Transcript

Thi, the first of this municipal year. My name is Councillor Martin Klute, I remember for St Peter's and Canalside Ward and Chair of the Committee, I'm going to start by asking colleagues around the table to introduce themselves, first the first the members of the Committee, so starting on my left here. Councillor Blyhamdash, Highbury Ward, Paul Convey, Councillor Dunne, Ward. Rosalyno Conro, St Peter's and Canalsite, Ruth Hayes, Clerk on my Ward. Ori Steadman, Hill Rose Ward, Councillor Chisholm, Tefra Park Ward, Taby North, St Peter's and Canalside. Thank you and officers on my left. Yeah, all. The clerk, Simon Roberts, Printful Pelling Officer, Harry Bt, team lead of the Major Panning Applications Team, Geraldine Knight, Head of Development and Management, and Robert Schimett, Atlanta Deputy Design and Conservation Team Manager. Laura Avery, Legal Advisor. I'd like to welcome Councillor Oli Stebmett, the Committee of the Council, who recently elected as well, it's very nice to have you in the Committee, thank you. We have apologies for that, so you can have something you've got. Yes, Councillor Spall and Councillor Councillor Boehme have given their apologies and we have no substitute members for them. Thank you. Do we have any declarations of interest for the only item on the agenda, from the Committee? Obviously, the order of business takes care of itself as we have only have the one item to consider. We have also had circulated the minutes of the previous Fall Planning Committee meeting. Can I record those as being a true record of the proceedings on that occasion. Could I just have a show of hands from everybody for that, that they agreed the minutes of the previous meeting. Thank you very much. That's all agreed. I'm just going to briefly explain to you how we run the planning meeting in case there any members of the public who haven't seen this before. What we will do is first of all, the case officer will give us a brief description of the application and show some pertinent images on the two screens we've got here. And just give us a sort of overview of the scheme. They'll then be an opportunity for members of the Committee to ask questions of clarification of the officer team. We will then take any objections from the floor. Normally if we had an applicant here, we would then give the applicant a chance to respond to. I don't believe that there's anyone here from the applicant team. At that point, once we've heard from the objectors, if the Committee wants to ask any more questions of clarification from the objectors or planning officers. That's the opportunity for that. And then we move to what we call deliberation, where we decide jointly what the Committee's decision is about the application. I'd like to remind you that this is a Council meeting held in public, not a public meeting, and therefore all comments should be directed through me as the chair. We have some other Committee business, which we need to complete before the end of the evening, but I'm going to defer that until we've answered the item. This is a quite unusual situation for us this evening. The application in front of us has already been appealed for non-determination by the applicant, which means that the 13 week deadline for determining the application has not been met, and they didn't, they somewhat surprisingly indicated they weren't prepared to give the Council any more time to negotiate and appealed for not the fact that they haven't had the determination of the application. So clearly the Council will have to attend the appeal and defend the Council position on this application, and what officers are telling us is that their recommendation would if the application had come to the Committee in the State, it is currently in the State, which has been appealed. Officers would have recommended the Committee to refuse the application, so what we're here to do tonight is to see if the Committee actually agrees with Officers' recommendation to refuse the application. There are a total of nine reasons for refusal, and we need to look at all those with that, having said all that, if Simon, if you could take us through the application. Thank you, Chair. So I'll give them with updates to members, a number of clarifications have been outline within the Danden Committee report issued to members of the State and published. The subsequent revisions to the reasons for refusal, as recommended by officers, is proposed, and these will be outlined nature on the report. And there's also clarifications that have been included in the Danden, just some corrections of typos. So the site is located on the corner of Marjor Street and Aldi Street with the McLockerman Award. Outlined in red, it is surrounded predominantly by residential blocks and houses along Marjor Street, the Aldi Street Wilmington Square, and up Neve Street. Next slide, please. The site is outlined in red. And beneath the house, and St. Angela, are located to the top of the image. The Aldi Street and Wilmington Square to the right, and up Neve Street, and shifts in court to the bottom of the image. Next slide. The photos on screen show the existing building on site. It is currently vacant, and there are measures in place to stop squatting, under the axis into the building. The top left shows the main entrance at the minute, centrally on Marjor Street. The right-hand top image shows the building, and on the right-hand side, the existing servicing yard. And the bottom images show some of the surrounding streets and views. Next slide, please. These photos on screen show the roof level to the top. And to the bottom, these show the rear. So the rear of properties on underneath street and shifts in court. Bottom left shows the car park, and the tree, and the bottom middle shows the existing building, with windows at low ground and first floor level. Looking out to what was pre-existing, a disused ball court, and residential meanity area. Next