2024: a significant year
On Saturday 26th October 2024 we held our Annual General Meeting, preceded by a brief and enjoyable visit (pictured) by some new cocreators to the likely site of our new community in Northstowe.
About a dozen cocreators at the meeting shared what appeals to them about the idea of moving into Suvana, which was a joy and quite moving!
Annual report
As chair, Tejasvini gave the following report on the year, and presented the financial position (details on available on request).
2024 has been a significant year for Suvana.
In April we heard about the opportunity of a site at Northstowe that was being discussed with its owner, Homes England, and our developer, TOWN. Northstowe is a new town, roughly half way between St Ives and Cambridge, with lots of green, open spaces, lakes and countryside walks – as well as a plan for 10,000 new homes, of which about 1,500 have been built.
TOWN have a reputation as the leading developer of cohousing in the UK, and they built Cambridge’s only existing cohousing community, Marmalade Lane. We followed up with them, consulted our cocreators, and decided to take it forward. We are now in constant discussion with Town, and having weekly committee meetings as well.
The planned timing looking forwards, according to TOWN, is like this (but it is also optimistic!):
September to December: ‘recruitment’ – finding out if anyone else would like to join us
December to ‘spring’ – co-designing with architects and future residents
Spring 2025 – planning application to be submitted
Autumn 2025 – construction stage starts
Autumn 2027 – move in
One area of work that we have to do, in addition to the co-design process, is to clarify our legal and financial basis. We could consist mostly of owner occupied accommodation, with one or two generous folk investing in flats for people to rent. Suvana Cohousing Limited would own and manage the land other from the private accommodation: the grounds, car parking and common house, for the running costs of which there will be a service charge payable by all households. However, that model might not guarantee a multi-generational community, which is something that we think will make the project more successful.
Another option we are exploring is mutual home ownership, though it is more difficult. In this scenario Suvana Cohousing Limited would buy the whole site and lease properties to people who want to live there (with people who invest to the value of their property only paying the service charge, not rent as well). This model relies on occupiers investing either capital or rent in their properties, but the interest rates are higher than normal mortgages. However it does open things out to younger folk. In both situations, under our current articles of association, one person from each household will be a director of this limited company, and so have voting rights and responsibilities. We will need to obtain legal and financial advice about the best way forward.
Thanks to some publicity on the Triratna News site, and through our newsletter, our cocreator numbers have more than doubled in the last six months. It has been very exciting to see the enthusiasm that our project has generated among new cocreators, and enthusiasm also from Triratna charities like the Abhayaratna Trust. This is a charity that exists to offer help and support to Order members in need. One of their most common requests concerns accommodation, so it is clear that there is a real need that we are hoping to help address.
In terms of events that we have held this year, there were two days for cocreators, one in April and one in August, and an information session open to the public in September, as well as multiple visits to ‘our site’.
In November we will be holding a brief-setting two-day workshop led by Town, which we would like all cocreators to attend. This is where the plans for the common areas of the project will be determined.
We were delighted to see Jeremy Peters become Dharmachanda in the summer – congratulations!
The committee currently consists of:-
Tejasvini (chair)
Vimaladipa (secretary)
Dharmachanda (communications)
Mahasraddha
Rebecca Wenokor (communications)
Satyanandi (book-keeper)
Sagaraghosa
Barry Tennison
We have decided to re-build our website to facilitate better communication across the board, and Dharmachanda has made a start on that. We have received a very generous donation to cover his estimated costs. May Suvana exemplify generosity in many forms!
Suvana Cohousing Limited is dormant and the directors have not changed (Tejasvini, Vimaladipa, Dharmachanda and Ian Collins). We may well reverse that once we need a legal company to take things forward, but currently we are operating in the main as an unincorporated association, like a club. Our committee meetings are open to any cocreators to attend in person or via Zoom, to get an idea of how things are progressing and what the live issues are. We are also open to people joining the committee, especially if anyone would like to take on the role of membership secretary or treasurer.
Tejasvini, October 2024