Cornerstone’s commitment to mixed-tenure developments
Mural by ‘Pang’ - Whitewashing a Rembrandt - Hill Street, Cathedral Quarter, Belfast. This playfully illustrates how ‘old masters’ and the next generation can create something new and exciting together.
Cornerstone has been interested in designing its schemes to create a mix of private and social housing in the same scheme for over two years now.
As a purpose-driven property developer with a focus on regeneration, one major consideration for us is how do we ensure that our developments are a positive contributor to the local community.
One way we hope to achieve this is by ensuring that our projects are socially mixed, and we have a specific desire to see them being mixed in terms of age as well. We believe that diversity is strength when it comes to creating developments that are a good place to live in. We also believe that in our developments a mix of younger private renters with older residents in social housing would create a dynamic community in the building which could integrate well with the local community.
What is preventing us from making this happen?
As we have got to know people in the communities surrounding our three live projects we hear time and time again that there is a massive shortage of social housing in these areas. What has been a huge shock for us is that is impossible for us to commit to allocating a proportion of our development to social housing because the areas have been allocated as having ‘no housing need’.
In Northern Ireland housing need is determined by a series of calculations that are overseen by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE). When a social housing provider or private developer want to apply to create ‘social housing’ they have to ask the NIHE if that specific area has ‘housing need’, if the NIHE says ‘no’, then there is nothing further that can be done.
Whilst it makes good sense that social housing is only created in areas that need it, what has been shocking is that the areas that we have enquired about all have been areas that are well known throughout Belfast and beyond as being areas with a large amount of housing need, yet they have all been classified as not needing additional social housing provision.
There is a vast gulf between the perception of the local community and their elected representatives and what the official determination is. Time and time again members of the local community are shocked when we tell them that their community has been judged as not having ‘housing need’.
Where does that leave us?
For Cornerstone to create mixed-tenure housing developments we need elected representatives to get to grips with why there is such a huge disparity between what communities are saying and what has been determined.
To pioneer new ways of doing things we need a range of partners including the NIHE, elected representatives, social housing providers, property developers and local communities to work together to create innovative schemes and Cornerstone wants to be part of conversations like these to see what part it can play to something we are already passionate about.
One of the biggest issues we see is that local communities believe that their area is in desperate need for social housing yet are unaware that at that point it is impossible for a social housing provider or developer to meet that need.
There needs to be more transparency from the NIHE on what areas it has identified need social housing and what areas don’t as this would give local communities a better understanding of what they can expect.
If you are an elected representative, work in social housing or for the NIHE and share our desire to see more being done in this space please get in touch and we would love to have a conversation to see how the housing schemes that communities need can be delivered.
Email us at info@cornerstoneni.com or contact one of the team through LinkedIn.