slide, please. So, a previous application on the site was submitted to the council, and refused by comment committee in July 2020. The application was refused on foregrounds. Reason one was for design and appearance. Reason two was for the impact upon neighboring heritage assets, including grade two listed buildings, and the neighboring conservation area. Reason three was for the impact upon neighboring residential meanity, specifically to daylight transgressions, loss of outlook, and sense of enclosure. And reason four was for the absence of a signed Section 106 legal agreement. Next slide, please. The refusal was appealed by the applicant. I was subsequently dismissed by the plumbing inspector in March 2022. The inspector considered that the main issues of the refused scheme to be whether the proposed development would preserve the settings of nearby listed buildings, particularly 21 to 23 Festival Street, and 25 to 37 and 38 to 39 Medieval and Square. The proposed development would conserve the setting of the new river conservation area, the fact that the design and the character and appearance of the street scene, the effect on living conditions of neighboring occupiers, and whether the benefits of the proposed scheme, as well as any of the environment matters would outweigh the harm in determining the plumbing balance. Next slide, please. The inspector therefore concluded that although they did not find that the heritage harms are sufficient to outweigh the benefits on their own, they still form part of the plumbing balance. When the harms of the street scene and to the living conditions to nearby occupiers were added to the plumbing balance, the inspector found that the cumulative weight of harms did not outweigh the benefits which would have arisen from the scheme. The proposal seems to demonstrate system building and erect a four-story building in use as office, with unsyllery cycle, parking, waste and recycling storage and harm soft landscaping. The key plumbing considerations and consider by offices include the laminings, the design and appearance, and the impact upon heritage assets, neighboring meanity, transport highways, and energy sustainability. In regards to land use, the site is within the central activity zone, as outlined in the London Plan, a priority employment area outlined in the local plan, and the existing and lawful use is for offices. An affordable workspace unit of 251 square meters is proposed at basement and lower ground level. It would be accessed at ground fall level from Yardley Street there, highlighted in yellow. The area in GA would meet the local plan policy B4 of 10% of the uplift in commercial office floor space. However, the council's inclusive economy team objected to the proposed unit. With regard to its location within the basement and lower ground level, the awkward layer of the unit and on the core lack of outlook on natural light. The unit is considered to offer porous standard quality than the rest of the proposed office, at the market office floor space within the building. The CGI images on screen from the applicant's submission and concerns to be previously raised in the mountain of natural light to these areas. Given the roof lights above, up first or level or ground floor level, sorry, would have shading above the terrace on the subsequent roof lights. It is acknowledged that the scheme has removed a floor since this missed appeal. This has significantly improved the relationship of the proposed building throughout and it is considered a positive change. The image on screen and the moment just shows the proposed building in the wider context of surrounding buildings. The Montreal Street animation has undergone the most revisions from the dismissed appeal scheme. Compared to the other motivations, these include the reduction of a full story, removal of the projecting cube of the previous scheme, splitting of the bays, introducing an indicative break between bays, introducing open windows, amended the window proportions, revised brick and metal colours, and introducing recessed brick and coarse web of the bays. The subtle changes have came to the elevation from being a visibly commercial building into one that adopts some residential proportions as shown on the screen. However, next screen please. Officers consider that the proposal still falls short in meeting the main challenge of activation, of the larger street elevation, and the resulting quality of the street scene remains poor. Next slide please. Breaks and punters in setbacks with an elevation in between the bays were introduced on subsequently replaced with a film, fun, these breaks are not considered to provide sufficient activation or animation, whilst further concerns include the refinement of the elevation clusters is detailing to break the redness long elevation, and how it relates to buildings in the locality and vicinity. The base of the clusters is insufficiently robust to engage with the street escape in a positive manner, and officers consider there is no hierarchy between these elements to add differentiation that would break the redness approach to the elevation. Next slide please. By having the entry points located at the opposite ends of the block towards the top on the other street, and to the bottom end of the marginal street, and a long office footprint running the length of the marginal street, activation is meant to be provided solely from the façade's articulation and its uses. It is not considered that this is achieved due to the reliance of a bay design that is arrayed in a manner which is considered relentless, which coupled with the scale of the glazing. From four to ceiling height, gives an overall corporate character to a primarily residential area. This is resulted in a incongruous design, which does not relate sufficiently well to its context and harmfully impacts on the quality of the local streetscape. Next slide please. To Yardley Street, the building splits