Transcript

of Planning, Self B Committee. My name's Councillor Ruth Hayes and I'll be chairing tonight's meeting. Please note we're not expecting a fire alarm test this evening, so if the alarm does sound please follow the instructions and evacuate the building because we're not expecting a test. Before we commence the business I'll start by asking my fellow members and officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right. Councillor Toby North, St Peter's and Canalside Ward and subbing for Councillor Martin Clute. Councillor Bidai Handash, Highbury Ward. Nat Baker, Head of Development Management. Siobhan McCool, Planning Applications Team Manager. Luke Bates, Planning Officer. Emma Taylor, Clerk to the committee. Laura Avery, Legal Advisor. Elidri Kynan, Head of Design and Conservation. Thank you very much. Can I just confirm the apologies for absence that we've received for this evening? Councillor Clute, Councillor Clark, Councillor Sproul. We've already had a declaration from Councillor North that he's attending as a substitute member. Are there any declarations of interest? Thank you. So on to the order of business. As chair I've got discretion to bring forward items or to vary the order of the agenda where there's a lot of public interest and if there are many objectives to an application I will request that you keep it concise and to time when you're invited to speak to ensure it's there for everyone who wants to be able to to speak. So to determine the order of business I'll ask for a show of hands to see who is here for each item. So item B1 which is 48 Great Sutton Street. Okay so I think that's two people. Thank you and item B2 which is 33 to 37 Corsica Street. So that's two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Make that ten. Okay in which case I propose that we take Corsica Street first in order that people don't need to stay for the entire meeting. We did have three objectors registered to speak. Can I just see who is here expecting to speak? So that is three of you that's great and so when we get to that point of the meeting I'll invite you to speak for three minutes each. There is a timer in front so you can see I will be quite strict on the time because obviously we need to be fair and then the applicant will have the chance to respond for the same length of time. If you don't need to take all three minutes so if you feel you've made the points that you want to make in less than that that's absolutely fine. Thank you. In which case we move on to item A6 which are the minutes of the last meeting. Can I ask if the committee agrees the minutes of the previous meeting? Thank you very much indeed. Before we move on to the items B1 and B2 I'd just like to highlight that this is not a public meeting it's a meeting of the committee held in public and so all remarks should be addressed through me as the chair. Just to run through the order the item will be introduced by one of the planning officers. Committee members may then ask questions of the officer. Objectors will then be invited to speak and perhaps between you you might decide the order in which you would like to speak followed by the applicant. As I've said the objectors and the applicant are normally allowed to speak for no more than three minutes each. After the objectors have spoken the applicants would have the same length of time so if there are three objectors that would give the applicant up to nine minutes to speak. The committee will then discuss the application and only those invited to speak at this stage will be able to do so. When the committee has finished its deliberations I shall read out the officer recommendations and then we will proceed to a vote of the committee. Once the vote has been taken there can be no further discussion of the item. So we now move on to consideration of item B2 which is 33 to 37 Corsica Street. Please can the planning officer introduce this item. Yeah so this is for the demolition of the existing house and the erection of a replacement house. So just as an update a further four objection letters were received but these were from existing residents who had previously objected and covered a lot. I think some people are having difficulty hearing, I don't know whether they might be. So yeah further four objection letters were received but they were from existing residents who had previously objected to the scheme and raising the same issues. So this is the site here. So this is an aerial view of the site so it's the building in the centre. So it's quite a large house in the current situation. So these are photos of the street scene and there's a quite prominent Indian bean tree in the front garden. So these are some plans of the existing house so it's quite a large ground floor footprint and extends over three stories and these are some elevations and section drawings of the existing house. So this is the proposed scheme and these are some new CGI's that were provided that removed the trees that were originally proposed to the street. So this is looking north and this is looking south and these are some isometric views of the existing house in the top left at the proposed house in the top right and their proposed house in the bottom as well. So these are the elevation drawings for the proposed house. The red patch lines indicate the outline of the existing house and they also indicate the existing window placement on the elevations of the existing house. So it has a similar depth to the existing home although has a slightly different form to the street scene. And these are plans of the existing house. On the left we have the ground floor plan the top right we have the basement and the bottom right we have the first floor plan. So it's quite a large home that meets all space standards and provides good quality of accommodation. So these are section drawings of the home which are ceiling heights and kind of