Birmingham City Council is preparing new financing and disposal options for 1,914 homes at its Perry Barr regeneration, with a range of tenures to bring forward development.
After the decision from Birmingham 2022 to scrap the £500m Athletes Village last year, the council is exploring plans for a mixed-tenure exit to include a portion dedicated to a care home and build-to-rent.
Perry Barr has consent for 1,414 homes across 11 plots, including 312 affordable homes, with a further 500 homes at the wider village project in the centre of Perry Barr.
As Birmingham works on the so-called “legacy development”, it has instructed Avison Young to develop a disposal strategy to fund development.
The council aims to commit further budget for the fit-out of the first 968 homes in plots six to nine, where construction is already under way.
Birmingham proposes that the first 270 homes at the gateway site (plot seven) be delivered as BTR. That part of the scheme is the largest and most prominent, with the tallest towers.
The consent includes 121 affordable homes and the council intends to sell the scheme, with homes to be leased back to the council. The plan is to bring this to market as soon as possible, with these homes the first to complete, before the end of next year.
A further 268 homes (plot six) will be extra-care housing and sold to an operator that would work with the council on the final fit-out. The next phase will see 217 for-sale homes, including affordable.
Based on the uptake of BTR and for-sale homes in the early phases, Birmingham will then select the appropriate exit for the last 213 (plot nine) in this first phase. The council is in discussions with Homes England for some of these homes to be provided under the First Homes initiative, offering 30% discounts to local people.
This delivery model will see all the affordable housing delivered in the first phases of the scheme. Planning is in place for a further 446 homes at Perry Barr to be developed with some elements redesigned at a later date.
Birmingham Council will then prepare land for future development at the Wider Village site and Birchfield Gateway.
The revised business plan will have a total cost of £539.9m, compared to the earlier budget of £541.5m. Changes to the plan will cost an extra £45.8m, but it is expected to generate an additional £64.5m in net income, through the revisions to the future phases.
Birmingham said the move away from the Athlete’s Village will ultimately deliver up to £18.7m for the council. The cabinet will meet next week to debate the proposals.
The council also recently launched consultation over the longer-term Perry Barr 2040 strategy, which seeks to deliver 5,000 homes across the wider site. The consultation will end on 8 September, with a final version of the masterplan to be produced the following month.
Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward said: “We will continue to do everything we can to meet our housing need – and in this case to maximise the benefits to both existing and future residents of Perry Barr and surrounding areas.
“It is particularly pleasing we now have a way forward that accelerates the delivery of all of the affordable homes we had promised to deliver in the wider scheme.”
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