into two sections, a two-story elevation that links with the listed terrace, which is shown in the top left image, and a three-story elevation that links with the rest of the block on the other side. The two-story link has elements which relate to the terrace and the square more prominently than the rest of the building. While this is a sensitive approach to the materiality and scale in the sensitive location, the ground floor use results in blank frontage on the applied material choice of metal due to the location of the bin stores and fire escapes, resulting in insensitive contrast to the terrace. The doors to the Julia balconies are not shown as being audible, which undermines edomastic reference. Next slide please. This is the view from Onilton Square. Next slide please. This is the corner of the building on the main entrance, shown on screen. So that's Yardley Street and Model Street Corner. Next slide please. In terms of the corner entrance, the design uses a contilevered open corner. This isn't considered a incongruous feature within the setting of the conservation area and the immediate residential context. The scale of the entrance void also appears to be handfully excessive in relation to the proportions of the host and entrance module. This book ended entrance configuration also results in the relentless elevation along Margar Street and that is not sufficiently activated by other design interventions. Overall in design and appearance terms, the scheme has made improvements to the elevations. However the remaining key issues with the impact on the street scene brought from the elevation of Margar Street, the lack of finesse along the Yardley Street, the corner entrance and issues with the amenity along the south elevation. Next slide please. The site is not located within a conservation area, however it is adjacent to the new river conservation area. As shown highlighted on the screen, there are a number of statutory listed buildings adjacent and enclosed proximity as shown in the out of docks. The proposal is considered to, by virtue of its unsympathetic design, adversely affect the character and special architectural and historic interest of the nearby listed buildings and conservation area. The proposal would therefore cause less than substantial harm to the significance of heritage assets. The application submission asserts if there is indeed harm, that it will be outweighed by the planning benefits of the scheme, some of which may be public benefits. The suggested benefit, which in officer's view are considered to be always stated, due to either being policy compliance, mitigation or of little weight in the planning moments, are incapable of outwing the harm to the identified designated heritage assets. It is considered the proposal does not fulfill the local policy requirements of high quality architectural design, to overcome the level of harm to the surrounding heritage assets. Next slide please. Turning to residential amenity, the proposal is considered acceptable, except for the impact caused to daylight receive to neighbouring windows and rooms and the loss of privacy and thereby functionality of the joining residential shared amenity space. Next slide, please. To the rear of the site is the shared amenity area for as shown on the left image. At the rear elevation as existing, there are a number of windows at lower ground and the ground floor level. The image on the right shows the existing amenity space, which in the last few years has been refurbished. Let's slide please. The proposal seeks to introduce the vast amount of fanistrations to all floors of the building, including basement/lower ground and ground floor level. Although there are some existing windows, the proposed number of unlookational proposed windows would exacerbate the feeling of being overlooked, leading to a loss of privacy, unless diminishing the function of the amenity space for users. Turning to daylight, the image on screen shows which is a five-storey building located to the northwest of the site. Next slide, please. 30 windows and 13 rooms facing the site were tested which would not need to be a re-guidance and they are shown on-table and screen null. The living rooms at ground floor level were to the largest of the reductions between 43 percent and 49 percent. Next slide please. Sorry, previous slide. The transgressions reported are an improvement of the appeal scheme. It's worth noting that it needs to be knowled. Next slide please. St Anton's is also a five-storey building located adjacent to Benigny house, which is at the site. Next slide please. 24 windows tested, we see reductions beyond BRE. So much of the reductions are located ground floor level with the largest being 28.9 percent. Turning to daylight distribution, telling the rooms tested would see reductions beyond BRE. 6 of these rooms located ground floor level and the large reduction being 49 percent. When compared to the previous appeal scheme, the current scheme is an improvement with in VSC, especially with five-dimensional windows, now meeting BRE guidance compared to the previous scheme. Whilst daylight distribution, there's also an improvement with two additional rooms meeting the BRE guidance. Next slide please. 17 to 23 OutLeve street is a terrace row of four-storey buildings with mains and nets at ground and first floor and then second and third floor. One of the 32 windows and 14 of the 28 rooms tested received reductions beyond BRE. Next slide please. They are shown on screen at the moment. When compared to the previous scheme, the current scheme is an improvement, especially in VSC with 19 additional windows, now meeting BRE guidance. And in daylight distribution, and there's one additional room which would now meet BRE guidance. Next slide please. 8 to 27, sure some court is a five storey building to the rear. Next slide please. 