the roof form of the house. And so this kind of is a comparison of the existing built footprint and the proposed built footprint. So the left is the existing house at ground floor level and the proposed is on the right. So there is an increase in garden space and a reduction of the built form of what's present and below the pink lines indicate the area of the basement that falls outside of the ground floor footprint which is 28 square meters and just underneath to the north of the site. So this is the existing landscaping situation. So there are six trees on the existing site one of which is the Indian bean tree in the front garden and the remaining are in the back garden. So five of these trees one of which is already dead are proposed to be removed and four of the trees are either category B or category C trees. And then you have the fifth tree to be removed is a Japanese maple which is category U as it's not a live tree and the tree in the bottom left of the site is due to be retained. So this is the proposed landscaping layout. So there's 12 new trees dotted around the site as you can see here and then the bottom left you can see the retained tree. So in total there'll be 13 trees on the site in the proposed condition. So this is the existing highways layout. So they're proposing to set the building back from the highway and so be a modest gain in the width of the public pavement to either side of the splay the proposed front boundary wall and there would also be a removal of one of the vehicle crossovers as well. So there'll be a modest benefit here. In terms of sustainability it achieves quite high sustainability standards and meets our local pan policies. It has a biodiverse green roof, has four air source heat pumps on the roof and the roof also incorporates solar panels and we think overall that it provides a better quality dwelling in this context and it is recommended that planning finishes granted subject to conditions and a unilateral undertaking for the contribution of nine thousand pounds towards planting of three new trees in the locality. So this is in addition to the trees proposed on the site. A section 278 highways agreement for the changes to the highway and what's missing there is also a financial contribution of one thousand five hundred pounds towards net zero carbon offsetting which is the standard fee for a new build home. That concludes the presentation. Thank you very much indeed. Firstly can I ask if the committee has any questions about the presentation? Councillor Hamdash. I just want to get clarity actually. So I did ask earlier about the net zero carbon target and whether or not the development will be net zero carbon and 9.107 says as the development would not achieve net zero carbon the remaining CO2 issues will be offset by financial contribution. So I just want to check is this development meeting net zero carbon or is it levying the flat fee because it doesn't? So it's levying the flat fee because it doesn't meet net zero carbon. However there is the commitment to achieve the four star rating under the BRE home quality mark. It achieves the full fabric NG efficiency standard and it results in carbon emissions of 83 over the notional dwelling as per part l of the building regulations. So it achieves quite high sustainability standards overall but no it doesn't achieve full net zero hence the contribution. And how far off net zero carbon is it? I mean is there any kind of statistics or because I'm not sure that's not in the report. And so if you look at the report in paragraph 9.106 in terms of carbon emissions it's an 83% reduction against the building rates 100% would be net zero carbon. Okay so we're 17% off. Okay thanks. Councillor North. Thank you chair. Just to sort of comfort ourselves that the premises has always been used as a single dwelling house. We've got no evidence that it's been subdivided and therefore redevelopment would result in a net loss of housing stock. No the prior planning permissions are for a single house on the site. If are there any further questions? Yes council Hamdash. So I'm conscious that a lot of the complaints have covered the matter of the tree in the front and I know that one of the points of discussion here is about the fact that the tree potentially would eventually cause structural damage. And is there any forecast on the likelihood or how soon that might be? I'm very conscious that a tree for now has some value of how long it might be before it starts to cause problems. I don't have a forecast on that but basically it's been maintained in their current location it's heavily heavily pruned quite regularly and that is to the detriment of its long-term health. But I can't give you an exact exact time period to that. Thank you. If there are no further questions at this stage from the committee we then move to hear from the objectors. The names that I've got as registered are Helen Law, Bronwyn Taylor and Richard O'Brien. Are you happy to be taken in that order? Okay in which case? Okay so we'll take Bronwyn first if you've got three minutes so if you'd like to start now. If you'd like to turn on your microphone please thank you. Yes can you hear me? I live next door. I'll be very affected by the height of the property, the back of the property proposed and I want to object to some of the statements in the planning report which are inaccurate. I've got some photographs here which I sent in my report that I sent to councillors because they imply that or they say that is this the existing roof and existing property give me a sense of enclosure in our garden which is totally untrue. It's a natural slate roof which slopes gently. It's behind mostly behind the big wall and I don't know if I can pass these photographs around. I'm afraid not. I'm afraid that's not possible. Okay well if you imagine we're sitting down in our living room or the the lower floor and you see a big