Minutes:
The Chairperson welcomed Mr. C. Bailie, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), and Mr. R. Hawe, Belfast City Centre Projects Manager, NIHE, to the meeting.
Mr. Hawe advised the Committee that, over the last few years, through the work on the Belfast Agenda and the Local Development Plan (LDP), the NIHE had strengthened its working relationship with the Council and particularly with the Planning Department.
He outlined that the main roles of the NIHE were to assess the housing need and demand across Northern Ireland, provide its customers with good quality and affordable homes and to act as a Statutory Consultee for Local Development Plans (LDPs) and for residential planning applications.
The Members were apprised of the strategic context within which the NIHE worked. He explained that there 11,000 households on the housing waiting list, 8,000 of which were classified as “in urgent need”. The Committee was advised that, last year, the NIHE had delivered 386 additional social homes in Belfast but that this number needed to increase. Mr. Hawe pointed out that housing associations struggled to secure sites to deliver social housing and that it was therefore important to look at new and innovative ways of meeting the social need.
The Committee was informed that existing social housing tended to be largely segregated, unlike other forms of housing tenure, and that the Housing Executive firmly believed that social housing should be integrated with all other tenures, as it facilitated choice, widened housing options, increased community cohesion and created sustainable neighbourhoods.
Mr. Hawe advised the Members that delivering additional social and affordable housing would contribute towards the aims of the Belfast Agenda, such as increasing the City’s population by 66,000 and allocate land for 31,000 new homes by 2035. He emphasised to the Committee that the NIHE hoped that the new residential developments coming forward within the City would include social and affordable housing to help promote balanced and sustainable communities.
He reported that there was some confusion as to what constituted affordable housing. He explained that the SPPS defined affordable housing as the social rented sector and intermediate housing, such as co-ownership, but that the definition was currently under consultation by the Department for Communities.
The Committee was advised that applicants for social housing currently selected two Common Landlord Areas (CLAs) to indicate where they would like to be housed, with Belfast being divided into 122 CLAs. Mr. Hawe advised that allocations from the waiting list were made to newly built developments as well as through the re-letting of existing stock. He outlined that, annually, 2,000 allocations were made and, unfortunately, that left a large shortfall of unmet need.
The Chief Executive of the NIHE explained that good community planning, integrated thinking and future proofing were crucial in tackling the housing waiting list. He explained that a fundamental review of the housing selection scheme had taken place two years ago but that it was awaiting Ministerial sign-off. He emphasised to the Committee that the NIHE wanted to move away from asking applicants for just two areas to much broader areas of choice.
The Members were advised that the NIHE produced a Commissioning Prospectus to provide housing associations and developers with detailed information on the requirements for new social and affordable housing across NI.
Mr. Hawe explained that there were not a lot of large brownfield sites available in the city and that higher density sites were therefore inevitable. He added that, apartment living wasn’t historically common in NI and that a cultural change would have to take place in order that the aims in the Belfast Agenda were met.
He provided the Committee with an overview of a pilot scheme which NIHE would operate for the recently approved mixed-use Waterside development at the former Sirocco site. The Members were reminded that there would be 650 new homes on the site, 77 of which would be social housing. He explained that the 16 acre site would be a pilot for the NIHE’s city centre waiting list, whereby they wanted to see all types of households on site, not just single person apartments, where the dwellings would have greater interior space standards. He added that all of the ground floor apartments would be designed to be suitable for wheelchair users.
In terms of the NIHE providing evidence to the Local Development Plan, Mr. Hawe explained that it undertook a Housing Needs Assessment, which amalgamated a number of CLAs into 18 broader social market geographies. He outlined that, through analysis of past trends, NIHE then tried to predict what the demand would be over the next five years. The Members were advised that the calculation showed a requirement for 4,500 additional homes throughout Belfast over the next five years.
A Member queried the recent change in planning consultation responses from the NIHE, whereby it had recently stated for the first time that it would like to see 20% social and affordable in residential developments. In response, Mr. Hawe explained that the NIHE wanted to promote mixed tenure housing. He outlined that the NIHE would support a minimum of 20% social and affordable housing in the vast majority of cases but that there would be some rare cases where the social need was being met elsewhere. He added that the NIHE would provide reasons if it did not feel that there was a need for social or affordable housing in a residential scheme.
The Director of Planning and Building Control advised the Committee that, currently, unless a voluntary agreement was reached, developers were not required to provide a certain percentage of social housing despite NIHE requesting it, as there was no policy basis for it.
In response to a Member’s query regarding the draft policy of “a minimum of 20% social/affordable housing”, and as to whether NIHE would consider requiring more than 20% in some developments, Mr. Hawe explained that they would look at applications on a case by case basis, but suggested that it might put some developers off.
A Member stated that Housing Association rents priced out many people from the market. A further Member stated that it was unfortunate that the NIHE did not borrow significant finances which it had access to in order to build more homes.
In response to further Members’ questions, Mr. Bailie explained that the NIHE had a strong ambition to build new homes again, particularly through the use of modern methods of construction. However, he outlined that there were significant financial constraints for the NIHE in terms of borrowing, whereas housing associations received more than half the capital costs through grants and were then able to borrow the rest. He advised that, in practice, the NIHE could not borrow in the same way as it would be scored against the NI block grant.
A Member queried a number of occasions where a NIHE consultation response had stated that there was no need for social housing in certain areas when representatives of local communities would say otherwise. The Member stated that there was an issue of undocumented housing stress throughout the City, with large numbers of single people who had not applied for social housing, as it was common knowledge that there was next to no availability for one person dwellings within their chosen areas.
Mr. Bailie explained that the NIHE carried out “Latent Demand” tests to determine whether anyone would be interested in applying to live in an area, if housing was to be built. He added that the NIHE had discussed the issue at the Housing Council earlier that day and that they would certainly consider ways in which they could make their demand assessment process more accurate.
Mr. Hawe added that the evidence used by NIHE was usually the waiting list but that they were aware of the issues and were trying to proactively engage with people who hadn’t come forward to NIHE yet. He provided an example of the upcoming Hope Street scheme, whereby they were going to carry out a major household survey with 1000 people in the surrounding area to determine who might be interested but had not previously applied for social housing.
After further discussion, the Director of Planning and Building Control thanked Mr. Bailie and Mr. Hawe for their contributions. He explained that the Council’s Planning Department, particularly the Local Development Team, continued to work well with the NIHE and that he was hopeful that they were moving towards the new policy framework as the adopted Policy through the Local Development Plan.