11 windows and one room would now not meet BRE guidance. It's important to acknowledge that the identified windows serving kitchens look out onto the deck access to sure some court properties via walkway balconies. A alternative assessment in which the other hand has been removed and the windows are not obstructed has been taken of the applicant. Next slide please. That's shown on screen now. The results show that the balconies do cause harm to the light with the balconies in place as existing the windows would have a very low value and perceptible to reduction in light. And the without balconies assessment does show that all windows and rooms all windows and rooms would meet BRE guidance without the balconies. However, it should be acknowledged that balconies cannot actually be removed from the existing building. And while the testing shows that the existing levels of light to these windows is low, as a result of the deck access, light would still be reduced on these impact ways against development in the planning balance. Thanks again. Turning to energy and sustainability. Energy statement was submitted with the application elements such as the Sustainable Design Standards, Bealeen, Bgreen, Bgreen were accepted by the Council's Energy Officer. However, the assessment in carbon emissions, especially the regulated and regulated emissions fell short. In the absence of that information against a 2011 baseline, the energy officer has objected. And also within the absence of detail and commitment as to how an proposal will meet the GA's BC requirements. Turning to the whole life carbon, neither the whole life cycle carbon, or the retrofit versus new build report, submitted by the applicant, refers to the carbon emissions associated with pre-construction definition, which are quantified within the pre-domination order report. This element should be considered as a critical factor within the analysis. The calculation of the whole life cycle should be provided for each of the three scenarios that is explored within the submitted retrofit versus new build report. Our search, the absence of the detail, is contrary to London Plan policy Si-2 and local Plan policy S4. The upfront carbon emissions there, that shows 747. That would meet the GA's benchmark, however, the operational carbon at 457 would have exceeded the benchmark of 450, so that was also objected to. Turning to circular economy, the circular economy statement was submitted, elements of the statement was supported by officers, sustainability officers, however, details relating to the use of components and materials that can be reused and recycled, were vague and often involved in law commitments. Firm commitments were required and would need to be secured as part of the submission. Next slide please. No flood risk assessment in which demonstrates how the requirements of local Plan policy S8 parts B, C, D, and E are being applied with. A further response from that, I can ask whoever to subtly address the issues previously raised in regards to drainage and maintenance and as such refusal, reason 7 recommended by officers has been revised. I'll hear that later. Next slide please. In summary, the committee has asked to resolve that it would have refused planning permission for this application as set out in the reasons of Appendix 1. Should the application have not been appealed to the planning inspector for non-determination? Next slide please. By waiver revisions, with regard to reason 2, the correction in policy H1 was incorrectly referenced. This should have been Hc1. Next slide please. Reason 2, reason 3, the clarification of the impact of the proposed on neighbouring residents. Next slide please. Finally reason 7. The removal of reference to sustainable drainage and the relevant policy is that. Next slide please. Thank you. That concludes the office presentation. Thank you. Commissioner, we've got any questions we want to ask on the Supreme Court today to come to the north? Thank you Chair. In terms of sunlight and daylight, there's obviously quite a lot of transgressions of BRE guidance which is concerning to see. To what extent is the current proposal a betterment of the appeal scheme, but have that comparison been done to see how much they've improved over the two iterations? Yes, so in quantum there is improvements in both the quantum and quality. As shown in the tables earlier, the VSC has improved over the appeal scheme but like I say that there are still significant losses, especially through NSL, to some of the ground floor and first floor properties at the Newton House and Tint ENSAPs. Yeah thanks. My question is similar to Councillor North because I really well, I would not expect anything less from our planning offices that they would seek high standards from an application and this, so I welcome this, but this loss of light and affecting so many windows, what would you like to see from the applicant that would make that an improvement, improve on that and the other question is why has it deleted water integration management at the end of that? So firstly with regard to the water management and drainage, the Council Sustainability Officer has reviewed the updated information that was submitted as part of the appeal from the applicant and yeah, concluded that that not now has been addressed so that them comments have fallen away and it's purely just the flood risk assessment that is in absence and turning to the daylight and sunlight, as within the committee report we fully acknowledge that there are transgressions and that they weigh against the scheme and without the required benefits, public benefits that were brought on by the application and the proposed building, they would not outweigh the harm that is caused within the wider planning balance. Just returning to the issue of overlooking, in kind of before we got to the point over and appear for non-determination in the discussions with the applicant where any solutions explored that would mitigate the overlooking issue to the rear of the proposal? Yes, they