wall and then you see a bit of a slate roof sloping behind it. Now that's not much enclosure at all. They say that the new building because it's four metres away from the wall although it goes up a lot higher will actually lessen the sense of enclosure. Now that's not true and they are weighing that up against my loss of light which is way above the limit that's agreed with the BRE measurements. The BRE measurement should say you shouldn't have more than 20 per cent loss of light to the garden and ours I think I worked out was 37 per cent. So you know that's a that's a sort of that's not true what they're saying about enclosure. We will feel a lot more enclosed and my neighbours behind will talk about that too how it affects the others. I my one of my main concerns though rather than just how it affects me at the back is to the people in the street and we've lived there 40 years almost and had I've got a big family we've walked up and down with lots of kids and buggies and you can see this still happening and it's it's horrible walking past that narrow bit of pavement and that big wall next to it and this is an opportunity and I'm going to ask Richard to sort of go into that detail more about it an opportunity to improve the environment there for the neighbours and in a new build you know why is that not being done? Okay I'll just pick up on that then shall I? I'll take people in order I'm afraid yeah we need to to follow through. Was that the end of yes I could just say that we're very concerned about the tree some of us can't be here unfortunately and Anne who wrote to you is a lot more clued up about the tree and the planting in the back and our point is that if the property is set back there could be plenty of room for the tree and that's not being considered when they say it's damaging the wall and there's not enough room for it so that's something that should have been considered and it hasn't been that's what I think we'd like to put forward. Thank you very much indeed. The next person that I have is Helen Moore. Hello thank you and just a second I am the neighbour next to Bronwyn and I have we have a diagonal bay window we're the only one in the actual row of the house that directly faces what we will see is the rear of the property and again just to reiterate it's sort of it seems to be a single-story property but the new back line is going to go from floor three down to floor one there's a huge diagonal and again it's going to block out our light too 37% is quite significant it's a third of less light in not a south facing garden so I think the sort of the beauty of our area and in the hybrid conservation area is greenery it's going to be a very big large mass we'll be looking at the side of the concrete wall and also the other thing I'm very concerned about when we moved in we've lived there two years is when we had a survey on our property we are in a very heavy area of subsidence there's quite a lot of substance in the streets and when you look at the footprint of where that basement excavation is going to come it's going to line up right about a meter away from Bronwyn's wall I want assurances that this huge noisy excavation where there's track there's train lines there's tube lines we've got cracks in our house already there are cracks down the street what's going to happen about that being safeguarded against us in an area where I know somebody else has refused a basement extension further down the road because of these problems but this is allowed that was my point the two points I'd like to make that's it thanks thank you very much indeed and the final speaker is Richard O'Brien thank you I would like to I would like to speak to the the point that was mentioned about the frontage it seems to me there's a huge opportunity here which is going to be missed this is a there's a lot of attention in the planning to so trying to make it fit in with the human side of the area now the one thing that the existing building doesn't do it sticks out like a sore thumb almost into the street with a very narrow pavement unlike anything that else in the area apart from the houses at the top which just replaced the mews and in fact all the houses have this sort of setback and all the new buildings that have been done recently in Corsica street and Calabria road you've seen them all set back so that when you walk along by them it's not a sort of cramped field now I don't understand why when you look at the plan the main building in fact is aligned the main big sort of round thing is aligned with the the neighboring houses and we'll go and set yet we're still going to have going to put up a huge wall right in front which as the report says will still lead to a pinch point and I know there are at least two families with disabled people who need to go up and down there it's a huge opportunity just to pull it back and go in a line and then the whole of Corsica street apart from the top it would have a very open space to go you also you could put trees in that but because they wouldn't constrain on the existing building as far as I can see it's just a huge wall which would be a total exception particularly to put a new one up now um from from the past so it seems to me to miss that opportunity and we miss it now yeah it won't come again and these opportunities come um from time to time and it'll be such for the human side of the building as opposed to I mean the climate is also an important and I should say the only other building opposite doesn't have that exit it was built instead of a performer factory but as a result you at the moment have got two buildings on either side of the street which don't have any open space around their pavements which is why it's such a sort of bottlenecky place thank you thank you very much indeed can I ask if there's any questions to the objectors we'll take any questions that might arise after we've heard the