Financial Model 

New Green Town model

A New Green Town Development Corporation requires a model of: the capital sum which will be required to purchase the land; infrastructure costs; and the receipts from lease sales and rents. Below is an example.

Costs - Land Purchase

To build a town of 300 hectares requires the compulsory purchase of 500 hectares at ‘compulsory purchase value’, which is not simply agricultural cost, but has to allow for reasonable expectation of development value. This must be one of the variables of the model, as different sites will have different expectations. On the edge of an existing town it will be high, in the middle of nowhere low. For the purposes of the example it has been taken as twice the current market value of agricultural land.

Tenure

The model assumes that the land is held by the NGT Development Corporation in perpetuity. Commercial sites are sold on 99 year leases. Housing sites are made available on 3000 year leases with a rental which covers:

• the loan on the purchase cost of the land

• the cost of infrastructure

• contribution to the running cost of the town

all amortised over 30 years.

Costs - Infrastructure

Roads, drainage, water supply, flood alleviation, refuse disposal, power supplies, etc, are included in the model. However health and education capital cost are assumed to be funded elsewhere. A new station and associated works are included, but the funding of additional rolling stock etc will come from transport providers.

Income & Receipts

After house sites are allocated the occupier has to pay rent from an agreed date. Once the houses are built they can be sold on the open market, but the new owner must pay the land rent payments. The other major source of income is from sale of leases on commercial sites and commercial rent receipts in mixed use areas.

Assumptions

The station and some of the town centre must be in place before dwellings can be occupied. The example assumes that the station and a ‘wedge’ of one ConnectedVillage and the Mixed Use area between it and the station will be built first. This is approximately 1/5 of the total land. Later wedges follow.

• The land acquisition is apportioned to one ‘wedge’, I.e.100 ha of land @ £40,000/ ha. (£8,000/acre x 2 to account for the CPO price, including development potential, being twice the market price as agricultural land).

• Cost of infrastructure - £5m for railway and £50m for town infrastructure

• Land rents for market/private units are based on yield of 1.25% on Open Market Value - a typical 5% yield, but x 25% to account for rent being due only on the land.

• Rents for affordable rented units are @ 70% of market rents, are also based on 25% of the normal yield

• Infrastructure management costs @ £2,000/unit/year for the residential units and, for the commercial units, at a cost per sq m that corresponds to £2,000/unit.

• There are no running costs (management/maintenance costs) for the housing or commercial units as these will be borne by others.

Conclusion

The whole ‘single wedge’ development comes out of deficit after 26 years, assuming a 30 year term on the mortgage, and has accumulated a surplus of £11.6m after 30 years.

The running annual shortfall on the cash flow will be treated as an ‘overdraft’ by arrangement with the lenders. Considering the approximate nature of this exercise, these deficits are within the margin of error.

Thus the whole town of five wedges of town can be built within 30 years, generating a surplus in excess of £50m.