were suggesting conditions to secure not for to ceiling height but say 4 to 1.71.8 metre high, obscure glazing or strips behind that glazing to protect the residential meanity of that external space. However, what has to be enlarged as well is that the the windows are built right up to the boundary line with that area so whether that was a ball being kicked to to that or damaged along that boundary, officers didn't feel that was sufficient in mitigating the harm that would be overlooking. I'm sorry, that's not just two gravel level that's also as you rise the building as well. Hi, Councillor HAMTOSCH. Great, thank you. In terms of the whole life carbon assessment, you mentioned that one of the figures met the benchmark target and did it meet the aspirational target? No. Is it right that this building started its life as a multi-story carport? If I would presume that means that the floor to ceiling height must be fairly constrained. And also, I gather that the of the two entrances, the entrances are positioned at either end of the building, aren't they? But that actually the entrance at the lower end of the building is on a different floor from the entrance on the upper end, isn't it? So, that means that the gradients of the road, as it passes the building, actually drops by an entire floor, so which is quite a dramatic change, isn't it, in terms of the gradients? And so, that brings me on to what I feel is a slightly to the key question at this point is that there has been suggestions from offices that this is a question to our design officer. That's the feeling that there should be more, the front is just a bit more animated. I've always understood animated front systems to mean basically accesses through the frontage in order to generate movements of people. But given that the grade drops an entire floor across the width of the elevation I got, I didn't see how on earth you could achieve more entrances in that elevation. So, could you talk a little bit more about what exactly you are looking for in terms of, assuming you've agreed with me, that the proposition of trying to introduce more accesses through the elevation would be one of the most impossible due to the grade. What exactly is it you're looking for in terms of animation? Yes, the layout has been dedicated on access from the ends. The location of the lift core, to the middle, was also facilitated flexibility of the floor plates when treated as a whole. In terms of the ground floor and the first floor as well, the ground floor and the lower ground floor has read continuously. Yes, as you mentioned, it would make it very difficult to add another entrance because of that dramatic level change, which then leads that the main chance for the applicant would have been to provide activation without providing access, but by other means precisely because the building is sort of such long length to break the relentless appearance that it presents. What the applicant has introduced breaks and changes to the window of Administration undeterly, and the pillars at the base, the way in which they've come to achieve to the design that has not, in office's views, been enough to address the impact on the street scene, on the quality of the street scene, and sufficient activation that could have been brought by other means, such as better articulation of the gaps between the base to position ways of the floor space spaces to look out, much more actively to the street scene, and this was something that the DRP mention, or other ways in which the windows themselves could sort of diagonally splay or be broken even further so that activation can achieve by other means than traditional passive surveillance. Thank you, any further questions from the committee, can I have some calm way? Okay, let's press a little bit further on the whole knife carbon assessment. It doesn't seem to include the pre-construction demolition, is that correct? Yeah, so that's the information that's lacking from the whole life carbon assessment, it's the pre-dimensional audits. And the relevant emissions that would come from the definition. I'll just pass that six, that's quite a significantly demission in a way, so the whole life carbon they may well just pass on construction and usage, but the removal of what's already there is a huge carbon cost, which seems to me is quite inadequate to present just the easy bits of the whole life cycle carbon assessment and not the really tough improvement. I think we can return to that point under deliberation. Any more questions? Councillor Haze. Yes, thank you very much. In the recommendations, the proposed reasons that planning would have been refused is reference to the entrance and certainly it does appear from the images that that would be very likely to encourage anti-social behaviour and does not appear to have been planned as if it is part of a highly residential area. Could you just tell us a little bit more about any feedback on crime and safety in relation to that? Thank you. [silence] Yes. So the Council did consult with the matter police designing a crime officer, and they returned back and said that they had been working with the applicant and pre-application stage through to the submission of the application and they actually raised no objections to the scheme. I will be there to suggest that a condition should be included if it was to be approved in regards to securing the secured by design and accreditation. [silence] Following on from that question, that does seem to be a slightly confusing position for the police, isn't it? Because is it not quite possible that a secure by design officer looking at that scheme would then start asking for things like railing some gates and things to to fence the area off? Yes. And essentially they would recommend that lighting and or ongoing management of that space from the operational side of things would emit the social behaviour. Sorry, I don't quite understand what. Who said that? The