Transcript

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the Committee this evening. If I could ask members of the Committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer as Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius? I'm Richard Cornelius, Touchwich Ward Councillor. Thank you. Ms Vann. Finchley Ward. I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westendon Ward. Councillor Phil Cowie. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the Committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting, unless you're called to the table to address the Committee, please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online, you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice, which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application, the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the Committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The Committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the Speakers and Officers. Following discussions, the Committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the Committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking, press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So, Item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves. So, if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon. I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Are there any declarations of members or other interests? There aren't any dispensations. Oh, Councillor Jack Gordon. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approached this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensation is granted by the Monitoring Officer. There are none that I'm aware of. And there is an addendum to the report for Item 6. Are we happy to accept that addendum? Excellent. Okay, so we come to Item 6, which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road, London. And it's application 241746 S73. And we have got a Planning Officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say, just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But I hope, as I say, I hope they are an improvement. So if we could have the Planning Officer to take us through Item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is Item 6. It relates to a variation of Condition 2 of the planning permission, reference 194661/4 in 2020. The planning, the original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The proposed, the amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, there's some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development and I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircase is egress to atmosphere. And those uploaded drawings are reflected in the updated, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the operator part of the development, the description of the development, to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing Silkstream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south. And as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject, the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that in some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury site on the southern portion of the site and open car parking on the northern part of the site, and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there, and the Silkstream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. It's a, on the left-hand side is a podium, a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to Shell Stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This, excuse me, this comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. And you'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is formed within phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's, you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you, the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom into this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got, in phase one, this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see, denoted by the orange massing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8, all have two storeys added to them. And on the far side of the site, B12, will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram, showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say, in terms of the stair cores, the new stair cores are proposed to these four buildings here. And the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed. And the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing, it's feasible. What they've said is that because these elements are not yet constructed, that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements. And from a construction point of view, I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements. And it has been appraised from a planning point of view, and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see, across the whole scheme, there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. And there are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks, which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see, there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see, going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion, the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail, but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home base site with heights of up to six to eight stories and 14 stories, three to 17 stories in the Conenday-Sullivurn Exchange, 20 to 24 stories and the Rookery site, which is the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide, it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 stories. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner that, as you can see, they're almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. You've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. There are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B06, 7 and 8 where the additional massings are proposed. And again, this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint, if you like, of buildings B06, 7 and 8 where the additional two stories are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So, in concluding this presentation, the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed-use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where it's proposed. It's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations, part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, 11 intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional stories have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view, it was felt that the additional stories represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings. And just briefly, in terms of amenity, the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And then lastly, just to say that the Silk Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement, subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore, the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from the agent. I don't know. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions, but if there's anything you want to add to what the planning officer has said, then please, please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them, and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the chair has mentioned, Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech, so to avoid unnecessarily taking up your time this evening, literally if you have any questions you may want to ask, I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got councillor Cornelius and then councillor Chakraborty and then councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now, and they're creeping even higher. And the question I have to ask, it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings, especially in light of events in recent years. So is that market-led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out? So that's a plus. That's question one. And question two, I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings, so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety. And so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really, really important component of that. And dare I say that if I was either looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now in many things. So, yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases, they're going to be more attractive homes that people live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively, what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint. And so when you're introducing a second staircase, that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise, just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the Planning Commission that's been maintained. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also, first of all, like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is if you had to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, as you use your phrase actually, what the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans. We have reorganised some of the resident amenities. The intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms, all those kind of amenities facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sale payments, which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there. It could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered. And we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments we're being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions. Think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent. Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know that I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well and I'm here and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights and I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Is there anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, like as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys on what I would describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing allow is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal, in this proposal. I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point. It changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32. And I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you mentioned? It forms part of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks, will have access to the resident's amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to discussion with the registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away. And anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the state. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons, but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help? I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service charge challenge. Yes, I know. But if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way? I'm just saying this hasn't gone away. It's there. Understood. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership. What we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership. And this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was got. So it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything. You know, I just want to mention that and that will affect the residents here. And they could well be people who would want to walk along the school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. I'm just on fire safety. I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety. And you've made some amendments, I think, in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. Notice the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, etc. And obviously, as you know, post-grantful and as buildings get taller, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there's talk about normally there would be a full note. So it wouldn't be that you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, say, particularly to do with access and escape. That have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to accord with the most up to date building regs. And I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily due to the data which building regulations were registered. The applicant doesn't actually have to accord with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment. But we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six stories generally. So there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, one's to go up, one's to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your offices, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, that's the word. And so we've made some last minute tweaks, which I think are probably picked up in the Odendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently launched. And it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up to date regulations. And then in due course, a fire statement with the application and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Thank you. Just a couple of, just a couple of questions for me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report. Paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three bed units for the London affordable rent and an increase in the number of two bed units for London affordable rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three bed unit mix at a higher level or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? Yeah, we know that family sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority. And as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family sized homes as we could. And the sacrifice was on the three beds. We tried to make sure that the two bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here. And I think we've got, we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in with the acknowledgement that three bedroom units have benefits, but then the two bedroom house will be two bedroom, four person units, so suitable for families. And that's really been our priority to ensure they're family sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table actually, which figure four in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, one bedroom, two bedrooms together, and three, four, and five bedrooms together is actually getting slightly closer to what we're looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got a lot more two bedrooms. So I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, it's, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different. But obviously, we're constrained to a certain degree within the existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about the, you've got 48 additional bed spaces. So I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, you know, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate or other things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notices on. And those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, you know, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase one is what we're talking about at the moment. And we are effectively amending that scheme with parameters that are fixed off of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase two, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process. And if the child yield on phase one crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the play space strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase two. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a scheme that's a significant distance away from home or anything. So there may be, there will be a slight change in that chart, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing play space strategy in phase one or in phase two. Thank you for that. Councillor Chatty, what did you have a follow up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facilities such as a gym and cinema. That is part of the overall, the original planning application and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space? So not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public or space for charities or other institutions on the premises. Yeah, across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes. So that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day to day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning? Or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yeah. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in high tourist acts that have gone by the board? Yes, so the reason it's actually been brought before the Planning Committee is because it is a GLA referable application and under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before Planning Committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded though in the consultation's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are… Oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the overall mix. In other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to, I mean, talk about the cinema and gym, but just wondering if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. My understanding is, no, it wasn't part of the consideration. In West Hendon, just down the road, we have secured a new enlarged health facility in the West Hendon development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think… I mean, hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of immunity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation, and I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery, and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of this site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis, and if so, we should probably move to vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about referral to the mayor then, that's just taken us right. Okay, so if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course, yeah. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check, but my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed, it was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. What I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by a class E or others, and in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. It's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes, fantastic, okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote, all those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. So I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you, thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in Appendix 2. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of, so thank you and the meeting is now closed. Thank you.

