Thank you Gerry for your kind words of welcome.

Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to join you here this morning and to contribute to your discussion on the ‘Best Practice in the Delivery of Mixed Tenure Developments’. I’m delighted to be able to speak to you today, although I cannot stay for all that long afterwards.

However my officials will be staying on and I look forward to their report on your proceedings.

Today’s event is very timely given that only a few weeks ago I launched my New Housing Agenda for Northern Ireland and the provision of more mixed tenure housing was very much a central part of that new agenda.

During the next 5 years, we will deliver over 12,000 new social or affordable houses across Northern Ireland. It is a challenging target and will only be achieved with support from the key stakeholders, many of whom I see in this room here this morning.

But I have made it clear.

The New Housing Agenda is not just about providing more homes. It is about providing better homes, because better homes lead to better communities. It is also about providing more sustainable and environmentally friendly homes, both during construction and later in occupation.

And your profession can play an important part in this work.

But in addition to our technical objectives, we have social and community ambitions for the New Housing Agenda. New housing can be the catalyst that brings our communities closer together, living side by side, enjoying the benefits of a shared equal future.

For too long we have seen the negative and damaging consequences for a society that lives apart. A society where, for decades, people have lived, worked and socialised in deep segregation and isolation.

That was our past - and although it blights us today –it must not be our future.

That is why I am committed to bringing forward many more Shared Future Housing schemes out of the new homes we build.  I will also extend this model into 30 established Housing Estates over the next three years, so that we target existing as well as new housing developments. We also must ensure that we prevent the emergence of segregation along racial lines as the numbers of our new citizens continue to grow.

However it is not enough to try and end only that housing segregation which is a result of our religious division or racial difference. We must end the segregation that separates those who own their home from those who do not. The segregation of the well-to-do from the less well off.

We can only have a truly balanced and harmonious society when people can live together and be housed together irrespective of their religion, country of origin or how well they are paid.

So how can this be delivered?

In launching the New Housing Agenda, I announced plans to introduce a developer contribution towards the provision of more social and affordable housing here.

I recognise that many of you here today have concerns about exactly how we will introduce this and I am sympathetic to these concerns, particularly in light of the challenges the construction industry is currently facing.

I hope to publish our detailed proposals as soon as possible and consult widely thereafter.

However, once introduced, the Developer contribution will automatically bring a mixture of social, affordable and private market housing into many new housing developments across the North.

In effect it will create the mixed tenure housing that I believe will bring about a more cohesive and balanced society.

Until now, social housing has largely been provided for in large scale Housing Estates or developments exclusively created for social tenants.

This has led to the development of more and more social housing on the periphery of cities and towns, often in areas that are not as attractive to the private market.

The introduction of a developer contribution will start to redress this imbalance and begin to deliver more mixed tenure housing developments, whether they be for private sale – market-priced or affordable - or social rent.

Last month I visited Harlem in New York and was hugely impressed to see the transformation that has taken place in their housing stock.

This neighbourhood was once a byword for crime and anti social behaviour. It suffered from multiple levels of deprivation and most residents were unable to climb out of the poverty and despair that gripped the area.

But not anymore.

The investment in mixed tenure housing has brought new wealth and job creation into that community. For example I was shown around an apartment in a large block that had just been sold for over $2m and the neighbours on both sides lived under ‘rent control’, the US equivalent to our social housing.

New shops and café bars had opened up across the community and there was no longer a feel of despair in the air. Mixed tenure was changing everything for the better.

But we do not need to go as far as America if we want to learn more about delivering mixed tenure housing.  In researching solutions to our housing crisis, I visited London and Dublin to see for myself how mixed tenure housing has been delivered there.

I visited new developments where it was impossible to differentiate between those properties that were available for social rent, those that were low cost or affordable, and those that had been sold on the open market at full market prices. In other words, -  ‘pepper potting’!

Later today you will hear more of what is happening in other jurisdictions and I am sure you will find this useful.  However if you want to see real evidence of the benefits that mixed tenure housing brings to society, you don’t need to travel very far from this venue.

When was the last time you looked closely at some of our existing Housing Estates?  

Some of our once 100% public-sector Housing Estates have gradually been transformed through the ‘House Sales Scheme’ under which many Housing Executive tenants were able to buy a stake in their home.

But more than that.

They have bought a stake in their community and in their future.

We must not underestimate the sense of pride and value people have in their community when they can own a stake in their home. This leads to greater social and economic integration which is clearly desirable for everyone.

However we all have a lot to do to make sure we bring forward the best mixed-tenure development. And I know that this is the substance of what you wish to discuss here today.

For my part, I intend to bring forward a major mixed tenure development on the site of the former Grosvenor Military Barracks in Enniskillen.

This development will see the delivery of social, affordable and private housing included on one site, with all homes built to higher than normal environmentally friendly standards. It will also incorporate Northern Ireland’s first eco-village – although I believe Chris Carville might contest that claim!

If I am going to ask private developers to build mixed tenure housing as part of a future developer contribution, then it is important that my Department leads by example. I hope to do that in Enniskillen.

I also accept that we in Government have a responsibility to try and facilitate developers in ways that can help them to deliver what we are asking for.  I am also conscious that you as professionals have issues around technical standards and other practical aspects of delivering mixed-tenure developments.

I know you have ideas in this area…

Although our Housing Agenda is already well defined, we are always prepared to incorporate new ideas – especially those that minimise costs, without compromising quality, or which allow us all to get ‘more bang for our buck’

Ladies and Gentlemen – if you have such ideas or proposals – I would like to have them.  I can assure you here and now, that you shall have….

Thank you…..