Transcript

Please note that we are not expecting a fire alarm this evening, so if the alarm is sounded, please follow my instructions and evacuate the building. I'll start by asking my fellow members and the officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right. Laura Avery, Legal Advisor Councillor Toby North, St Peterson Canalside, substituting for Councillor Hayes Councillor Martin, also St Peterson Canalside Councillor Bliney Hamdash, Highbury Ward Craig Alston Ward, apologies for having my foot up on the seat Christina MacPhee, Conservation Officer Geraldine Knight, Head of Development and Management Siobhan MacCool, Planning and Applications Team Manager Luke Bates, Planning Officer Emma Taylor-Clark, Committee OK, so we've got apologies for absence, as has been said, Councillor Hayes and we've got a substitute member, Councillor Toby North Any declarations of interest? OK, Councillor Hamden I just plan to accuse myself for item B2 due to it being a Ward colleague On to the order of business, and as Chair I have discretion to bring forward items although the order of the agenda, where there is a lot of public interest so if there are many objectives to an application, I request that you choose a spokesperson Do we have any objectives to any of the applications? Thank you very much Which application is that? It's for 123 Golden Lane Thank you You're the only objector, we will take that item first because there are no other applications for the applications So we'll move on to that item, the third item, B3, 123 Golden Lane Please come to the Planning Officer to introduce this item This is item B3, 123 Golden Lane, also known as Concordia House This is the Site Location Plan It's in the Central Activity Zone, in the Central Finsbury facial strategy area and it's got frontages on Golden Lane, Honduras Street and Baltic Street So it's an office building These are some photos of the site in the wider context This is the red brick building These are more photos from the Honduras Street and Baltic Street elevations So the proposal is to erect and replace a mansard roof extension It would be two storeys in height and it would provide an additional 427 square metres of office floor space So these are some visuals of the proposed design These are some elevation drawings On the left are the existing elevations, on the right are the proposed elevations and it includes a new rooftop plant as well These are further elevations on the other side of the building This is some visuals of the detailed design of the mansard and the projecting dormer windows and this would be a zinc clad mansard These are some visuals of the inside of the roof extension So it would be a cross laminate timber frame structure designed to be lightweight as possible and that's kind of a 3D model of the proposed development As part of the works, all the windows and doors would be replaced throughout the building So these are proposed sections of the building So on the left here we have the existing basement plan and the existing ground floor plan and on the right are the proposed basement plan and the proposed ground floor plan So in the proposed basement there would be 18 cycle spaces as well as new end of trip facilities, recyclists and toilet and plant room facilities and then on the ground floor there would continue to be a servicing and refuse and recycling store that's accessed from Honduras Street There's an existing drug curb and vehicle crossover there and there would be two accessible cycle spaces as well as a new lift accessing all the floors and they'll continue to use the main entrance in Golden Lane although the original corner entrance on Baltic Street and Golden Lane would be opened up as part of the development So this shows the fourth and fifth floors and the roof plan just to give you an indication of the typical floor layout so it should be a quite open plan to each floor All floors would be accessible and accommodate accessible WCs and then on the roof there would be a roof plant structure accommodating air source heat pump and other plant equipment as well as solar panels and the lift overrun as well So the recommendation is to approve the application subject to conditions and subject to a unilateral undertaking securing the provision of one accessible parking bay or a contribution of £2,000 towards a bay or other accessible transport initiative And that concludes the presentation Thank you. Any questions for the officer? How about... Councillor Hamdas, please Great. Thank you. I think I recall reading something about the... ...deviating, so that's perhaps slightly from our plan. Can you just explain what the arrangements would be and how they are deviating slightly from what we'd expect? Yeah, sure. So the policy requirement is six spaces for staff and one space for visitors based on the total uplift and floor space However, they're providing a total of 20 spaces They would just be allocated to staff Although, in theory, visitors could use them too But the policy requirement is one space One space for visitors per 500 square metres of floor space But in officer's view, because of the overall uplift in cycle parkings Big improvement on the current situation Yeah, we consider that to be acceptable And I'd be right in saying, because also it's in the basement, isn't it? The staff parking, I think, is through for a number of internal doors So it might be slightly