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the committee this evening. If I could ask members of the committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer, Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius. I'm Richard Cornelius, Tottery Board Councillor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Van. Finchley Ward. And I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westenden Council. Councillor Phil Cohen. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting unless you're called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and officers. Following discussions the committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? I'll just sign them. Thank you. Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves so if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon, I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Councillor Chakraborty. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approach this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none that I'm aware of and there is an addendum to the report for item 6. We're happy to accept that addendum. Excellent. Okay, so we come to item number 6 which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road London and its application 241746 S73 and we have got a planning officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But as I say, I hope there is an improvement. If we could have the planning officer to take us through item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is item 6. It relates to a variation of condition 2 of the plan and permission reference 194661/4 in 2020. The original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development. And I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the Chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised an additional representation, well, a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircases egress to atmosphere and those uploaded drawings reflected in the updated drawing, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the description of the operator part of the development, the description of the development to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing silk stream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south and as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject that the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that and some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury's site on the southern portion of the site, an open car parking on the northern part of the site and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there and the silk stream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. On the left-hand side is a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to shell stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. You'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you on the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom in to this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got in phase one this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see denoted by the orange spacing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8 all have two storeys added to them and on the far side of the site B12 will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say in terms of the stair cause, the new stair cause are proposed to these four buildings here and the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed and the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing is feasible. What they've said is because these elements are not yet constructed that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements from a construction point of view. I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements and it has been appraised from a planning point of view and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see across the whole scheme there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. There are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home-based site with heights of up to six to eight storeys and 14 storeys, three to seven storeys, three to 17 storeys in the Conenday at Sullivan Exchange, 20 to 24 storeys and the Rookery site which is immediately the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 storeys. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner as you can see there almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. This is you've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. This should be noted that there are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B02, B03, B04, B06, B07 and B08 where the additional massings are proposed. And again this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint if you like of buildings B06, B07 and B08 where the additional two storeys are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So in concluding this presentation the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where as proposed it's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, eleven intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional storeys have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view it was felt that the additional storeys represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings and just briefly in terms of amenity the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And lastly just to say that the Silt Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from The Agent. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions but if there's anything you want to add to what the Planning Officer has said then please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the Chair has mentioned Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech so to avoid unnecessary taking up your time this evening literally if you have any questions you may want to ask. I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got Councillor Cornelius and then Councillor Chakraborty and then Councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now and they're creeping even higher and the question I have to ask, I get the idea it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings especially in light of events in recent years and so is that market led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out so that's a plus. That's question one and question two I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety and so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really really important component of that and dare I say that if I was either a looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now a many thing. So yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases are going to be more attractive homes for people to live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint and so when you're introducing a second staircase that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the planning commission that's been maintained. Councillor Jack O'Bortie, next. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also first of all like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is, if you have to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, actually to use your phrase actually. What the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans, we have reorganised some of the resident amenities. There shouldn't, sorry I rephrased that, the intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms and all those kind of immunity facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sill payments which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there, it could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered and we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions? I think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent? Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well. And I'm here, and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights. And I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, look, as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right-hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys onto what I'm going to describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing and layout is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight, and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really, it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal. In this proposal, I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point, changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32, and I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you meant? It forms parts of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to being like a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks will have access to the residents' amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to a discussion with a registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away, and anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the estate. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help, I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service challenge, I know, but if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way, I'm just saying this hasn't gone away, it's there. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership and what we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership, and this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was granted, so it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything, you know, I just want to mention that and it will affect the residents here and I would have thought they could well be people who would want to walk along the silk stream to school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. Just on fire safety, I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety and you've made some amendments, I think in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. I've noticed the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, et cetera, and obviously as, you know, post-grantful and as buildings get torn, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there is talk about normally there would be a full note, so you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, particularly to do with access and escape, that have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to record with the most up-to-date building regs, and I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily. Due to the data which building regulations were registered, the applicant doesn't actually have to record with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment, but we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six storeys generally, so there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, ones to go up, ones to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your officers, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, if that's the word, and so we've made some last minute tweaks which I think are probably picked up in the audendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently lodged, and it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up-to-date regulations. And then in due course, there's a fire statement with the application, and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Just a couple of questions from me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report, paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three-bed units for the London Affordable Rent, and an increase in the number of two-bed units for London Affordable Rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two-bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three-bed unit mix at a higher level, or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? We know that family-sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority, and as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family-sized homes as we could, and the sacrifice was on the three beds, and we tried to make sure that the two-bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here, and I think we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two-beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in, with the acknowledgement that three-bedroom units have benefits, but then the two-bedroom house will be two-bedroom, four-person units, so suitable for families, and that's really been our priority, to make sure they're family-sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table, actually, Figure 4 in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, of one bedroom and two bedrooms together, and three, four and five bedrooms together, it's actually getting slightly closer to what we are looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got quite a lot more two-bedrooms, so I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different, but obviously we're constrained to a certain degree with existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about you've got 48 additional bed spaces, so I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate, or are there things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield, is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is, I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notice on, and those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations, and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase 1 is what we're talking about at the moment, and we are effectively amending that scheme with the promises that are fixed of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase 2, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process, and if the child yield on phase 1 crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the place-based strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase 2. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a significant distance away from home or anything. So there will be a slight change in that child yield, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing place-based strategy in phase 1 or phase 2. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Chakraborty, do you have a follow-up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facility, such as a gym and cinema, that is part of the original planning application, and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space, and not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public, or space for charities or other institutions on the premises? Across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes, so that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day-to-day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident-only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning, or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yes. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in height, or has that gone by the board? Yes, so the reason this has actually been brought before the planning committee is because it is a GLA referable application, and then under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before planning committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded, though, in the constitution's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are – oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Yes, just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the mix, in the overall mix, in other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to. I mean, talk about cinema and gym, but just wondered if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. In the case obviously, my understanding is no, it wasn't part of the consideration. We have secured a new, enlarged health facility in the West End development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of amenity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation. And I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of the site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis. And if so, we should probably move to the vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and the formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about the referral to the mayor then. That's just taken us right. Okay. So if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check. But my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states, use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having Googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed. It was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. So what I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by class E or others. And in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. So it's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote. All those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in appendix two. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of. So thank you. And the meeting is now closed.

