Citu create modern homes with a focus on sustainability and tackling climate change. Their home designs aim to be as energy efficient as possible and feature Scandinavian design using timber, recycled glass wool and triple gazed windows along with other efficient insulation to minimise the home’s carbon footprint. Each Citu development also has solar arrays co-owned by all the residents, to provide a source of clean, renewable energy.
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This award winning eco development has beautifully designed houses. It is supposed to be a Community Interest Company, meaning that residents have a say in issues with the design, facilities and management. This hasn’t happened, however, and it has been difficult to get the developer to respond to issues. The development is about 60% completed, and the earlier houses experienced a number of issues. With regard to heating, the houses are nearly airtight. They do an excellent job of recirculating warm air and cleaning the air, but they won’t cool the air. The triple glazing raises the temperature in *all* of the houses during sunny weather, bringing temperatures inside up to 26-28 degrees. The developer refused to install awnings. The heating is in the walls (with the aim of heating the structure rather than the air in the house). While this means the house retains heat, it also means that the house takes time to warm up after it has cooled. Forward planning is needed to maintain an even heat. The houses are well insulated, which means that they are nearly soundproof. Residents reported a number of issues during the snagging period, which included: leaks in the walls, gaps in floorboards, water which would not maintain temperature because of faulty installation of mixer taps, smoke alarms that could not be turned off. While some issues were addressed, many were not a year after the snagging deadline. This means that residents have to do repairs at their own expense. The structural insurance for new builds expired after the insurance company went bankrupt, and the developer would not replace the insurance (or provide the information needed for residents to get their own insurance). Security is difficult to maintain in the shared garage due to ongoing problems with the door; the developer has been slow to respond. The property management company is excellent but hindered by slow responses from the developer.
Excellent local delicatessen, one convenience store, supermarkets are located further away. A great range of restaurants and bars. No green space. All of the empty lots have been purchased by developers and residents have expressed concern about high density housing plans. Excellent transport links; very limited public parking. Traffic noise is low as the streets are pedestrianised with access limited to residents cars. Some anti-social behaviour on weekends after pubs close.
I would ask for feedback from the residents. This may however be difficult to obtain as people are concerned about property values.
The building management company (which is independent of the developer) does an excellent job addressing anything related to ongoing security and maintenance. They try to bring issues with the original design to the attention of the developer but have been largely unsuccessful.
The design of the site is simplistic and unalike anything else you’d see in the UK. One of the best features is probably the fresh herbs, fruit and veg growing around the site for the residents. The decking by the river is also a nice spot to relax in the summer.
The groundskeeping is good quality, although the repairs and management of the building site, car park and houses can be quite slow and inefficient. The car park is covered in dust and nails have been found on the floor, which have damaged many cars.
10 minutes walk into Leeds city centre where there a huge range of nice restaurants, bars and shops. Very easy to also get a taxi along the A61, however it can be difficult for some drivers to find the site car park.
The site has a friendly atmosphere with nice groundskeeping. However due to the area being a building site, the car park floods a lot and is very dusty.
Overall it’s a great and safe place to live with minor noise from the building works and main road.
Wasn’t aware of how close the community was going to be in terms of contacting each other through WhatsApp and Slack groups.
Building management is often slow and inefficient but gets done eventually.
Overall the management is horrendous, so many things went wrong with the house and it took weeks and months even to get stuff finished. The bathroom door lock has already broken causing someone to get locked inside the bathroom and it’s not covered As it’s been 1 year and general ‘wear and tear’ is not covered, even though the lock literally would not open and that’s not wear and tear that’s just poor fittings and quality. There is now a leak coming from the roof causing damp patches on the ceiling when it rains, the heating is a nightmare it’s either freezing or boiling hot, to get hold of the management team is almost impossible as they do not reply. Overall so poor.
Local shops are limited, there is one walking distance probably. Quite far walk from the train station, parking is a nightmare in the underground car park, bins are always overflowed and take a lot of space in the car park. The bottle bin is at the entrance which is very far away from the houses for some strange reason. The cars get all dirty and damaged due to the car parks condition and works still going on, the car park floor is almost a river when it rains it’s ridiculous.
Just how horrendous management were, the amount of issues faced, the horrendous conditions of the car park and parking, don’t be prepared to move in and everything be fine.
Poorly, it’s hard to get hold of anyone in management and they always shift the blame to someone else that seems to have left the business. Management then send round differnet workers every time who all do the work differently and all do not understand why the previous person who came did it that way, then they can’t ask because that persons left!
Very vibrant development, particularly as there are a selection of great restaurants built around the houses/flats. Unique eco design centered around sustainability – both the flats and houses are light and airy inside. That said, the quality of design is lacking and we experienced several design issues after moving, particularly regarding the shower. We also found it extremely difficult to get a response from the property management team, meaning many of our issues were left unresolved for months.
Great location – within walking distance to a range of bars and pubs, a large supermarket as well as smaller convenience stores. There is also a good open green space within 10 minutes walk. Lovely community and vibrant atmosphere. The area is also within walking distance to the city centre, but without the noise you’d expect from an urban area. Downsides would be that the parking spaces are limited and very costly, with the only other option being on-street parking outside the development which can be hard to find. We have also seen and experienced for ourselves bikes being stollen from the bike racks situated at the bottom of residential blocks.
Make sure all the snagging is done before you move in – we waited until after we’d moved (in November 2020) and are still waiting for the issues to be resolved!!
It’s been extremely difficult to get hold of the building management team, leading to an incredibly frustrating experience. Issues raised months ago regarding design faults or issues are still waiting to be resolved.
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