less than ideal for visitors parking Yes, that would be the case And I'd just like to pick out a point from page 89, 9.122 about both staircases going down to the basement And it says subject to further fire engineering design and justification as part of a building regulations application Because both staircases are not supposed to go down to the basement, are they? It's just supposed to be one staircase Page 89 Yeah, that's typically the case Although, as part of a building control application it is possible to justify two staircases But for the initial planning and design stage this was considered to be sufficient detail And that would be developed further down the line I'm not troubling with the two staircases Just in the application there, it says that further fire engineering design and justification as part of a building regulations application So is that going to be done? Yeah, that would have to be done as part of the construction of the development I just, you know, the roof, the load has been specified in the application that the roof is not strong enough to take a green roof or water attenuation And I notice that there's some quite good water saving input into this design But I just wonder, do you think there's enough to compensate for the lack of a green roof? Do you think input into this application? Well, as part of the application they have outlined that there's not sufficient loading capacity with the existing structure to accommodate a green roof because green roofs can be quite heavily considering the soil layers So we're also kind of balancing that with the retention of the existing building which obviously has circular economy benefits And there also is quite a good improvement to the thermal and energy performance of the building The targeting of brilliant, excellent rating, solar panels to the roof And there will be other water efficient fixtures in terms of the toilets and sinks and things like that inside So we think overall unbalanced, the sustainability outweighs the lack of a green roof in this instance Okay, so anyone else? No? So over to the objectors, would you like to, you've got three minutes to Who's speaking? Is it both of you? Just one It's me If you say your name and you've got three minutes Good evening, my name's Dipam Patel, I'm representing the company's Triac Services I'm representing Serra Eluvai So on behalf of the property in concern, it's 125, which is the building next door And just a very quick context, this won't be too long In 2004, it received the first prize in the Reba Future House London competition Best new Clerkenwell building at the London Architecture BNL The independent also named it as one of the top ten modern buildings Joe Hagen's architectural design There is one outdoor space amenity for that property, which is the rooftop terrace So in principle, this proposal is not an issue But the thing is, the overbearing part of it because of the extended height For that terrace on the front overlooking the actual London view So the outlook would be affected by the increased height That's the main concern here So if there was a variation of maybe stepping that corner away And the other thing is on the rear elevation, there is a shadowing effect of that increased wall height Same thing, because on the rear of the building If you read the context of the actual design that was put forward by Joe Hagen He's got a lot of glass on the bedrooms on the rear So that would be also of an effect So this is something that we would like to have addressed That's pretty, that's it really OK, so obviously the applicant please You've got three minutes to make your case Answer the point raised please as well In relation to the specific point raised I don't know if one of the design team want to pick that up What I might do is just introduce myself in the scheme and leave enough time So my name's Theo Michel, I'm one of the founders/owners of Bywater Properties Who's the applicant We feel passionately that there's two real key issues that our industry needs to address at the moment One obviously is the carbon crisis and how we bring forward buildings in a more responsible low carbon manner The second is how we find a future use for buildings that are nearing obsolescence And when we bought this building from Mencap It was very hard to see how anybody was going to occupy this space So bringing the two themes together We certainly feel passionate that this is exactly the sort of project that we should be focusing on in an industry at the moment Retaining as much of the existing structure as we possibly can And extending where we're able to in CLT Which is the lowest carbon option that we have to bring more space to deliver overall a viable scheme So that really has been our focus throughout on this project Working in timber is something that we've got an expertise in We're building in Vauxhall at the moment, the UK's largest mass timber office building And we specifically look to use design teams In this case Walthaeston Architects who've just won Architects Journal Architect of the Year for their work in mass timber in Shoreditch So we certainly hope that we can persuade you this evening That this is exactly what we ought to be doing with buildings like this in the borough and elsewhere in London On the specific point in relation to overshadowing the terrace I don't know if one of you guys want to address that Yeah Thank