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the committee this evening. If I could ask members of the committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer, Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius. I'm Richard Cornelius, Tottery Board Councillor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Van. Finchley Ward. And I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westenden Council. Councillor Phil Cohen. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting unless you're called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and officers. Following discussions the committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? I'll just sign them. Thank you. Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves so if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon, I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Councillor Chakraborty. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approach this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none that I'm aware of and there is an addendum to the report for item 6. We're happy to accept that addendum. Excellent. Okay, so we come to item number 6 which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road London and its application 241746 S73 and we have got a planning officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But as I say, I hope there is an improvement. If we could have the planning officer to take us through item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is item 6. It relates to a variation of condition 2 of the plan and permission reference 194661/4 in 2020. The original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development. And I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the Chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised an additional representation, well, a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircases egress to atmosphere and those uploaded drawings reflected in the updated drawing, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the description of the operator part of the development, the description of the development to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing silk stream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south and as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject that the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that and some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury's site on the southern portion of the site, an open car parking on the northern part of the site and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there and the silk stream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. On the left-hand side is a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to shell stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. You'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you on the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom in to this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got in phase one this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see denoted by the orange spacing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8 all have two storeys added to them and on the far side of the site B12 will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say in terms of the stair cause, the new stair cause are proposed to these four buildings here and the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed and the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing is feasible. What they've said is because these elements are not yet constructed that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements from a construction point of view. I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements and it has been appraised from a planning point of view and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see across the whole scheme there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. There are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home-based site with heights of up to six to eight storeys and 14 storeys, three to seven storeys, three to 17 storeys in the Conenday at Sullivan Exchange, 20 to 24 storeys and the Rookery site which is immediately the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 storeys. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner as you can see there almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. This is you've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. This should be noted that there are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B02, B03, B04, B06, B07 and B08 where the additional massings are proposed. And again this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint if you like of buildings B06, B07 and B08 where the additional two storeys are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So in concluding this presentation the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where as proposed it's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, eleven intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional storeys have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view it was felt that the additional storeys represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings and just briefly in terms of amenity the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And lastly just to say that the Silt Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from The Agent. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions but if there's anything you want to add to what the Planning Officer has said then please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the Chair has mentioned Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech so to avoid unnecessary taking up your time this evening literally if you have any questions you may want to ask. I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got Councillor Cornelius and then Councillor Chakraborty and then Councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now and they're creeping even higher and the question I have to ask, I get the idea it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings especially in light of events in recent years and so is that market led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out so that's a plus. That's question one and question two I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety and so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really really important component of that and dare I say that if I was either a looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now a many thing. So yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases are going to be more attractive homes for people to live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint and so when you're introducing a second staircase that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the planning commission that's been maintained. Councillor Jack O'Bortie, next. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also first of all like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is, if you have to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, actually to use your phrase actually. What the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans, we have reorganised some of the resident amenities. There shouldn't, sorry I rephrased that, the intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms and all those kind of immunity facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sill payments which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there, it could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered and we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions? I think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent? Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well. And I'm here, and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights. And I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, look, as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right-hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys onto what I'm going to describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing and layout is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight, and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really, it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal. In this proposal, I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point, changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32, and I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you meant? It forms parts of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to being like a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks will have access to the residents' amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to a discussion with a registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away, and anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the estate. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help, I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service challenge, I know, but if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way, I'm just saying this hasn't gone away, it's there. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership and what we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership, and this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was granted, so it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything, you know, I just want to mention that and it will affect the residents here and I would have thought they could well be people who would want to walk along the silk stream to school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. Just on fire safety, I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety and you've made some amendments, I think in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. I've noticed the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, et cetera, and obviously as, you know, post-grantful and as buildings get torn, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there is talk about normally there would be a full note, so you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, particularly to do with access and escape, that have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to record with the most up-to-date building regs, and I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily. Due to the data which building regulations were registered, the applicant doesn't actually have to record with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment, but we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six storeys generally, so there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, ones to go up, ones to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your officers, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, if that's the word, and so we've made some last minute tweaks which I think are probably picked up in the audendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently lodged, and it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up-to-date regulations. And then in due course, there's a fire statement with the application, and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Just a couple of questions from me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report, paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three-bed units for the London Affordable Rent, and an increase in the number of two-bed units for London Affordable Rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two-bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three-bed unit mix at a higher level, or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? We know that family-sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority, and as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family-sized homes as we could, and the sacrifice was on the three beds, and we tried to make sure that the two-bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here, and I think we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two-beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in, with the acknowledgement that three-bedroom units have benefits, but then the two-bedroom house will be two-bedroom, four-person units, so suitable for families, and that's really been our priority, to make sure they're family-sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table, actually, Figure 4 in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, of one bedroom and two bedrooms together, and three, four and five bedrooms together, it's actually getting slightly closer to what we are looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got quite a lot more two-bedrooms, so I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different, but obviously we're constrained to a certain degree with existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about you've got 48 additional bed spaces, so I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate, or are there things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield, is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is, I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notice on, and those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations, and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase 1 is what we're talking about at the moment, and we are effectively amending that scheme with the promises that are fixed of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase 2, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process, and if the child yield on phase 1 crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the place-based strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase 2. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a significant distance away from home or anything. So there will be a slight change in that child yield, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing place-based strategy in phase 1 or phase 2. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Chakraborty, do you have a follow-up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facility, such as a gym and cinema, that is part of the original planning application, and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space, and not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public, or space for charities or other institutions on the premises? Across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes, so that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day-to-day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident-only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning, or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yes. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in height, or has that gone by the board? Yes, so the reason this has actually been brought before the planning committee is because it is a GLA referable application, and then under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before planning committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded, though, in the constitution's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are – oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Yes, just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the mix, in the overall mix, in other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to. I mean, talk about cinema and gym, but just wondered if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. In the case obviously, my understanding is no, it wasn't part of the consideration. We have secured a new, enlarged health facility in the West End development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of amenity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation. And I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of the site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis. And if so, we should probably move to the vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and the formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about the referral to the mayor then. That's just taken us right. Okay. So if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check. But my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states, use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having Googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed. It was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. So what I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by class E or others. And in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. So it's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote. All those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in appendix two. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of. So thank you. And the meeting is now closed.

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the committee this evening. If I could ask members of the committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer, Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius. I'm Richard Cornelius, Tottery Board Councillor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Van. Finchley Ward. And I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westenden Council. Councillor Phil Cohen. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting unless you're called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and officers. Following discussions the committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? I'll just sign them. Thank you. Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves so if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon, I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Councillor Chakraborty. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approach this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none that I'm aware of and there is an addendum to the report for item 6. We're happy to accept that addendum. Excellent. Okay, so we come to item number 6 which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road London and its application 241746 S73 and we have got a planning officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But as I say, I hope there is an improvement. If we could have the planning officer to take us through item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is item 6. It relates to a variation of condition 2 of the plan and permission reference 194661/4 in 2020. The original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development. And I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the Chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised an additional representation, well, a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircases egress to atmosphere and those uploaded drawings reflected in the updated drawing, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the description of the operator part of the development, the description of the development to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing silk stream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south and as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject that the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that and some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury's site on the southern portion of the site, an open car parking on the northern part of the site and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there and the silk stream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. On the left-hand side is a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to shell stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. You'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you on the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom in to this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got in phase one this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see denoted by the orange spacing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8 all have two storeys added to them and on the far side of the site B12 will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say in terms of the stair cause, the new stair cause are proposed to these four buildings here and the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed and the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing is feasible. What they've said is because these elements are not yet constructed that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements from a construction point of view. I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements and it has been appraised from a planning point of view and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see across the whole scheme there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. There are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home-based site with heights of up to six to eight storeys and 14 storeys, three to seven storeys, three to 17 storeys in the Conenday at Sullivan Exchange, 20 to 24 storeys and the Rookery site which is immediately the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 storeys. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner as you can see there almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. This is you've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. This should be noted that there are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B02, B03, B04, B06, B07 and B08 where the additional massings are proposed. And again this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint if you like of buildings B06, B07 and B08 where the additional two storeys are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So in concluding this presentation the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where as proposed it's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, eleven intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional storeys have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view it was felt that the additional storeys represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings and just briefly in terms of amenity the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And lastly just to say that the Silt Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from The Agent. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions but if there's anything you want to add to what the Planning Officer has said then please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the Chair has mentioned Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech so to avoid unnecessary taking up your time this evening literally if you have any questions you may want to ask. I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got Councillor Cornelius and then Councillor Chakraborty and then Councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now and they're creeping even higher and the question I have to ask, I get the idea it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings especially in light of events in recent years and so is that market led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out so that's a plus. That's question one and question two I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety and so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really really important component of that and dare I say that if I was either a looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now a many thing. So yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases are going to be more attractive homes for people to live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint and so when you're introducing a second staircase that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the planning commission that's been maintained. Councillor Jack O'Bortie, next. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also first of all like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is, if you have to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, actually to use your phrase actually. What the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans, we have reorganised some of the resident amenities. There shouldn't, sorry I rephrased that, the intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms and all those kind of immunity facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sill payments which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there, it could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered and we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions? I think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent? Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well. And I'm here, and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights. And I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, look, as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right-hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys onto what I'm going to describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing and layout is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight, and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really, it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal. In this proposal, I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point, changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32, and I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you meant? It forms parts of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to being like a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks will have access to the residents' amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to a discussion with a registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away, and anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the estate. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help, I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service challenge, I know, but if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way, I'm just saying this hasn't gone away, it's there. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership and what we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership, and this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was granted, so it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything, you know, I just want to mention that and it will affect the residents here and I would have thought they could well be people who would want to walk along the silk stream to school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. Just on fire safety, I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety and you've made some amendments, I think in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. I've noticed the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, et cetera, and obviously as, you know, post-grantful and as buildings get torn, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there is talk about normally there would be a full note, so you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, particularly to do with access and escape, that have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to record with the most up-to-date building regs, and I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily. Due to the data which building regulations were registered, the applicant doesn't actually have to record with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment, but we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six storeys generally, so there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, ones to go up, ones to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your officers, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, if that's the word, and so we've made some last minute tweaks which I think are probably picked up in the audendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently lodged, and it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up-to-date regulations. And then in due course, there's a fire statement with the application, and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Just a couple of questions from me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report, paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three-bed units for the London Affordable Rent, and an increase in the number of two-bed units for London Affordable Rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two-bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three-bed unit mix at a higher level, or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? We know that family-sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority, and as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family-sized homes as we could, and the sacrifice was on the three beds, and we tried to make sure that the two-bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here, and I think we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two-beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in, with the acknowledgement that three-bedroom units have benefits, but then the two-bedroom house will be two-bedroom, four-person units, so suitable for families, and that's really been our priority, to make sure they're family-sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table, actually, Figure 4 in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, of one bedroom and two bedrooms together, and three, four and five bedrooms together, it's actually getting slightly closer to what we are looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got quite a lot more two-bedrooms, so I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different, but obviously we're constrained to a certain degree with existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about you've got 48 additional bed spaces, so I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate, or are there things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield, is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is, I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notice on, and those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations, and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase 1 is what we're talking about at the moment, and we are effectively amending that scheme with the promises that are fixed of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase 2, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process, and if the child yield on phase 1 crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the place-based strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase 2. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a significant distance away from home or anything. So there will be a slight change in that child yield, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing place-based strategy in phase 1 or phase 2. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Chakraborty, do you have a follow-up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facility, such as a gym and cinema, that is part of the original planning application, and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space, and not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public, or space for charities or other institutions on the premises? Across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes, so that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day-to-day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident-only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning, or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yes. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in height, or has that gone by the board? Yes, so the reason this has actually been brought before the planning committee is because it is a GLA referable application, and then under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before planning committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded, though, in the constitution's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are – oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Yes, just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the mix, in the overall mix, in other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to. I mean, talk about cinema and gym, but just wondered if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. In the case obviously, my understanding is no, it wasn't part of the consideration. We have secured a new, enlarged health facility in the West End development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of amenity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation. And I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of the site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis. And if so, we should probably move to the vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and the formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about the referral to the mayor then. That's just taken us right. Okay. So if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check. But my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states, use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having Googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed. It was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. So what I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by class E or others. And in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. So it's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote. All those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in appendix two. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of. So thank you. And the meeting is now closed.

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the committee this evening. If I could ask members of the committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer, Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius. I'm Richard Cornelius, Tottery Board Councillor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Van. Finchley Ward. And I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westenden Council. Councillor Phil Cohen. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting unless you're called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and officers. Following discussions the committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? I'll just sign them. Thank you. Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves so if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon, I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Councillor Chakraborty. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approach this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none that I'm aware of and there is an addendum to the report for item 6. We're happy to accept that addendum. Excellent. Okay, so we come to item number 6 which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road London and its application 241746 S73 and we have got a planning officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But as I say, I hope there is an improvement. If we could have the planning officer to take us through item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is item 6. It relates to a variation of condition 2 of the plan and permission reference 194661/4 in 2020. The original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development. And I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the Chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised an additional representation, well, a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircases egress to atmosphere and those uploaded drawings reflected in the updated drawing, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the description of the operator part of the development, the description of the development to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing silk stream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south and as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject that the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that and some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury's site on the southern portion of the site, an open car parking on the northern part of the site and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there and the silk stream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. On the left-hand side is a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to shell stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. You'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you on the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom in to this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got in phase one this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see denoted by the orange spacing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8 all have two storeys added to them and on the far side of the site B12 will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say in terms of the stair cause, the new stair cause are proposed to these four buildings here and the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed and the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing is feasible. What they've said is because these elements are not yet constructed that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements from a construction point of view. I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements and it has been appraised from a planning point of view and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see across the whole scheme there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. There are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home-based site with heights of up to six to eight storeys and 14 storeys, three to seven storeys, three to 17 storeys in the Conenday at Sullivan Exchange, 20 to 24 storeys and the Rookery site which is immediately the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 storeys. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner as you can see there almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. This is you've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. This should be noted that there are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B02, B03, B04, B06, B07 and B08 where the additional massings are proposed. And again this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint if you like of buildings B06, B07 and B08 where the additional two storeys are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So in concluding this presentation the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where as proposed it's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, eleven intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional storeys have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view it was felt that the additional storeys represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings and just briefly in terms of amenity the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And lastly just to say that the Silt Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from The Agent. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions but if there's anything you want to add to what the Planning Officer has said then please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the Chair has mentioned Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech so to avoid unnecessary taking up your time this evening literally if you have any questions you may want to ask. I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got Councillor Cornelius and then Councillor Chakraborty and then Councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now and they're creeping even higher and the question I have to ask, I get the idea it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings especially in light of events in recent years and so is that market led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out so that's a plus. That's question one and question two I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety and so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really really important component of that and dare I say that if I was either a looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now a many thing. So yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases are going to be more attractive homes for people to live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint and so when you're introducing a second staircase that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the planning commission that's been maintained. Councillor Jack O'Bortie, next. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also first of all like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is, if you have to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, actually to use your phrase actually. What the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans, we have reorganised some of the resident amenities. There shouldn't, sorry I rephrased that, the intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms and all those kind of immunity facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sill payments which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there, it could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered and we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions? I think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent? Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well. And I'm here, and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights. And I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, look, as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right-hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys onto what I'm going to describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing and layout is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight, and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really, it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal. In this proposal, I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point, changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32, and I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you meant? It forms parts of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to being like a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks will have access to the residents' amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to a discussion with a registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away, and anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the estate. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help, I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service challenge, I know, but if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way, I'm just saying this hasn't gone away, it's there. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership and what we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership, and this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was granted, so it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything, you know, I just want to mention that and it will affect the residents here and I would have thought they could well be people who would want to walk along the silk stream to school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. Just on fire safety, I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety and you've made some amendments, I think in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. I've noticed the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, et cetera, and obviously as, you know, post-grantful and as buildings get torn, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there is talk about normally there would be a full note, so you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, particularly to do with access and escape, that have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to record with the most up-to-date building regs, and I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily. Due to the data which building regulations were registered, the applicant doesn't actually have to record with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment, but we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six storeys generally, so there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, ones to go up, ones to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your officers, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, if that's the word, and so we've made some last minute tweaks which I think are probably picked up in the audendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently lodged, and it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up-to-date regulations. And then in due course, there's a fire statement with the application, and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Just a couple of questions from me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report, paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three-bed units for the London Affordable Rent, and an increase in the number of two-bed units for London Affordable Rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two-bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three-bed unit mix at a higher level, or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? We know that family-sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority, and as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family-sized homes as we could, and the sacrifice was on the three beds, and we tried to make sure that the two-bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here, and I think we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two-beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in, with the acknowledgement that three-bedroom units have benefits, but then the two-bedroom house will be two-bedroom, four-person units, so suitable for families, and that's really been our priority, to make sure they're family-sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table, actually, Figure 4 in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, of one bedroom and two bedrooms together, and three, four and five bedrooms together, it's actually getting slightly closer to what we are looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got quite a lot more two-bedrooms, so I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different, but obviously we're constrained to a certain degree with existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about you've got 48 additional bed spaces, so I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate, or are there things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield, is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is, I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notice on, and those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations, and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase 1 is what we're talking about at the moment, and we are effectively amending that scheme with the promises that are fixed of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase 2, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process, and if the child yield on phase 1 crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the place-based strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase 2. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a significant distance away from home or anything. So there will be a slight change in that child yield, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing place-based strategy in phase 1 or phase 2. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Chakraborty, do you have a follow-up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facility, such as a gym and cinema, that is part of the original planning application, and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space, and not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public, or space for charities or other institutions on the premises? Across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes, so that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day-to-day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident-only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning, or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yes. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in height, or has that gone by the board? Yes, so the reason this has actually been brought before the planning committee is because it is a GLA referable application, and then under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before planning committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded, though, in the constitution's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are – oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Yes, just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the mix, in the overall mix, in other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to. I mean, talk about cinema and gym, but just wondered if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. In the case obviously, my understanding is no, it wasn't part of the consideration. We have secured a new, enlarged health facility in the West End development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of amenity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation. And I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of the site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis. And if so, we should probably move to the vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and the formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about the referral to the mayor then. That's just taken us right. Okay. So if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check. But my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states, use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having Googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed. It was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. So what I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by class E or others. And in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. So it's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote. All those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in appendix two. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of. So thank you. And the meeting is now closed.