design, turning on crime officer in that place. So can you just repeat what he said again? I'm not sure I'm following that. So they raised no objection, and they respectfully requested that the secured by design is considered and made a condition of any planning approval. So they haven't objected to the design in principle of the Councillor Evert entrance. Right, okay. But as a planning committee, presumably we can differ with that opinion if we want to. I think the committee would regard as a material consideration, so I bet we can come to that. Can we get there? So any more questions on the committee? No. I take it, members of the public, you're in principle objecting to the scheme, is that right? We're in the slightly odd position, because we already have a recommendation to refuse the application. It puts you in the slightly odd position as objectives, but I'd suggest as if we do have reasons for refusal, and I presume you've seen them. If you have anything to do any of you wish to speak, and if so, I'd suggest if you've got anything particularly odd to add to what's already been suggested as reasons for refusal. Thank you Chair, yes, I mean I represent the March Street Tennyson residence association. So I should just mention you've got three minutes to speak, so what's the clock? Thank you, I mean we objected to the scheme during the construction period. We note that the applicant has made changes to the previous scheme which was refused that appeal, and that we don't believe that the change made, surprisingly removing the floor, has improved the loss of daylight and sunlight to a number of properties on Monterrey Street, particularly in Bagnard Jones'ondo's house. So really we're only wanting to appeal tonight to you to obviously refuse the application and support the officer's recommendation, and that we are obviously very prepared to support the Council at the appeal in a similar way that we did to the previous appeal when we gave access to the inspector, to the properties that we thought were going to suffer, loss of immunity, loss of daylight and sunlight, and just picking up on a point that was made early, I think the significant issue of loss of daylight and sunlight is that the applicant is merely looking at the improvement that they think the scheme has had to the level of loss, whereas in fact they should be comparing the, against the current situation of the building that sits there at the moment, and from the figures that we've been able to get from the officer's report, it's quite clear that in a number of instances, the against the BRE 20% guideline, there are still substantial losses of daylight and sunlight to at least 10 properties in Bagnard and St. Ann's. So in summary, we support the refusal and that we would recommend that further work is done by the officers too, along the lines that I just suggested to ensure that the comparison of loss of daylight and sunlight is against the current situation and not just comparing this scheme, but the previously reviewed scheme, thank you. Thank you very much. Does anybody else who's to speak? May, yes. You have three minutes. Thank you. Yes, thank you for the chance to speak tonight. My name is David Nassar. I'm speaking on behalf of the Wilmington Square Society, which is as it says, a society based in Wilmington Square, we've represented about 40 households in Wilmington Square. So we just want to register our support of the council in its rejection of the planning application. We will also be willing and intend to support council in the planning inquiry as well. Our objections to planning application broadly and in summary, conservation matters that proposed development threatens the historical character of the new river conservation area and also the grade two listed at Wilmington Square. We believe that the development will detract from the area's architecture, integrity and historical significance, and also we believe it's an inappropriate densification of office use in a predominantly residential area. We have privacy and noise concerns and design of the proposed building, including open roof spaces and post-significant privacy lighting noise concerns for residents. We also have concerns around the deliveries and refuse collection. Current plans for refuse collection and delivery are inappropriate. We believe particularly they involve reversing vehicles, which we think is a danger to pedestrians and to cyclists. We also note that the proposed schedule extends to non-business hours, and we believe that would disrupt residents' tranquility. Our Square is also affected by, and we have great sympathy for the residents who will lose light. I myself have been subject to a similar situation, although I lost light in my own garden, not actually my windows, which is less bad. I can safely say it does actually make a different, quite a significant difference to quality of living. We don't just say no, we say, yes, we would prefer that the existing building would be refurbished instead of the proposed plans. We believe it's environmentally unsustainable that office buildings built now are designed for a 40 or 50 year life. The building itself is about 50 to 60 years old. We also believe that it's architecturally and socially, potentially undesirable that every planning commission appears to increase density and size of the building. One thing I'd also note just in closing is that I suspect, and I think I've heard that the developer will suggest that the only economical way of developing the building is by demolishing it and building a larger building, that is because I think we need to be careful not to be fooled by that. He may be correct in saying that, but that's because he'd pay too high a price for the building at the site. I don't think it's right that residents should suffer harm from this proposed building in order to rectify that. Thank you. Members of the committee have any questions for either of the objectors in this