applicant Emma can you advise how long the applicants the applicants have nine minutes to make their case and it would be very helpful if you could address specifically the points that the objectors have raised both in their written submissions and here this evening thank you good evening everyone my name is David Conn I'm the director of David Conn architects and we're the architects that were hired to work for the client um the client bought the site in May 2021 so over three years ago and we started working in August of that year so coming up so the client bought the property in May 2021 over three years ago we were employed from August we're very proud of the work that we put in to this scheme in as much as we've followed due process very carefully we've had two pre-planning applications and both of those we met with colleagues on site and made significant modifications to the scheme we then invited our neighbors across the way to an event at the property we consulted them all of the issues that they have raised we subsequently changed the scheme in many ways that we would like to believe address their concerns and I would like to restate some of those this evening the indium bean tree does already cause major damage to the existing building that is there there are cracks that are visible in in the walls of the house as it stands so I think both the arboriculturist that we hired the arboriculturist that works with the council and a third arboriculturist asked to you know add extra security around this decision all agreed that the tree ought to go if there to be any house built on that site in close proximity it's not an appropriate tree in that location in front of a residential property we're very aware of the desire for a green neighborhood and our client as you will see perhaps privileged the garden on the plot before the house the house is smaller than the existing house the garden is considerably larger the house has been pulled back by four meters from all perimeter walls so the garden is all the way around he hired one of the country's leading landscape architects to design his garden which I think was a commitment to his interest we've increased the number of trees from seven to thirteen on the site two of which are at the front in close proximity to where the tree the indian bean tree is is suggested to be removed um I could speak directly to Bronwyn's comments and we deeply respect the neighbors and her concerns from the outset we tried to minimize planning risk minimize the impact on neighbors by moving the building that was built up against the party wall to Bronwyn's property four meters back if you take a diagonal line from standing in the garden past that wall to the height of the roof there is no significant increase in the height in terms of loss of daylight both the garden and hers have a significant tree coverage in them and our understanding from the daylight assessment was that there'd be no no loss of daylight within the garden certainly the property that we heard from Helen which is one property further away from the house it will have no effect whatsoever on the daylight and I suggest that it won't affect the view either in terms of the pavement width so there are at least nine properties along Corsica street that stand at at where this property is or further into the road so there are further eight properties that our neighbors live in on the street that project further the street is unusual it is a very varied street it has garages that have been converted into residential it has terraces it has a three-story warehouse next to the property that we're discussing and they project into the street as mews houses did and the property that our client bought happens to be one of the ten that is projecting further forward when we met the neighbors they made an impassioned case to give over some of the private property of our client to the public footway which we then did the footway now the facade is curved so that there is property that is owned by our client that will be within the public footway to widen it and I would just ask everyone to be aware that the nine other properties or the eight plus hours the projecting will still be there and will have narrower pavements than the pavement in front of our house I think it is a character of that street and not something particular to this property and then in terms of sustainability I appreciate the concern we feel we've done to achieve net zero in residential properties today is an admirable ambition and we've gone as far as we felt we could within some constraints around budget and sites and so we've you know we have four air source heat pumps an array of solar panels there's a water collection on the site all of the walls are super insulated with triple glazing so it is this is a client who has you know gone a long way to meeting the most exacting standards in terms of addressing the climate crisis in terms of excavation we we hear the concerns about the property we have committed we've done a structural method statement that's been submitted and agreed to we've said that there would be an engineer retained for the entirety of the construction period to monitor any movement there is a construction management plan condition and of course we would address all party wall matters as would be expected outside of the planning process in terms of the general appearance there were five supporting letters from experts who you know made the point that so a leading expert on muse houses says we've produced a design that represents a highly sophisticated development of the muse house tradition that is alice woodman who's the current director of the architecture foundation simon henley who is a member of visiting zone design review panel and is chair of the rba awards group so if the design acknowledges successfully its historic surroundings whilst the building is contemporary