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's Strategic Planning Committee, 16th December. My name is Councillor Nigel Young, I'm the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and thank you all for coming to the committee this evening. If I could ask members of the committee to first introduce themselves, followed by the Planning Officer, Legal Officer and Governance. Thank you. Shall we start with Councillor Cornelius. I'm Richard Cornelius, Tottery Board Councillor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Van. Finchley Ward. And I'm Councillor Jill Sargent. Councillor Richard Barnes. Claire Farrier, Councillor Bruce Finchley. Councillor Rishikesh Chakraborty, Westenden Council. Councillor Phil Cohen. Andrew Dillon, Major Projects Team. Sam Gerstein, Case Officer. Fabian Gordon, Director for Planning and Building Control. Jimmy Walsh, Legal Advisor to the committee. Regina Wills, Governance Officer. Thank you for that. If I can ask that people remain seated throughout the meeting unless you're called to the table to address the committee. Please note that meetings may be recorded and broadcast as allowed for in law or by the Council. By attending either in person or online you may be picked up on recordings. Council recordings are covered by our privacy notice which can be found at barnet.gov.uk. For each application the Planning Officer will present the application. Speakers will be called and will have three minutes to address the committee. The Governance Officer will inform you when there is one minute left. The committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and officers. Following discussions the committee will determine the application and the Chair will announce the committee's decision. Please press the middle speaker icon to turn on the mic and ensure that after you finish speaking press the microphone off so that we don't have any feedback. So item 1 is the minutes of the last meeting. Can I take those as agreed? I'll just sign them. Thank you. Item 2 is absence of members and we don't have any absent members. I don't know, Councillor Gordon, if you want to introduce yourself because everyone has introduced themselves so if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, Councillor Gordon, I'm not always this late. Thank you very much for doing that. I also note that Councillor Jill Sargent is substituting for Councillor Nargis Naranthira. Councillor Chakraborty. I'm a Councillor representing West Hendon Ward, the ward in which this particular application on the agenda item will be heard and I have not made any pronouncements about this application previously and I approach this meeting with an open mind. Thank you. Dispensations granted by the monitoring officer. There are none that I'm aware of and there is an addendum to the report for item 6. We're happy to accept that addendum. Excellent. Okay, so we come to item number 6 which is the Silk Park Unit 4 Hyde Estate, State Road London and its application 241746 S73 and we have got a planning officer with us to give us an introduction to this item. I would just say just before we start, members may have noticed that the committee reports have changed in format slightly. I hope this is a positive move and they are much more readable and the information is more readily available. But if you have any general comments, please feel free to make those comments when we go into the comments section or feed those comments back to the Director of Planning and Building Control at your leisure. But as I say, I hope there is an improvement. If we could have the planning officer to take us through item 6, please. Thank you, Chair. So this is item 6. It relates to a variation of condition 2 of the plan and permission reference 194661/4 in 2020. The original planning permission relates to comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsbury site with a residential component to it and some other flexible commercial uses as well. The amendments proposed through this application comprise the insertion of second staircases to several of the blocks, blocks B03, 4, 7 and B08. In addition to those internal alterations, some additional massing proposed to several of the blocks as well. That comprises two storeys to buildings 6, 7 and 8, an additional single storey to building B12. These additional storeys result in an increase in the number of homes. That's 28 units across Phase 1 of the development. And I'll talk to the phasing in a moment of this scheme. This includes several affordable homes spread across the different tenures. There are some other incidental changes proposed as well, comprising the addition of the cinema room on level 2 of B05 and also some amendments to the concierge, residential amenity and B08. There's also the introduction of a small commercial unit to the ground floor of entrance lobby building B03. I should just say the Chair brought members' attention to the addendum items. This just comprised an additional representation, well, a representation from the environment health officer and some corrections to the committee report which you can read through in the addendum paper. In addition, they did comprise, they did reflect the incorporation of several new drawings that the applicant prepared in response to comments from the health and safety executive to ensure that the proposed second staircases egress to atmosphere and those uploaded drawings reflected in the updated drawing, approved drawing list in Condition 2. I should also point out that concurrent with this application is an application pursuant to Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act to make amendments to the description of the operator part of the development, the description of the development to strike out elements of the description which will be inconsistent with the proposed changes being brought forward to subject under this current Section 73 application. The updated details will be inserted into a new proposed condition. I should point out that this is a separate consideration and it's not forming part of this determination which is solely concerned with the proposal subject to the Section 73 application. The application site comprises the site of the existing Sainsbury's store. You have the A5 here on the west-hand side, the existing silk stream on the right-hand side here, the Honda car showroom to the south and as I'll highlight in a moment, the site is subject that the existing permission has been substantially implemented and I'll get to that and some photos in just a moment. And this is just an aerial view of the site, picking out some of the, this is quite historic to be fair, but you can see that the existing Sainsbury's site on the southern portion of the site, an open car parking on the northern part of the site and the Midland main line to the right-hand side here, the A5 there and the silk stream just running south to north there. Just moving to the ex-stamp permission, so that's the approved planning permission that's subject to these changes. On the left-hand side is a four-storey podium, which is where the re-provided Sainsbury's is nearing completion to shell stage. Rising out of the podium are several blocks which comprise the residential components of this development. On the right-hand side, you've got what's referred to in the original planning documentation as a silk garden. This comprises a public open park with three linear blocks circling this space. You'll see in just a moment that this is comprised, this is phase two of the development. Just moving to some plans, this is a ground floor plan of the approved development and the car parking for the Sainsbury's you can see here, which is substantially underway and implemented. This is a first floor plan which shows the Sainsbury's internal floor space, the red denoting the retail store floor space. And just in terms of phasing, on the left-hand side of the screen is phase one of the development. It is a single planning permission but the construction is spread out over two phases. So on the left-hand side is phase one and on the right-hand side is phase two. Phase one is substantially underway and I'll show you on the next slide can illustrate that a bit more clearly. So these buildings in the foreground, B01, B02 and B05 are substantially complete or nearing completion, as you'll see from photos in just a moment. And the podium level, which is denoted by the yellow shading, is also constructed as well. Everything else is not yet above podium level. There's a range of building heights proposed across this scheme. I'll just zoom in to this element here. The highest element being in phase two, up to 28 storeys, which is this building here. You've also got in phase one this building here, which is denoted by 1D, which is 20 storeys. The red dotted lines denote the buildings which are subject to additional massing and I'll illustrate that in just a moment. So the summary of the proposed changes. So on this slide you can see denoted by the orange spacing, the buildings where additional height is proposed. The three buildings, I'll point to them here, the three buildings here, B06, 7 and 8 all have two storeys added to them and on the far side of the site B12 will have a single storey proposed. And you can see the tenure is highlighted on this diagram showing how the tenure is distributed across the development. I should also say in terms of the stair cause, the new stair cause are proposed to these four buildings here and the choice with regard to the decision to incorporate cores to those buildings solely is really led by what's practical and achievable given the stage of construction that they've reached. And this is what this plan illustrates, the orange denoting the podium which has already been constructed and the applicants have highlighted through these purple shades where there's additional massing is feasible. What they've said is because these elements are not yet constructed that they are able to incorporate