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Property developer Tilfen Land is a unique beast. It is a private, profit-driven residential and commercial developer – owned by a charity and a registered social landlord. It competes for sites against hard-nosed property companies but its bids factor in benefits to the community. Its charitable shareholders rely on Tilfen's profit stream but also accept invisible "dividends" in the form of community building.

It was established three years ago, inheriting a £30m portfolio of properties and development sites when Thamesmead Town – the community company that owned the south-east London new town – was split into three organisations. The demerger also created its two parents: social landlord Gallions Housing Association and umbrella charity Thamesmead Trust.

Now Tilfen's unique status might just suit a unique opportunity. Tilfen is looking beyond the borders of Thamesmead at potential projects within the London part of the Thames Gateway, where it can build on its philosophy of developing commercial and residential property side by side to create joined-up sustainable communities. "We have the whole Gateway as our marketplace," says managing director David Novi. "The future of the company is huge."

As Novi points out, Tilfen's uniqueness could give it other advantages. "A lot of developers say they build communities but we have added links through being owned by two charities embedded in the community." Its inheritance from Thamesmead Town also includes a broad skills base, from engineers and architects to remediation specialists, and its public-sector origins should help put it on the same wavelength as the multiple agencies involved in the Gateway.

A property investment specialist, Novi was promoted to managing director two years ago. Since then, he has expanded Tilfen from 12 staff to 30. His next challenge, as set by Gallions and Thamesmead Trust, is to increase asset value from £65m to £100m within five years and deliver 40% of its turnover from activities outside Thamesmead in the same time frame. He seems to have the energy for the job – he is a fitness fanatic who trains five or six times a week and a former club-level 10 km and half-marathon runner.

Derek Joseph, managing director of Hacas Chapman Hendy and a non-executive director of Tilfen, confirms that Novi has ambition to burn. "We've chosen a young team to see what they can do. We wanted people with ambition, and David is hungry for it. So far he's done a good job."

Joseph is part of a high-calibre non-executive board – including Urban Catalyst chief executive Ken Dytor and Will McKee, former director general of the British Property Federation – that takes a very hands-on role advising the executive team and safeguarding the charity's interests.

Joseph has been heavily involved in loan negotiations. "I'm not interested in turning up 10 times a year to hear what they've been doing. I can spend my time better than that," he says. "But Tilfen is fun. It's going places."

Tilfen's current workload is based on developing out its commercial and residential landholdings in Thamesmead. Its largest ongoing project in Thamesmead is Tripcock Point, a 2000-home mixed-use development including schools, childcare nursery, pubs, restaurants, parkland and shops where Gallions will be principal social housing provider. "If the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was looking for a development to badge as consistent with the Communities Plan, they could do a lot worse than Tripcock Point. In fact we've been liaising with them in this regard," Novi says.

If we want to work with the communities we build in 10 to 15 years, we need to develop profitably. And while we want to break the mould, it’s got to be something that people want to live in

It has already purchased two smaller sites in London. It is refurbishing a 1960s office block on Pentonville Road into a £13m mix of offices, live-work and residential apartments. In Woolwich, it is converting the former Woolwich Polytechnic – a Victorian grade II-listed building – into one- and two-bedroom apartments with affordable housing, and developing a new-build residential block on the same site. The £10m-15m project has 97 units in total. In the Thames Gateway, it is currently bidding for sites and talking to prospective joint-venture partners in the Medway region, and also looking at Barking/Dagenham and Havering/Thurrock. "North Kent seems to be moving towards fruition fastest," says Novi.

Development of the Thames Gateway will largely be in the hands of private companies such as Tilfen. But if developers are to achieve more than suburban sprawl, they need the public sector to act as banker, cheerleader and conductor. Novi delivers an animated plea to the ODPM for greater certainty and faster decision-making. "We need certainty on the infrastructure, funding, timing, and how an underfunded planning system will cope. If there's no certainty, people bring their horizons down a notch. They don't aim at the highest level; they go for what's safe."

Decisions on Crossrail, new Thames crossings and linking the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to Kent's mainline are all vital and – with London's bid for the 2012 Olympics hastening the process – Novi is hoping for progress within the next 12 to 24 months. "If you have certainty – that this will be delivered by x – the private and public sector can work towards that. But uncertainty will undermine the vision."

However, he worries that the plethora of agencies involved in the Thames Gateway – "I'm waiting to meet the man or woman who understands it" – could undermine aspirations. "Without that clarity, we're missing a trick. We won't get the densities and the quality urban design, just more of the same in a piecemeal approach."

Georgian revival
Tilfen itself hopes to deliver projects that dare to be different. At Tripcock Point, it has appointed David Lock Associates to draw up a masterplan and builders' design guide that follows Georgian town planning principles: crescents, circuses and broad avenues opening up views to the Thames.

"It's a material shift away from current development in south-east London, and introduce bespoke design with a quality and feel that has been lacking," says Novi.

Tilfen will also look at off-site, modular construction and has talked to a German firm about setting up a UK manufacturing base or joint-venture arrangements. This is despite the fact that it was 1960s developments such as Thamesmead that helped give prefab its poor reputation. "There's no concern about a mismatch between prefab and the aspirations for architecture and urban design. It has been proven on the Continent and in Peabody developments," says Novi.

Most importantly, it hopes to innovatively combine commercial property ownership with community responsibility. At two Thamesmead business park developments, it is considering a management structure that encourages occupiers to offer school pupils work experience. On mixed-use schemes, Novi suggests that an investment trust structure could allow profitable tenants to cross-subsidise commercially non-viable community facilities, such as a corner shop with a low volume of trade.