providing the necessary support structures for the sector
to grow.
• However, the involvement of HAs is not always welcomed, as
empirical data on CLTs shows.
• “I think that having the housing association as the provider is
unlikely but I do think they can be critical partners”
(Community-led sector representative)

15. Paradoxical Relations with Housing Associations (III)
• On large housing associations and their relationship with communities:
“I wouldn't say that any housing association has gone crazy and completely lost
track of where they have homes, but in terms of thinking about neighbourhood
factors and community factors […] quite a number of the bigger ones, it's harder for
them to be in touch and really understand what's going on on the ground.” (External
consultant)
• Distinguishing between housing associations devolving power to
communities from supporting external community led partners:
“We don't advocate that housing associations break up into Tenant Management
Organisations and that would be quite localist, but we advocate that housing
associations think about the impact they have upon the localities in which they work
and as part of that we advocate that they do support, […] organisations, like self-
help housing projects […] like community land trusts.” (External consultant)
• The paradoxes of governance of large housing associations:
“They're potentially very democratic. You could have all the tenancy members with a
one pound share. But they don't in practice because the tenants might vote the
board out. So there's no requirement to have more than a dozen shareholders, or ten
shareholders.” (Sector Representative)

16. Results from the West Midlands Case Studies
Support by Parent Organisations
• In the Coop and CLT cases, we find parent
organisations: HAs, Secondary Co-op
• Parents link residents to resources for development
(either in-house competence or links to external
service providers) and act as mediators between
communities and external authorities.
• “You have to have a good corporate
governance, understand risk […] you have to have
all the professionalism that we have developed
over the years […] Expecting six or eight volunteers
to help. No, that’s not going to work.” (Executive
Director of HA)
• Whereas the Co-op case gets backing from the
wider cooperative movement and regional
authorities, the HA’s efforts have met some
scepticism from external authorities and the CLT
movement.
• But only limited public promotion – HCA
community led funding a small share of funding for
affordable housing in England – no parallels to
Vienna site development competitions

17. Governance Models of Self-help in Community-
led Housing in England
• Traditional (user) self-help model
• Extended (community) self-help models
Participants
Participants
Local
residents
Participants
Participants
Local
residents
Local
residents Local
residents
Local
residents
Local
residents

18. Governance Models with External Enablers –
International Comparison
English West Midlands Vienna Region (Austria)
Mainstream Model of Public Promotion in
Non-Profit Housing
Co-operative & Non-profit
Providers
Housing Associations, Sector
Umbrellas (e.g. Secondary Coops)
Users Users Parti-
cipants
Local
residents
Participants
Participants
Local
residents
Local
residents
Community-led Projects
City Administration

19. Austrian Case Studies

20. Lessons from the Austrian Model
of Cooperative Housing
• Community-led housing has
strong connections with the
cooperative housing tradition.
(Rowlands 2009)
• International experience in this
field, such as the well-established
Austrian cooperative housing
sector, therefore has strong
relevance for implementing
localism.
(Moreau/Pittini 2012)
• This project contrasted
experiences of state-led
innovation in the Vienna city
region in Austria and the bottom-
up, localist innovation in the West
Midlands region in England.
Rowlands R (2009) Forging Mutual Futures - Co-operative, Mutual and Community Based Housing in
Practice. Commission on Co-operative & Mutual Housing.
Moreau S, Pittini A (2012) Profiles of a Movement: Co-operative Housing Around the World. ICA Housing.

21. “Linking Capital” in Vienna
• Community cooperatives are
comparatively small, with few vertical
linkages to the multi-level sites where
key decisions on housing policy and
urban development are taken.
• Professional cooperatives and limited-
profit companies have been recognized
by local government as the main
channels for providing new social
housing in Vienna  strengthens their
capacity to act as intermediaries
between residents and government
compared to community cooperatives.
• Professional cooperatives are able to
compete in new development
competitions for land and subsidy and
have advantages in meeting social
sustainability criteria.

22. Developer Competitions in Vienna
- scaling up cooperative elements
• Not the same mechanism as in English social
housing
• In Vienna, competition on specific development
sites for cheap land opportunities
(“Bauträgerwettbewerb“)
• Developers scored according to architectural
quality, economic aspects, ecological quality and
also the social sustainability of the projects.
• Social sustainability refers to identity and
community building as well as social mix, increasing
tenant participation in subsidized housing estates
(Förster 2002; Wohnfonds Wien 2009).
• Key aspect is advancement of architectural
innovations also leading to better design of
communal facilities, such as open spaces and
communication areas, combined with ecological
innovations. (Förster 2002)
• For the English context, the introduction of social
sustainability aspects in developer competitions
could institutionalise community-led housing on
the policy level and link it to public funds.