the plan form facades and chosen details and materials situated comfortably in its context of georgian and post-war buildings it was called by one of the objectives as a concrete wall it is not it is a soft brick with a dense mortar slurry and lastly judith lussing who is also a member of his design review panel is an expert on trees she gave a series of talks at the barbican over the last 18 months specifically on street trees wrote the proposal for corsica street in my view would be an excellent improvement to the street scene and borough overall and we did look into putting new trees on the pieces of land that our client gave to the public realm it was decided in discussion with council officers that would be more appropriate to give a donation of 9 000 pounds for three trees to be planted elsewhere which our client is happy to do um so i think uh if there's any other issues i'll try to think where was anything that's not covered um i have 43 seconds um i mean i think i answered the the points made and you know i'd like i'd like to just reiterate that everyone across the way we've met before you came to the house uh we heard you we changed the scheme i think um we'd like to feel that we we've met you uh in this through this process and i would you know uh commend the project to everyone in that in that context thank you very much indeed um we now move on to a discussion of the proposal and i'll first take any questions from the committee councillor hamdas great thank you and i'd like to ask a few questions the developer if possible and so i i do hear about the efforts that's been made to make the new building green but you are here demolishing a building that's 40 years old and i wanted to explore whether or not you'd looked at retrofitting rather than demolition or whether you look at any ways to kind of assess the kind of whole life carbon of knocking down a building that is quite so new yes absolutely so um i i should blow our trumpet in that we won the royal institute of british architects house of the year 2022 and the mansa medal at the architect's journal house of the year 2023 the latter prize was specifically for reuse of an existing cow shed that was 50 years old and which no one thought it was conceivable to turn it into a house so we have built a track record of reusing redundant structures for domestic properties that's been nationally recognized so yes the first thing we did was try to assess whether this property could be reused i um i mean you'll have to take my word this evening uh it is a very poor construction we had a contractor go in and strip off all the linings um the the brick work's very friable it has um not particularly substantial structure holding it up i think our neighbors across the way will be aware it's quite jerry built by the previous owner who made extensions himself it has a jacuzzi in the kitchen um it you know it i mean he was a music the guy in the music industry great fun has a lot of parties that was he kind of he had to have trap doors from the kitchen into bedrooms you could only get through trap doors there were large steel crates that were built into platforms on floors that you could only get to through dismantling the building uh you know we returned the crates to him it's a very eccentric house um i absolutely agree we've just won a competition in belgium to build what's called tape the next tape modern belgium take modern where we entirely reuse everything on the site because it's possible we remove all the bricks we reinstulate um the facade because the structure can take it and then we build a new facade using the same bricks it's called circular construction it was published in the architect's journal on friday so if we could we would have and the client has no interest in particularly building new for the sake of it this building isn't the one to try to do that with great thank you um another feature that i noticed is that um the introduction of an outdoor swimming pool and ask the question is that because i hated outdoor swimming pool or is it just a just a pool so it is heated um it's a narrow lane swimming pool um it's you know it's something that he's passionate about um it's you know between the house and um the party wall uh we we have looked into actually whether the it's one of the pools where the floor comes up so that there's minimal heat loss um yeah so and is that heated by the heat pump or is that so the air source heat pump provides energy for all of the systems within the building yeah thank you are there any other questions in the committee council or north yeah i just wondered if officers could set up the planning policy and legal contacts for this highways issue um just so we're really clear about what what we can and can't demand in in planning terms um i think in terms of um if you're looking to impose a condition for example requiring um more of the private property to be dedicated over to the public realm um i think in the context of this development that might be considered to be overly onerous and therefore unreasonable and you wouldn't be meeting the policy tests for imposition of a condition thank you yes did you have another question great thank you it's for the planning officers um so i'm conscious that the neighboring garden is the one place that doesn't meet bre guidance and i was wondering whether you could kind of quantify what what would the reduction in like feel like for that garden what what would what would change for the residents based on the new building there um yeah so it's a reduction to yeah so it's the one aspect of non-compliance with the bre guidelines um so there would be a noticeable loss of sunlight um but we consider that when balancing of the overall application and considering the benefits in terms of trees the public highway the setback from the neighboring boundary that overall it is an improvement on the current site condition