footings and foundations to support the additional heights on these elements from a construction point of view. I think that's partly why they've chosen to add additional massing to those elements and it has been appraised from a planning point of view and I'll get onto that in just a moment. This is a table showing the extent of variance and change as a result of the incorporation of the cores and the additional storeys and units. I'll zoom into some elements which might be helpful to illustrate the change. So as you can see across the whole scheme there's an uplift in 28 units and that equates to an uplift in 48 bed spaces. There are losses of bed spaces on several of the blocks which is directly as a result of the incorporation of these cores. As you can see there's a loss of several bed spaces here and that's been made up by adding some additional bed spaces here. And this is a slide just to illustrate the mix and how it's changed since the original permission, the approved situation and what's proposed. And as you can see going from the approved situation to what's proposed, the proportion of affordable housing remains very close to as consented. I'll just zoom in there so you can see a bit more closely. So the split between affordable and private remains around 34.5% and within the affordable portion the split between intermediate and London affordable rent remains very close to what's approved. This is just a slide to illustrate the emerging neighbourhood in the locality. The agenda item talks about these sites in a bit more detail but just to illustrate the building heights proposed here. You've got the former home-based site with heights of up to six to eight storeys and 14 storeys, three to seven storeys, three to 17 storeys in the Conenday at Sullivan Exchange, 20 to 24 storeys and the Rookery site which is immediately the immediate neighbour of the application site. And on this slide it's actually showing an application that's pending determination that referred to as the alcove and that's proposed with 24 storeys. This has not been considered yet to date. The other sites do have planning permission and there are different stages of construction. So just moving to some photographs. This is a photo taken from the A5 looking at the junction of the Hyde Estate Road and the A5. You've got these buildings on the corner as you can see there almost nearing completion. And this is moving down Hyde Estate Road looking at these buildings once again. This is you've got building B01 and B02 in your foreground right there. And Hyde Estate Road looking back up towards the A5. And this is taken from the podium looking back towards buildings B02, 1 and 5. This should be noted that there are no changes proposed to these buildings. But what's useful to look at in this picture is the footings that are already in place on buildings B02, B03, B04, B06, B07 and B08 where the additional massings are proposed. And again this is just looking back across the podium level. This photo I've actually highlighted the footprint if you like of buildings B06, B07 and B08 where the additional two storeys are proposed. And it just illustrates the extent of footings that are already in place for these buildings. So in concluding this presentation the officer's report has looked at the principle of the mixed use development which was established by the extant planning permission. This is substantially implemented as I've highlighted. And the proposed increases in floor space and use are wholly in accordance with the acceptable land use that was established at the original planning stage. And it's been evaluated as being acceptable in the amended form which is coming forward as part of this application. It should be noted that the developer has elected to incorporate these staircores to the buildings where as proposed it's not mandatory for this developer to do so in these blocks given that they've already served their building notices and are constructing these developments in accordance with the relevant part B building regulations part B where two staircores are not mandatory. The additional 28 units across the different tenures include five London affordable rent homes, eleven intermediate homes and the remainder being private homes and the tenure split remains consistent with the extant permission. The additional storeys have been evaluated from a design point of view and from an amenity point of view. From a design point of view it was felt that the additional storeys represented a logical conclusion to the massing on these buildings and just briefly in terms of amenity the massing situated in the centre of the site is such that it's not close to any sensitive boundaries and is not necessarily perceptible from any adjoining boundaries to such that it might be if it was right on the boundary. And lastly just to say that the Silt Park permission as proposed to be amended will be subject to a deed of variation which secures all the benefits that were secured as part of the original agreement subject to minor variations to reflect the changes sought through this application. Therefore the application is recommended for approval subject to conditions and the deed of variation. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was very thorough. I understand Nick Alston is here from The Agent. I hear that you may not want to do a presentation and just answer questions but if there's anything you want to add to what the Planning Officer has said then please feel free. You have three minutes if you want to use them and you just press the button that's in front of you. Good evening councillors. As the Chair has mentioned Mr Gerstein has covered everything we would have wanted to cover in a speech so to avoid unnecessary taking up your time this evening literally if you have any questions you may want to ask. I'm here and hopefully I might be able to help. Thank you very much for that. Much appreciated. Do we have any questions? I've got Councillor Cornelius and then Councillor Chakraborty and then Councillor Sargent. I guess I get to go first. So I suppose really the issue as far as I'm concerned is that some of these buildings are awfully high now and they're creeping even higher and the question I have to ask, I get the idea it's a good idea to have two cores in these buildings especially in light of events in recent years and so is that market led that the flats will be much easier to sell if there are two cores and people think they can get out so that's a plus. That's question one and question two I notice the number of bedrooms is subject to a slight decrease relative to the increase in number of dwellings so I guess that means that the number of family dwellings is dropping. Is that correct or have I got that wrong? So those are my two questions. You've hit the nail on the head. This application is all about fire safety and so that is the purpose is to make sure that the blocks that haven't gone past are sort of a tipping point in terms of the amount of progress that they've made. It's to make sure that they've got second staircases to make them as safe as they can be to making sure we're according to all the relevant standards that have come into the fold since the original planning provision was granted. That's what the application is about. St George is the applicant and the developer. They're committed to building high quality homes and obviously safety is a really really important component of that and dare I say that if I was either a looking to buy or rent or buy a shared ownership home in this development, fire safety to that building is going to be a relevant consideration to me. We're all familiar with what's happened over the past few years and how the building regulation and so on is now catching up and is now a many thing. So yeah, unapologetically, I imagine that homes that have two staircases are going to be more attractive homes for people to live in for understandable reasons. In terms of the unit size, there's been a change. Effectively what we're doing is working broadly within the same building footprint and so when you're introducing a second staircase that takes away floor space from each floor and it necessitates a rejig, a reorganisation of how all the units fit within that floor. So as a consequence of that, it's not a particularly straightforward exercise just whipping out a bit of floor space. So that's necessitated some changes to the unit size mix. I think the key thing I'd like to flag is that the overall number of affordable homes is going up. So while there is a shift in the number of family homes, the number of affordable homes is improving as an actual number and the proportion of affordable homes that was always secured under the planning commission that's been maintained. Councillor Jack O'Bortie, next. Thank you, Chair. So I'd also first of all like to thank the applicant for addressing some of the questions around fire safety as well. I won't repeat them, I'll focus on some other aspects of the application. So another area of focus was very much to do with the provision of social value and how the flexible commercial space that's referred to in phase one would be utilised. And one of the change of use applications that's contained within this broader application of the phase one commercial space is to enable it to be turned into a residence gym. And that's just one example of such changes that are being applied for here. So my question really is, if you have to summarise what are the different ways in which the amendments in this application would seek to add social value and provide amenities for the residents at podium level and in the other spaces on premises, would you be able to provide us with a summary? I'll take what I describe as the resident amenities, actually to use your phrase actually. What the scheme has done as a consequence of modifications to the floor plans, we have reorganised some of the resident amenities. There shouldn't, sorry I rephrased that, the