book or just on the question of Whatever particular it would appear that it's not policy compliant given that local plan policy T5 says that delivering and servicing should be off street and go in and leave the site and afford gears. So what's the view on that in terms of compliance with that policy? Yep. The previous appeal scheme also had similar arrangements for delivery servicing from Yardley Street. The concern has been with Margin Street as the one way street, obviously down hill. So the stopping of heavier vehicles therefore either deliveries and or refuse and recycling. Lori's would cause safety concerns and obviously with it being within an urban block it would be very very difficult and would probably take apart the site if servicing had to be on site in terms of gaining the access and allowing for sufficient turning points within the site. So in this instance although it's not strictly in compliance with policy for for gear entrance on the exit due to the site constraints it can't be supported. I think my thoughts on that but the risk of proceeding to collaboration chair would be the previous the existing building does have off site servicing. So that has been kind of established situation on site and given that the Yardley Street is if also effectively a cycle if it's a formally designated cycle way but there's certainly a cycle filter that leads up from Margin Street onto Yardley Street then reversing servicing arrangements would be inappropriate at that location. So I would probably be reminded to add that to our list of reasons for refusal if the members agree with me. Any other questions for me? Okay so we move to deliberation now. Now I'd suggest that try to think how to pick through this. Can I start in choir first of members of the committee? We may want to add or change reasons for refusal but it's everybody satisfied in principle that we are working towards a refusal of this application. Nobody's fundamentally disintegrated that. Okay okay I'd suggest that we go through the reasons for refusal and see if we agree with them or want to amend them and see if we want to add any as well as council nor have we just suggested. Which is a bit of an exercise but does anybody want to raise any particular points before we go through that exercise? Is there any way we can improve the loss of light situation as the objectives have said that you know something needs to change regarding the current situation to improve it. There is a reference to that in reason three of the recommended reasons for refusal. Suppose development by reason is inappropriate now. Like Masin seems to face a residential property result in unacceptable harm to the administrative labour in residence through lots of daylight receipt experienced in windows and rooms. I think that does cover that point. Does anybody want to raise anything else in relation to that? So I'd suggest that looking at these the paps of total of nine reasons for refusal of it. I would suggest that four of them go to the heart of the design of the building and the other five technical admissions of one sort and another are needed to support the development but presumably would involve further office work to produce those submissions but wouldn't necessarily actually change the design of the building but just provide proper justification for it. So I think suggests that we'd be more interested in the first four reasons and possibly having something about slope setting arrangements which are minded to approve anyway. So if we take these reasons one at a time the first reason is about design and in relation to the elevations design elevations and animation of the street elevation and inactive frontages. I asked a question about this earlier on and we are talking about architectural treatments and not simply access. My feeling is that I would like to slightly reword part of this reason based on what we've heard about in the application and just to maybe sharpen up and give us a bit more focus to the wording. So what I'm suggesting is that in line four it says that the in congress appearance in the street scene is used to design of the fenestration what my understanding is due to the florter ceiling design of the fenestration and so I'd like to add reference to that and where it says the building presents an uncountacy, corporate, and relentless street elevation. I'm not particularly comfortable with the real collapse, which I think is maybe slightly patriotic. So I'd quite like to take that word out and where it makes reference to poorly detailed and unresolved corner entrance I think the fact that it's cantilevered is a very prominent aspect of the design of that part of the building and I'd like to add some words to say that the poorly detailed and non-contextual cantilevered corner elevation just to sharpen that up. So I'd like to propose those changes is anybody else want to say anything else about the wording of that reason? Would anybody like to second okay in which case we will amend that condition plus where there are consolidated amendments with some of the the typos that the office planning office mentioned earlier on obviously those things go in as well. The second reason is it's two with the impact on the great two listed buildings and the conservation area. The second sentence in this reason says the proposal is not considered to be of high quality contextual design. I find that a rather extreme statement it does sound very damning to me of the any possibilities of design ever achieving a relevant standard of quality. I would suggest that we change the word to say the proposal falls short of the high quality contextual design demanded by this transitional location which hopefully steers towards the question of how the building relates to both of its neighbours more specifically. There's anybody else want to say anything else about a reason too? No. Do I have a seconder for those changes? Thank you. Okay. Reason three, proposed