but that is one aspect yeah and where there is a noticeable loss of sunlight but apart from that the impact to all internal windows at all neighboring properties is compliant with the bre guidance and to the other gardens as well just on the question counselor about what it would actually feel like the way that the bre test is done is it's how much sunlight hits the ground at the winter equinox at a two hour point um so if you were in the garden at that point in winter it would receive the percentage reduction of that area so that it is mapped in terms of which area would get less light so that would physically have a shadow over it is how it's actually assessed obviously then that is the test if you look at the summer it will obviously be different because the sun's high but the test is winter so you will have more shadow on the garden at that time of year are there any further questions or shall we move to deliberation i'm afraid that the opportunity for objectors to speak is uh during their um i'm afraid that it's for the committee to have the deliberation and so people can only if the if the committee had any questions for objectors uh they would be able to ask those but it it's not a debate uh that other sides can come in for essentially this is a committee meeting that that people are are invited to speak at uh but they cannot take part in the discussion it would be helpful to you i think but i'm afraid that there are rules about how the committee is held and we're not able to depart from that um we've been recommended uh to approve this application would either of you like to comment on recommendation and how you are minded thank you um i'm afraid on balance this isn't something i can support i think the impact on the neighbor's amenity and the fact that it doesn't meet net zero when we've aimed we're aiming for a net uh to meet the climate emergency by 2030 which is only six years away and the fact that the benefit to that here seems very minimal we're not we're demolishing a building but we're not getting new flats we're getting you know a luxury mansion of the basement with a swimming pool and you know the the impact on neighbors doesn't seem to provide any uh any benefit in return for the residents of highbury so i will be posing thank you for council and dash your comments have prompted me to want to ask another question but cats i'll take council north first okay um could i ask officers both on those my understanding is that there is a different requirement for developments of this size i.e a single property development in relation to net zero but could you clarify that and also could you clarify the position um my understanding would be that if it's currently a single um dwelling we we don't have powers to require uh that to be replaced with high-density housing so on the first question of the net zero carbon we have a hierarchy that it has to go through and this has been put through the hierarchy and the recommendation is that it is except is acceptable in that hierarchy and it doesn't achieve net zero carbon absolutely but the policy sets out that it's an ambition to achieve but how you achieve it is set out in a hierarchy and it meets that in terms of the replacement dwelling point and there is no net loss in a dwelling so it's one for one um which is what our policy looks at our policy does look at not reducing floor area so absolutely that weighs against the scheme but given the scale of the development the current dwelling what it's going down to my recommendation as an officer would be that that is not a point we could refuse on thank you very much councilor north thank you um chair whilst i'm sympathetic some of the comments that objectives have made um i i haven't seen within the papers within the presentation or in the discussion this evening any compelling reasons to refuse this application um and you know i would have to remind colleagues on the committee that if we do make decisions to refuse they do need to be grounded in really robust reasons that uh planning officers can defend appeal otherwise we might be liable to decisions for costs against the authority um on that basis we we see a lot of applications at planning committee which are you know really pushing the boundaries of what development is acceptable on certain sites and i'm pleased to see in this case that we've got what design is obviously subjective but what is considered by our design and conservation officers to be very good design but they've also kind of scaled back what they're doing on the site um to try and be considerate towards neighbors um so on that basis i would be happy to support officers recommendation to approve the application um and i think doing anything else would be irresponsible thank you very much council north i'd like to thank everybody for uh raising the points um that they have made both in written submissions and in person i am sympathetic to a number of the points that are made but i also appreciate that in the report it's been highlighted for example that the tree would the tree at the front would not be considered suitable for a true preservation order and therefore it's not within our powers to ensure that that does maintain them we've also heard that it's actually causing damage i'm also very sympathetic to the arguments about pavement width um it is a major issue for people getting around but i'm you know i'm mindful that our legal advice is that it would not be a reasonable condition for us to impose uh that property is essentially made available to highways in order to increase that um so having listened carefully to to what's been said i would also be supportive and i'd suggest we now move to the vote on this so can i see all those in favor of the recommendation thank you and those against thank you very much can i thank everybody for coming i know it's um i know a number of people had difficulty in making it this