intention is not for there to be any negative impact associated with those changes. It's all about making sure that the resident offer is as appropriate as it can be to the future residents within the scheme. So things like gyms, cinema rooms and all those kind of immunity facilities, we're trying to make sure it's just a high quality scheme and residents have the amenities that they expect. In terms of social value, the key benefit of this application is the improved affordable housing offer. There's also an increase in sill payments which you would typically expect because the amount of floor space increases as part of the scheme. But the final point I'd make is the original planning permission is still there, it could be built out. What we do for this application is improving it effectively, predominantly for the benefit of a fire safety perspective. So all those benefits that were secured as part of that original planning permission, they're banked, they're still secured and they're still being delivered and we don't see there's anything harmful with the amendments being put forward as part of this application. So again, you touched on another very important element about the affordable housing. I just wanted to check something in the details. So the additional 28 residential units will come with five additional units at the London affordable rent as is laid out in this application. So I take your point earlier that you're saying the absolute number of affordable housing will increase because those are the five additional units that are affordable. Given that that's five out of 28, does that mean that the percentage of affordable housing decreases slightly while still exceeding the threshold that's required? The proportion of affordable housing is exactly the same as what's been approved at the moment. The reason we've got more homes is to maintain that percentage. Thank you. No further questions? I think that there are 11 intermediates as well as part of the mix, which is still counted as affordable. Councillor Sargent? Yes, thank you very much indeed. I know I'm only a sub on this, but I do know this proposal quite well. And I'm here, and I've actually always had some reservations about this, particularly the heights. And I'm very concerned that the heights are being increased. It's a very, very dense one. It's not really a question, but it's just an observation. Anything you want to say on that? I have got a few more points. Yeah, look, as the office's presentation, the building heights go up to 28 storeys. That's the approved position over the scheme as a whole, with the tallest buildings being in phase two, which is on the screens to the right-hand side of the screen. So on these amendments, we're looking to add between one and two storeys onto what I'm going to describe as the mid-level buildings. So we're not adding heights to the tallest buildings in phase one. We're adding heights to basically the middle and the lower buildings. And as part of the application package, we've submitted, as you'd expect, a pack of sporting information. And we've looked at things like the townscape and the visual impact assessment, daylight, sunlight, microclimate, all those kind of technical considerations which sort of inform the extent to which building height and massing and layout is acceptable or not. And those experts have undertaken those updates to make sure that what we've put through as part of the application remains acceptable and that they've concluded, which has been through the scrutiny of your offices, that the scheme wouldn't give rise to any material changes. And by change, I mean in terms of significant effects in terms of townscape, microclimate, daylight, sunlight, and so on, compared to what's there at the moment. And really, it's because it's those kind of mid-level blocks that are in the heart of phase one. So they're not the dominant components of the scheme from a built form or visual perspective. So I do see your point. Sometimes there is a concern if building heights sort of gradually creep upwards. But in this one, we wouldn't expect it to be materially different to what the approved permission already allows them to do. Thank you. But I would have had a different view if it had been lower than it is at the moment rather than higher. The second point I wanted to make was I wasn't very clear about the parking. I know most of the parking was mentioned in the original proposal. In this proposal, I wasn't clear. I presume that's not going to change very much. Just checking my numbers to make sure I gave you the right answer. So at the moment, there's a ratio of 0.33 spaces per home. That's what's been approved under the current planning permission. The amendment, I think there's a rounding down point, changes it to 0.32. So 0.33 to 0.32, and I think it's a rounding point in there as well. Disabled parking is going to be 10%, isn't it? Blue badge parking, yeah. Are there any proposals about the gym that you meant? It forms parts of the resident facilities, which would provide access to residents who live on the site, as opposed to being like a commercial gym. So all residents will have access to the gym? The residents within the site, certainly within the private blocks will have access to the residents' amenity. In terms of the affordable blocks, that will come down to a discussion with a registered provider in due course. Can I just put in a plea? I've been a councillor now for a number of years, haven't I? And this is an issue that hasn't gone away, and anything you can do to alleviate that would help with improving the relationships within the estate. I hear your point and I'll note it and I'll take it away after this meeting. I'm just saying, you know, I realise there are commercial reasons but any ways you can think of doing any innovative things that could help, I realise that the social landlords are not going to be able to afford that. It's the service challenge, I know, but if there's any ways you can think of whereby some of the people in the other blocks can pay in some sort of way, I'm just saying this hasn't gone away, it's there. One of the things I like about this is the silk stream, the opening up of the silk stream. I think that's always been a concern. How far are people going to be able to walk along the silk stream? I think we've got control within our land ownership and what we can't do is enforce any changes beyond our land ownership, and this application doesn't change anything that was achieved under the original planning provision that was granted, so it's a no change to the existing situation. But I did want to add that there will be a school in Colindale Gardens and anything, you know, I just want to mention that and it will affect the residents here and I would have thought they could well be people who would want to walk along the silk stream to school. Those are my main points. Thank you very much. Councillor Cohen. Thank you. Just on fire safety, I see that, you know, part of this has to do with fire safety and you've made some amendments, I think in the notes you've addressed issues about sprinkles and things like that. I've noticed the issues have been raised about access and escape in the course of this discussion, health and safety, et cetera, and obviously as, you know, post-grantful and as buildings get torn, this becomes, you know, more of an issue, especially topical. Are you going to produce a fire safety note? You know, there is talk about normally there would be a full note, so you wouldn't elaborate on some of the measures, particularly to do with access and escape, that have come up recently. So you've got two regulatory controls, planning and building regulations. So what we're doing in this application is making sure that the planning commission is able to record with the most up-to-date building regs, and I think your officer did mention this, that we're doing this voluntarily. Due to the data which building regulations were registered, the applicant doesn't actually have to record with what's a very sort of topical conversation at the moment, but we're doing it voluntarily. So we're putting the second staircases in, which is for buildings over a certain height, over six storeys generally, so there is two alternative means of escapes. Generally, ones to go up, ones to come down in a firefighting situation. We've made some very last minute changes in discussion with your officers, which relate to when two staircases come down to the same vestibule, if that's the word, and so we've made some last minute tweaks which I think are probably picked up in the audendum note, which just lists some different plans that we've recently lodged, and it's a very minor change to the ground floor level. What this is doing is this is ensuring 100% compliance with the newest regulations that have come forward. And as I said at the beginning, this is what the application is all about. The application is about fire safety, making sure the building is as safe as it can be, having regard to most up-to-date regulations. And then in due course, there's a fire statement with the application, and then further things need to follow from a building regulations perspective. Just a couple of questions from me. It's been touched on already, but as you're referring back to the report, paragraphs 7.21 onwards talk about the unit mix. And I mean, in a nutshell, there's been a reduction in the number of three-bed units for the London Affordable Rent, and an increase in the number of two-bed units for London Affordable Rent. And then similarly on the private sector, there's quite a significant increase in the number of two-bed units. Would it not be possible to have kept the three-bed unit mix at a higher level, or were there sort of practical problems that created that change? We know that family-sized housing, particularly for affordable rent, is a priority, and as we were dividing up and reconfiguring those four plans, we faced understandable challenges. And our