Cleaning up the built environment
ATELIO SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Live Project - Martham Norfolk
A development of 55 New Home, 11 of which are S106 Affordable Homes, awarded full planning consent in mid 2019.
The Goal
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Build 55 energy saving homes that are the most affordable - strongest most durable - most sustainable - on the planet.
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Focus on every element of sustainable living that can be incorporated in to the project to test the limits of what is achievable within the cost parameters of the current industry wide approach.
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Maximise the use of the Fusion Alliance and their products to achieve this and, at the same time contribute to the certification / reward system to be rolled out by InFusion.
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Measure every point of difference between THIS development process against the Industry norm.
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Use the results to champion Sustainable developments, locking in the Fusion Alliance family of developed technology, and building up a movement of developers whose ambitions are aligned to the UKs housing need and locked in to the Atelio Sustainable model by access to Green Finance provided by InFusion (Equity, Mezzanine and Development Finance Senior Debt).
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Sell Atelio to Google. If they don't go ahead then we are certain Apple/Amazon/Sony/Audi/etc will.
We are setting out to creating a totally different approach to home building, home ownership and the way that clients pay for, live within and thrive as a community in a sustainable way to a level often conceived, but never before achieved.
The land will be respected and nurtured. Water tables and flows will be integrated not fought against. Cars will be cleverly zoned away from the homes to not effect the connection of the community and the developing nature around them.
Our target buyout partner, being tech giants like Google (& Apple/etc,) will want the residents living to be the smartest too, so that is what we will produce. Home comforts will be controlled and catered for within the walls themselves using our Fusion Alliance thermal barrier control system. The whole build will be centred around a 'home core', where all incoming and out-going services will flow, be managed and can easily be updated.
The Approach
We believe that a good development has the ability to inspire everyone’s imagination and to enable social interactions with friends, family, the community and nature. The places and spaces that people inhabit fundamentally influence their enjoyment of life, so getting it right should be a priority for us all.
In the accepted Industry model the development would now be proceeding to the construction stage - a mass digging up of anything living, the laying down of waterproof bitumen roads and concrete slabs and driveways. The piling of building materials stuffed on every inch as rows of uninspiring houses rise slowly from the Somme like mud. A shameful construction of softwood timber framing left in all weathers before being disguised by a single layer of bricks to give that ‘solid’ look. Tiny tight fenced gardens that give way to huge drives and garages that never garage.
A far too typical description of the majority of development sites throughout the UK today. The developers simply focused on the formula - ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’. But it is broken, badly.
UK customers have very sophisticated buying habits when it comes to absolutely everything else other than homes, the largest purchase most will make. They thrive on being knowledgable and very up to date with the latest phones, TV’s, clothes, bikes, cars, etc, but few would even question why they are borrowing a lot of money to buy a house that might not even last the length of the mortgage and with no guarantees from the builders or developers it will either!
Why do buyers go along with it? Because real choice isn’t there, currently. If the car industry changed at the same rate as the housing market, then we would all still be driving around in mock, worse built versions of the Model T Ford! - Let’s face it, they worked, they weren’t broken. So why did the car industry take such a very different trajectory? There are of course many factors why, but most significant of them all has been racing. This set every new car company on a continuous technological battle, an upward spiral of mechanical and material scientific breakthroughs. The only cap on this development came when the oil companies were threatened by the move from petrol to electric.
The housing industry now has its’ own race to bring changes. Companies like Toyota, Ikea and Amazon have already begun to move into the housing market and now Google, Apple, Audi and the like have plans to follow suit.
Other than Ikea, will any of these companies build homes the 'tried and tested' way currently locked in to every big PLC Housebuilder? We think not, in fact we know not; Fusion partner Tufeco have a very different approach to building homes, using their patented and licensed printed recycled glass system. An approach that led to them working on the Google House pitch with World Class Architects Grimshaw. The Atelio sustainable living concept was the joint companies answer to the Google brief and this 55 homes Martham project will be the proof of concept of building at scale. As well as the homes, we will be trialling a whole series of new concepts, aimed not only to win the Google contract but also the hearts of future Atelio customers / investors / fan base.
Location
Martham, a village in the Norfolk Broads, adjoining the beautiful beaches of the West coastline of Norfolk and popular with locals wanting to live in a country village whilst working in the city of Norwich.
Current Status
Land acquired for £1,375,000 with full planning permission.
All reserved matters discharged and enabling of the project is underway, focused on the awarding of contracts packages and discharging of pre commencement conditions.
Acquired via shareholders equity, currently standing at £750,000, and a bridging loan of £950,000 (redemption value) that comes to term on the 8th June 2020.
Strut & Parker valuation of the land is £1,380,000 and forecast to be £1,750,000 on completion of pre-commencement conditions.
Work has started on satisfying pre-commencement conditions.
Contractors
We will be using a design and build contract with Tufeco and their approved builders, whilst also partnering with Taylor French, a family run house-builder specialising in high quality residential projects across London, the East, South-East and Midlands. Taylor French have national supply chain contracts in place that will benefit the project and will help with the measurement of every point of difference between THIS development process against the Industry norm.
Sale Options
Atelio will be working with Housing Association Places for People who have agreed to purchase all the houses we are happy to sell them. However, we also have other partners who wish to prove out new financial modelling strategies should we choose to implement them. In this model, a new Atelio SPV will sell/rent/manage the properties themselves. The model is based on sustainable living contracts, where energy use and more fundamentally, energy production are factored into the costing model.
Industry Standard Build Summary (Timber frame, Block and Brick)
GDV 13,569,970.00
Less Construction Costs - £7,679,259.00
Less Fees, Additional Costs and Developer allowances - £1,273,929.58
Gross Profit exclusive of Land Cost - £4,616,781.42
Less Land Acquisition Cost/Purchase Cost - £1,370,000.00
Gross Profit – £3,246,781.00
Gross Profit % of OMV Units - 26.79%
Atelio Model
The Fusion Alliance will work closely with the Architects and our R&D design team to model the inclusion of a methane cracking unit in the scheme. The idea being that all bio waste created from the site plus others around it (and farming waste) could provide the site with hot water and ecoHydrogen (therefore eco electricity), and have enough left over to sell to others or the grid at peak time. In theory this could supplement the ownership costs of living in an Atelio development, whilst also funding Atelio's growth in building out of more homes.
Taking this theory further, there may be a compelling case for a new model of 'ownership' where the dwellers of an Atelio home never actually own the property, but instead buy shares in Atelio so that they are invested in, and benefiting from, being part of the co-operative and further builds. Moving out of an Atelio home would mean they would sell their shares instead, which could by then be worth considerably more than the value of the physical house. If we can prove the value chain and demonstrate the benefits, People would want to move into an Atelio home for this very reason. Reward sustainable living - The Fusion Mantra.
Atelio on BBC Breakfast
Click on video to see the Atelio team at a Construction Show in Birmingham