evening it is really important that we hear from residents and we're very grateful to you for your time uh and thank you to the applicant for having addressed the points that were made um there are no i don't think there's any additional there was no proposals for any additional conditions so thank you and we will now move on to consideration of the item uh which was listed as b1 which is Great Supper Street uh you're obviously it is a meeting held in public you're obviously very welcome to stay but i appreciate if people have come for one item they may wish to leave at this point so so thank you we'll we'll just have a couple of minutes pause to enable people who are leaving so we only have the applicant here wishing to speak on this it's a slightly unusual situation but i would suggest that we have uh we listen to the officer and i will give you as you've taken the opportunity to come the opportunity to speak for three minutes and then we'll move to deliberation so thank you um so this is 48 Great Supper Street um so this is the site outlined in red here just on the northern side of the street um so we're looking at a lower ground and ground floor unit which is highlighted in red in the image on the left and that's the front elevation and that's just an aerial view of the site um so in the current situation it is a flat but there's no prior planning permission for the use of the premises as a flat or a lawful development certificate um but basically council site records from 2005 suggest that it's been used as a two-bed flat since that day at least and so we've assessed this application on the basis that the lawful use of the existing premises is a two-bed flat so these photos show the internal layout so these are photos of the basement level um so it's the kitchen to the right is a bedroom which doesn't have a door due to the poor quality of daylight um these are some more photos of the internal layout and the pavement um pavement light bricks um so this is the existing lower ground and ground floor plan so on the left is the low ground floor plan where there's living space a kitchen a bedroom to the left and a bathroom on the ground floor there's also a living space the rear room is a bedroom uh there's also a bathroom on that level as well uh and so these are daylight provision contours so basically what this indicates is the green is very good quality daylight and effectively everything in gray is very poor quality so in particular the basement has a very poor quality of light very limited to no outlook effectively so overall it provides a very poor standard of accommodation to um as a residential flat um so it's proposed to convert this into an office space um over both floors uh it would feature internal cycle parking um it would still be a step into the building but there's a step into the building in the current situation um so there's no change in that regard um and obviously this is in the Bunhill and Clerkenwell area action plan area which with the policy support commercial units uses and office uses particularly on ground floors and there's a very minor change to the front elevation so we're looking at the building on the right hand side of both images um so just a change to the glazed glazing arrangement in the shop front um and the recommendation is to approve subject to the conditions in the report thank you very much indeed are there any questions councilman Arthur yeah I wondered if officers could just um update the committee on discussions around off-site cycle parking provision that might been had with the applicant um I know that it's sort of compliant with our policy in terms of on-site provision um but there were some discussions about potential off-site um yeah so the existing building doesn't have any outside space um and there's obviously a step into the building so they are proposing um indoor cycle storage including some cupboards for fold-up cycles but we did discuss with highways officers as there was a suggestion in the planning statement that you could provide a Sheffield stand to the front of the premises so there's no space directly in front of the building to accommodate a Sheffield stand but there could be scope to remove a bollard on the opposite side of the pavement and replace that with a Sheffield stand which would provide the defence um from cars crossing the pavement but also provide two cycle spaces um but the current proposal is for indoor cycle parking thank you are there any other questions at this stage in which case I'd like to invite the applicant to address us so you have three minutes and obviously there are no objectives for you to address but um if you would like to start now that would be great thank you uh thanks chair good evening members um Simon Wallace from Savills planning um I'm here representing Grainger who the applicant um when I bought premises it was already in use as a residential flat um but this this has been done without benefit planning permission by the previous owner whilst this residential use had been going on for some time and so have become lawfully established council tax records suggest it was from 2005 um it is not an appropriate place for a dwelling there are many shortcomings that make it a poor quality substandard place to live as you heard very poor internal light levels no real outlook poor layout and no outdoor mean space the dwelling is now empty and no one has lived there for a couple of years the premises was always a commercial unit before the unauthorised residential use and this application seeks to return it back to that commercial use which is much more appropriate for the building the buildings along Great Sutton Street all have commercial uses at ground floor making premises conscious so um ground floor and basement level and so the proposed reactivation of the ground floor will make premises contribute to the life of the street the current