priority was to maintain as many family-sized homes as we could, and the sacrifice was on the three beds, and we tried to make sure that the two-bed numbers are pushed up. So I'm just checking my numbers here, and I think we're losing the three beds, but we're compensating it. In terms of the affordable rent, with more two-beds, we're sort of out at 16 to 14, if my notes are correct. So it really was just a consequence of those four plans amendments to enable the second stakeholders to go in, with the acknowledgement that three-bedroom units have benefits, but then the two-bedroom house will be two-bedroom, four-person units, so suitable for families, and that's really been our priority, to make sure they're family-sized and meet the needs of the borough. I mean, I noticed in the table, actually, Figure 4 in the report, the affordable mix, if you like, of one bedroom and two bedrooms together, and three, four and five bedrooms together, it's actually getting slightly closer to what we are looking for in the emerging plan than the previous mix. Although in the market, you have got quite a lot more two-bedrooms, so I'm assuming that you feel comfortable that you can market and sell those, and I know you're probably already underway with that. Yeah, I mean, we hope we're correct. But yes, if we were starting from scratch, the mix might be a little bit different, but obviously we're constrained to a certain degree with existing permission, those existing floor plans, and not wanting to stretch the massing unnecessarily. Thank you. The second point was really about you've got 48 additional bed spaces, so I'm assuming that there may be a reasonably significant increase in child yield as a result of that. And I suppose my question is, is the existing playground facility, which I know was already slightly compromised on the original scheme, is that going to be adequate, or are there things that you can put in place that would ensure that the child yield, the increased child yield, is going to be provided for? And an additional question to that in a way is, I know that the blocks, there are blocks which have not been begun at all, which you won't have served building notice on, and those are likely to come forward under the new building regulations, and so therefore would require additional staircases. And again, if there are additional units coming on board there, again, that might bring even more children. And so the question is really, are you thinking about how you might make provision for additional children on this site? The answer is, as you're probably aware, we've got phase 1 is what we're talking about at the moment, and we are effectively amending that scheme with the promises that are fixed of that existing planning permission. When we come to phase 2, we'll go through almost like a reconciliation process, and if the child yield on phase 1 crept above the initial assumptions that set the landscape strategy, the place-based strategy, that would be effectively mopped up and soaked up in phase 2. So it's adjacent, so we're not talking about a significant distance away from home or anything. So there will be a slight change in that child yield, but not something that's so significant to warrant a significant change to the existing place-based strategy in phase 1 or phase 2. Okay, thank you for that. Councillor Chakraborty, do you have a follow-up? Thank you, Chair. So I just wanted to go back to the topic of the community value, because I understand that in the answer to my previous question, there was obviously an acknowledgement that there would be a resident facility, such as a gym and cinema, that is part of the original planning application, and then also the change of use contained within this variation. In the whole combined portfolio, is there any facility for community space, and not exclusively for residents, but amenities that are also available to the wider public, or space for charities or other institutions on the premises? Across the scheme as a whole, there is approval for 951 square metres of what we describe as flexible space. So that goes across the rare before the use classes, so that would include an opportunity for everything from small shops and things like that. So obviously that's alongside the day-to-day benefit of having a large Sainsbury's next to your house. So there is that mix of flexible uses alongside the Sainsbury's and the resident-only facilities. Okay, thank you very much for the answers to those questions. I don't think there are any further questions, so we'll move to discussion and decision. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Does anyone have any issues that they want to raise beyond what they've already alluded to in the questioning, or shall I summarise where I think we are? Of course, yes. Could I ask one procedural question? Does this have to go to the Mayor, the increase in height, or has that gone by the board? Yes, so the reason this has actually been brought before the planning committee is because it is a GLA referable application, and then under the Council's constitution, such applications do need to go before planning committee. Do you want to jump in? You can say that the GLA have responded, though, in the constitution's application, given what we would say an NSI response, which is saying the application of no strategic interest, so therefore it doesn't need to go back to committee after this committee makes a resolution. Okay, so I think where we probably are – oh, sorry, Councillor Cohen. Yes, just a thought. I just wondered whether there was any discussion on the original application of this one, including health facilities in the mix, in the overall mix, in other words, the additional flexible space that was referred to. I mean, talk about cinema and gym, but just wondered if there was any reference at all to health facilities like GP surgery or anything like that in this development. I mean, there may not be. I just wanted to ask. It's going back a few years, Councillor. In the case obviously, my understanding is no, it wasn't part of the consideration. We have secured a new, enlarged health facility in the West End development down the road, but there wasn't any proposed under this application to my recollection. Okay, I think hopefully you share my view, which is that there are some concerns being expressed in the committee about the increased height, about the reduction in three beds and the increase in portion of two beds and the intermediate housing. And also, I've expressed some concerns about provision of play space and others have expressed concerns about the provision of amenity space. But on the positive side, I think that the applicant is obviously taking a very proactive approach in anticipating changes to fire safety legislation. And I think that is welcome. The impact of the increased height has been, I think, minimised by putting it in the centre of the site rather than on the periphery and obviously recognise that the additional financial burden that that would place on the developer bringing the scheme to us as an amended scheme. So I would be glad to support the scheme, but I think it's important that the concerns that we've mentioned tonight around, as I said, around the height, the mix of bed spaces and so on, are addressed in any future development because it feels likely that we are going to get a future amendment on parts of the site for next phases where additional stairs are required. I don't know if the committee agree with that sort of synopsis. And if so, we should probably move to the vote if we're all happy to do so. So the recommendation is that we grant planning permission subject to the conditions and the formative set out in the appendix. We don't need to say anything about the referral to the mayor then. That's just taken us right. Okay. So if we can just vote on those recommendations, all of those in favour. Sorry, Councillor Chakrabarti. I was going to suggest before we proceed to the vote, if I may, would it be possible to put a question to the officers? Yes, of course. So this is again just a technical detail that I wanted to check. But my reading of the extant Silk Park planning permission, this is part of the site description and the background, so section three of the report. The use classes that are described here for the 951 square metres of flexible commercial space states, use classes A1 to A4, B1, D1 and D2. But my understanding from having Googled something earlier, and I caveat this by declaring that I'm not an expert in any of this, but my understanding was that the use class A4 was previously changed. It was no longer used according to the Business and Planning Act some years ago, and it was replaced by a sui generis use class that covers more broadly drinking establishments and nightclubs. So what I'm wondering is, is the A4, when the applicant refers to A4 in this application, how is that being interpreted? So there are all historic uses, mostly have been replaced by class E or others. And in terms of granting a section 73 planning permission, the original use would kind of translate into its current equivalent. So it's only a technicality in the background, it's the essence of the original uses are carried through to the section 73. Does that answer the question? Yes. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. So if we can proceed to the vote. All those in favour of the recommendations to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives, please indicate. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight in favour. All those against, please indicate. And any abstentions? One abstention. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. That is carried then to grant permission subject to the conditions and informatives that are set out in appendix two. Thank you all for your attendance tonight. There are no other items that I've been informed of. So thank you. And the meeting is now closed.

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