Community-led Housing Supporting a Sustainable Future

That the Parliament recognises what it sees as the vital role of community-led housing in tackling the rural and island housing crisis, and in supporting those communities towards a sustainable future; believes that there are diverse and significant challenges facing rural and island communities in providing housing and the varied implications this has for sustaining the rural population; recognises what it considers as the enabling role of community housing trusts and organisations such as South of Scotland Community Housing, Communities Housing Trust and Rural Housing Scotland, which support communities through what it understands can be a burdensome and long process; notes the belief that more can be done to facilitate community-led housing and remove barriers to locally-based projects; further notes the view that there is a need to support community-led affordable housing as a priority, and the potential in the upcoming Land Reform and Community Wealth Building bills to do so; congratulates those organisations that have accomplished community housing projects and utilised available funds such as the Rural and Island Housing Fund; considers that there is a need to learn from these organisations and continually improve, and congratulates what it sees as trailblazing projects that are testing alternative models such as rented cohousing in the Hope CoHousing project in Orkney, and creating place-based communities through models such as Stòras Uibhist and Rural Housing Scotland’s Smart Clachan project.