Community-led stewardship for Europe

Article

23 Jan

Lessons for community leadership in large scale housing in the EU

The European Commission is embarking on an ambitious new chapter in housing policy, with the appointment of a dedicated Commissioner, Commission project group, and a European Parliament Special Committee all focused on housing leading the development of the European Affordable Housing Plan. With all the focus on housing, EU policymakers must ensure that we're not just building houses, but creating lasting communities. The success of new developments will not just be marked by the number of units built—but how these new developments are managed and stewarded to ensure affordability, sustainability, and community are all long term.

Europe needs to rapidly increase housing supply. However, experience with large-scale housing developments has shown that the design phase, while crucial, is only half the story. The long-term success of housing developments hinge on effective place stewardship - the ongoing management of the homes, parks, playgrounds, community centers, and shared spaces that transform housing developments into thriving neighborhoods.

Our recently published report on Community-Led Place Stewardship demonstrates that a diverse range of community stewardship models from across Europe are going beyond delivering housing units to build long-lasting communities. From Denmark's tenant democracy to Switzerland's housing cooperatives, and more recent CLT recognition in Brussels, Ireland, or in France in the form of ‘Organismes de Foncier Solidaire’ (OFS), Europe has a rich and growing tradition of community-oriented housing governance. These successful models offer crucial lessons as we seek to scale up affordable housing provision across the continent.

Municipalities across Europe are increasingly involved in supporting community-led housing initiatives, creating a more enabling environment than we see in countries like the UK, where 87% of large new developments rely on private management companies for their ongoing management. This approach has consistently fallen short, characterised by poor value for money, lack of accountability, and deteriorating service quality. As we face mounting challenges from climate change and constrained public budgets, the EU cannot rely on these models.

Community stewardship examples from across Europe

Denmark - Denmark's non-profit housing sector showcases the power of tenant democracy, where residents exercise real decision-making power over rents, budgets, and major projects within their housing estates.

Switzerland - In Switzerland, housing cooperatives demonstrate how democratic governance can ensure long-term affordability while successfully managing both residential and non-residential spaces.

France - France's OFS model has proven how separating land and building ownership can preserve affordability through capped resale prices, offering a state-supported pathway to sustainable affordable homeownership.

Vienna - Vienna's social housing model, where 60% of residents live in homes which combine municipal ownership combines with resident-led management to maintain high-quality affordable housing across generations. The city's 'wohnpartner' program ensures resident participation in housing management, while their 'Baugruppen' (building groups) enable communities to collectively develop and manage their own housing projects.

Community Land Trusts delivering community-led stewardship

Building on these lessons, our new joint research report, developed in partnership with the England & Wales Community Land Trust Network and Dark Matter Labs, provides compelling evidence for how Community Land Trusts offer a proven model for embedding community-led governance and community ownership of land, unlocking benefits including enhanced long-term affordability, improved environmental sustainability through local stewardship, and increased resident satisfaction through democratic participation.

Based on learning from trailblazing case studies and industry interviews, it recommends that community-led place stewardship should be incorporated into the planning, procurement, development and long-term management of new housing developments.

These approaches aren't new - they return to the principles that guided the original 19th century garden cities where CLT-like structures owned the land under entire communities, creating places that have stood the test of time. New projects such as Kennet Garden Village in the UK aims to build on this legacy in the modern context using the CLT approach and by partnering with developers and local authorities in a 40-hectare, 500-home development to take partial ownership, and manage public space, amenities and ensure long-term community control.

The evidence from existing projects is compelling: when communities have genuine ownership and control over their neighborhoods, developments are more likely to succeed in the long term. As noted by property sector expert Debra Yudolph, "Embedded community work gives a much higher chance of success. Not just for housing, but for large, mixed-use urban developments."

Implications for the European Affordable Housing Plan

As the European Commission develops its housing strategy, our network urges EU housing policymakers to ensure Community-led housing, most notably CLTs and community-led place stewardship, are integrated as part of supply-side approaches promoted under the forthcoming EAHP to ensure the full long-term affordability, sustainability, and social cohesion benefits can be unlocked by forthcoming housing programmes at National and regional levels.

The tools and examples exist across our continent, by placing community-led stewardship at the heart of its strategy - now we need the political will to make community-led stewardship the norm rather than the exception in Europe's housing future.