situation is dead frontage Great Sutton Street is in the Kaz and the Clerkenwell Bunhill action area and so a return to commercial use and the provision of more office space is welcome and beneficial to the size of space that would suit SMEs and startups and there are conditions limiting it to office and professional service use only the new shop front with its clear glazing improves the appearance at street level so this is helpful to the appearance of the conservation area the reinstatement of an active ground floor use also contributes better to the character of the conservation area which seeks a lively mix of uses at ground floor due to the constraints of the existing building it is not possible to provide step three access we have been able to introduce some internal cycle parking for the commercial unit that previously didn't exist but the constraints of the site mean it can't be provided outside the new shop front will improve the thermal performance of the unit and will use as much recycled content as possible thank you for the opportunity to speak and I hope you can support the application thank you very much indeed I'm afraid um unless you've registered there isn't an opportunity to contribute oh okay um I believe it is possible for you to make a comment as the ward councillor so uh please do come forward thanks chair um and thanks committee and thanks for your proposal uh my name's councilor Valerie Bostman-Kwashi um one of the ward councillors in Barnhill um Islington South and Pinsbury um area um just want to just make a comment if I may um which was about the I think I heard you say about the Bullard possibly being moved um to um provide access to a car space and I just wanted to kind of like just um I guess put to record that obviously one of our policies is about trying to um reduce um car usage in the local area and reduce um you know our carbon footprint and although I do respect um SMEs um having to have deliveries and things like that um and we have the um low combustion um policy as well I would kind of like things to be kind of kept the same if possible only because chair um there's been quite a lot of sometimes um disturbances locally for residents and passers-by I just wouldn't want to I guess um make any sort of change changes in that space if it didn't have to be because there's lots of other viable options for parking in the Barnhill area so the committee can kind of look at other spaces where we could make it um possible for that space to have car parking and that'd be really great thank you Thank you very much indeed Councillor Goswami. I think to be clear the suggestion was that the Bullard might be removed in order to create cycle parking space uh rather than a car parking space so it's an important point that you've raised but I think that that was the suggestion that it could be explored because of the property not itself having a physical space to offer cycle parking outside my apologies chair thank you no no it's always good to be to be clear um were thank you were there other comments or questions Councillor North uh just a question to the applicant um obviously we recognize it's very constrained site but would the applicant be willing to make a financial contribution for the the replacement of the Bullard with a Sheffield stand to mitigate the fact that on-site provision isn't great um yeah yes I think they would um we did um I think during the application we were looking at whether the motorcycle bays could be adapted to get a Sheffield stand in that was our suggestion but I think highway said that isn't going to work so if there's a another location where it can go then yeah that'd be fine that's much appreciated thank you if there are no other questions we move to deliberation council I think just to tie that point up um probably need to propose a condition um around uh delegating the exact wording to officers but um go on now you'd need to propose a motion to add ahead of term that we would secure via a unilateral undertaking so we can add that as a head of term but delegate the wording to officers would need to be the motion and the reason is because it's um it's outside of the red line that concern that's outside the red line so a condition might not might not work in that scenario so it's better to have a sexual logistics obligation requiring a payment in which case I'd like to propose what not just said thank you uh yes if that's seconded I'm happy to second it actually um does does the third committee member wish to object or shall we just vote uh can I see those in favor of that proposal that's great thank you very much and the precise wording is delegated to officers thank you are there other points that the committee would like to make into considering this I think just to note that um yeah fully agree it's not a appropriate residential location and um particularly in the central activity zone and it's good to see it brought back into um business use where it could perhaps generate employment thank you very much um cancer hamdash is there anything else you wanted to add very helpful thank you very much uh yes so although I think the the recommendation um is that it's in an area where business uh use is uh considered the most appropriate use um we're recommended to accept uh this application I suggest we move to a vote can I see those in favor so with the condition with the head of term yeah as cycle just a greeting yes sorry thank you very much so uh can I just take that vote clearly on that basis so that's with the additional head of term that's lovely thank you very much that's unanimous uh thank you very much for coming along um this evening thank you and thank you very much uh council boss mccorshey as well and I understand under item c that there are no urgent non-exempt or exempt matters so I therefore declare the meeting closed thank you everyone for your attendance thank you thank you