23. Resident Participation in Vienna
• To make cooperative idea popular within larger parts of the
society, movement accepted that not every resident wants to engage
actively.
• Voice and loyalty mechanisms become less attractive over time for
residents (stronger at the start of projects).
• Furthermore, strategic partnership with local government has weakened
the character as member-based organisations.
• Privatization and deregulation tendencies lead to increasing customer
service orientation.
• This cannot and should not replace traditional cooperative participation
mechanisms but suggests that cooperatives have to reach out to
different resident groups with different, for instance low-threshold
participative methods.
• Nevertheless, public promotion requires them to actively contribute to
sustainable urban development goals, and thus, also to foster resident
participation.

24. Results from the West Midlands Case Studies
Opportunities for resident participation
• The management representatives in both cases accept that not
every resident seeks active participation.
• However, both cases suggest that community-led housing is very
much about involving residents in a participation process than
about delivering a ready-made product, i.e. affordable homes.
• The Cooperative involves tenants already in the planning stage of
a site. They are able to pick their plot and decide on certain
features of their homes (e.g. kitchen design).
• Both cases quickly put residents into governance roles and give
them responsibility.
• For later stages of the CLT project, the parent HA seeks strong
participation of community members in on-going management
and maintenance activities of the model “so that they feel they
really own it” (Executive Director of HA).

25. Results from the West Midlands Case Studies
Relevance of participation and decision making
to residents in co-op case
• Participation is relevant
to residents in the
Cooperative
case, disillusioned by the
paternalist experiences of
council housing and
(some) housing
associations.
• “How is it different from
other forms of housing?
Because we run it. We
have our say.” (Interview
Coop Resident)

26. Results from the West Midlands Case Studies
Relevance of participation and decision making
to residents in CLT case
• For residents involved in the
Community-land trust case,
having a say is relevant in
local development more
generally. This may be a way
to overcome NIMBYISM
• A wider motivation for
participation in the CLT case
is concern for future
development of the villages,
such as the availability of a
social centre or a village
pub: the affordable housing
project may be
instrumental to broader
aims.

27. Umbrella Bodies and Isomorphism Risk
• Keep and support diversity not only of
community-led provider models but also of
umbrella bodies within the cooperative
movement (Novy 1992).
• Powerful central umbrellas body and state
promotion supported leads to isomorphism
tendencies.
• This runs counter to and actually completely
undermine the co-operative principles of self-
help and self-organisation.
• local communities invent and experiment with
new organisational structures and with umbrella
bodies (Novy 1992).
• Umbrellas can dissemination good practice.
• encourage variety of governance models as basis
for social innovation

28. Discussion & Conclusions of Cross-Country
Study (1)
• New co-operative and
community-led housing fields are
facing similar challenges to earlier
co-operative housing movement.
• Not able to grow and expand
significantly through self-help
mechanisms alone, given their
inherent scarcity of economic
capital, compared with other co-
operative sectors (Novy 1983).
• Require some form of external
support, such as that of public
housing programs, which
however threatens the co-
operative and community-based
nature of these housing
providers.

29. Discussion & Conclusions of Cross-
Country Study (2)
• Empirical analysis has shown that
(community) cooperatives in Vienna do
not have a strategic partner from the
non-profit sector and only find external
support from the municipality which
does not entirely support community-
led and cooperative development.
• In England, this enabler role can be
carried out by HAs or secondary co-ops
which are committed to community-led
housing.
• Balance of self help and external
support is crucial.
• Achieving balance between local
determination and broader societal
influence through structural
partnerships with Government

30. Developing Research Agenda
• MAPPING evolution of community-led fields in England through
strategic action fields method – and thereby construct more
meaningful typologies.
• FOLLOWING case study projects and exploring types of linking social
capital and institutional design principles adopted.
• SAMPLING contrasting case organisations in the various community-
led fields and exploring institutional design principles.
• QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT of linking social capital in English
West Midlands based on the experiences of the Austrian pilot study.
• COMPARISON of emergent context and institutional responses in
Vienna and English Midlands contributes to international review of
potential of community led models.

31. Further Information
• Richard Lang richard.lang@jku.at
• David Mullins d.w.mullins@bham.ac.uk
Housing and Communities Research Group