development by reason of this inappropriate layout massing and proximity to facing residential properties will result in an acceptable harm to the amenity of neighbouring residents through lots of daylights, received experience to windows and rooms of those properties and unacceptable levels of overlooking resulting in loss of privacy and usability to the adjoining residential community garden and play area, all of which we've already talked about. Anybody want to change any of that at all? No. I'll take the opportunity in the reason four, proposed affordable works space unit fails to provide high standard of amenity for occupiers. The officers already explained that to us the location and the very awkward design. I think that's fairly obvious from just looking at the plans and that's not acceptable. So reason five, whole life cycle carbon emissions, are we happy that that does actually pick up all of the aspects of life cycle carbon, Council concrete? Are we missing? I've got to impression that we were missing a bit from your comment. Well I don't think that the whole life carbon is properly dealt with here because there's similarly a pre-construction demolition carbon cost of almost three thousand tons which ought to be weighed in the balance as well. I think it's also worth saying that the operational carbon of the building is actually above the GLA benchmark. Not by lots but slightly above and certainly well off the aspirational carbon aspect. you [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO]

Is this development suitable to us for apprenticeship money? So yeah, all the relevant contributions that required through the planning obligations ask PD and policy will be all would be secured if it was to be approved and unoutlined and in that case, it will be picked up by the 106 agreement. If that existed, which apparently doesn't. [BLANK_AUDIO] Thank you, yeah, it's just going to say, I think, bearing in mind, I would agree with your assessment that the first four reasons are the ones that are not easily resolvable without a change in design, and they are significant, and so any benefits that work contained in other agreements would need to be very substantial. And not just policy compliant to address the serious reasons that there would be for us to have refused this application. Well, absolutely. So this wouldn't be the first application recently, where we've seen applicants trying to claim various contributions that are merely policy compliant as being benefits, and the value balance, which simply doesn't work like that. But I mean, that would be with officers to negotiate, I think if we got back to a point where section 106 was being put forward, and obviously, what we've discovered over several years now is that the principle of exceptionality is what helps tilt planning balance, where there are harms or negative impacts of development. Well, Council North, who said you'd like to include something about servicing arrangements, you've got to suggestion how you'd like to put it. I'd be happy to delegate the exact word into officers in consultation with yourself. What we want to establish with this is that we would like them to revisit the servicing arrangements with a view to providing on-site servicing as exists for the current building. Exactly. I don't know. Flora, are you writing it down? I'm just writing it down. Okay, thank you. It was just worth reminding ourselves that the absence of a 106 speaks to the fact that the developers walked away, because we would expect to have a head of terms of 106 and negotiated and brought to committee for. And I think it's difficult for them to prevent some of the improvements and just to reflect on the fact that this is a highly confrontational way of dealing with a local plan authority, to have been engaged in constructive, meaningful, and presumably purposeful negotiations and then they just walk away and hope that they might get better results going to a planning inspector, which of course, on the first iteration turned out not to be correct. And as a planning authority, I think we do pride ourselves on negotiating fairly with applicants and trying, and as I would say, from the committee perspective, I would like to keep trying to keep the ball in play. But we were suddenly cut off from negotiations at that point when officers felt that we were getting close to what could have been a great solution is very, very heavy-handed and confrontational, as you say. So we worked our way through the reasons for refusal. Does anybody on the committee want to add anything more before we take a vote? No, we're all done. So in which case, those in favor of supporting officers' recommendation to refuse are on the reasons as set out and amended in our discussions. So thank you very much, and that refusal is agreed. Thank you for attending, and we had to have some other administrative business to carry out, which I don't think will be of interest to you at all. Right. So, appointment planning subcommittees, I've circulated, suggested membership for the two committees, we have appointed vice chairs to both both committees, council, health, and membership for those two committees. So, I think all the committee needs to do is to agree. That membership is that agreed. Thank you. I think it's with, in my experience, it's with the committees to actually appoint a vice chair to the committee. So I'll leave that to the two vice chairs at this committee, who chair the committees to arrange those two appointments for the vice chair of the subcommittees. Yes. I think there's something else we need to do, isn't there. No, is that it? Are we done? Okay. Yeah, okay. Just we note that the quorum for both the main committee and subcommittees is three members, which has been something that's been raised on certain objectives recently. Yeah, that is correct. Okay. In which case there being no further business, I declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.