you My name's Kevin Francis, I'm a daylight and sunlight consultant on behalf of the applicant In relation to 125 Golden Lane, I think there was two points raised One was the shadowing effect to the windows to the rear We have produced a comprehensive daylight and sunlight study And we've used floor plans for 125 Golden Lane They're appended to the daylight and sunlight report here if anyone needs to see them But the rear windows all seem to serve non-habitable space Save for a potential study on the fifth floor So the non-habitable spaces haven't been assessed by virtue of being non-habitable They're an exclusion within the BRE guidelines And we have assessed the study and as the gentleman quite rightly said There's a lot of glazing to the rear So as a result all the relevant rooms for assessment made the BRE guidelines quite comfortably So there is no effect to the rooms or the windows themselves And in relation to the terrace, I think it was comments on overbearing and overshadowing Yeah, so there is a test within the BRE guidelines for overshadowing to an immunity space So in this case the terrace And the test suggests that the terrace should or any immunity space should achieve Two or more hours of sunlight to 50% more of the space on the 21st of March Now at the moment the terrace is below those guidelines It's at 35% so it's already constrained And the proposed development fails to meet that 21st of June test However we have supplemented that test with an analysis of the terrace in the summer months On the 21st of June And well over half the space exceeds that two hour marker In fact almost half the space gets three to four hours of direct sunlight So I think the summary of that position is that there is an effect on sunlight In the spring months and around March, but in the summer months there will still be very good levels of sunlight to enjoy Thanks So any questions? Thanks Councillor, I'm dashed Great, thank you So I think it's welcome that in the process of engaging with the council You moved the two accessible spaces into the ground floor for the visitor cycle parking I was just kind of investigating how you imagined visitor cycle parking working How might a courier come along and how might that work well with the arrangements that you've got With the expectation that they would go into the basement Hi there, my name is David Lomax I'm the associate director at Walthisleton Architects, the applicant's architect That actually was part of the decision making process around the relocation of two spaces specifically to the ground floor You might notice from the plans that those are particularly allocated to be the oversized spaces for the use of cargo bikes So there's a simplicity there, a relationship with the front entrance To the principle being that there's the opportunity for someone to greet those visitors and provide them with a space to stay in the short term I think it's worth saying that alongside the provision of a cycle compliant sized lift Which we acknowledge is not always the simplest route We are also providing the detailed designs, not necessarily something reflecting the planning drawings But to provide the metal channel approach to the staircases so that people can take that choice to walk down the stairs And that will be possible from both the rear staircase and the front staircase So there are opportunities for a management process where we avoid damaging finishes, all those sorts of things And actually get to use a pretty robust and impressive existing staircase in that process as well So a tour tutorial has said that sometimes these older buildings are slightly constrained about these arrangements We have had developments like this come to us before Where we've been able to agree that the developer might contribute some money towards a Sheffield stand That we'll be able to install on the street And Golden Lanes potentially might have multiple opportunities for that Looking at the size of the office, if we were building this new, we'd expect I wonder whether in the process of engaging with the council after this meeting Whether you might be open to contributing up to the cost of five Sheffield stands If we were able to find someone nearby I'm not the guy with the cash Is that a condition that we could attach if we found Yes, of course we'd be happy to have that conversation around Sheffield stands And other ways of meeting that cycle provision So if that's a condition that we could work on My question is about, have you done everything you could to mitigate the loss of aspect from the roof terrace that the objective is referring to? Well if I start off answering that, first of all say that throughout we've had a really positive dialogue with officers Particularly Luke and his team on the design side The original design at Pre-App had a more symmetrical roof arrangement that's then been cut back to accommodate that terrace David, if there's any more you want to add on that I think certainly from my point of view, I think we need to be mindful of having made that cut back of the roof Not to end up in a situation where the design as a whole needs to work as a coherent, mansard structure I think that's the important thing to reiterate is it's been an incredibly fulfilling and iterative process working with the council And we fully understand the level of different checks and balances and things that we need to balance together to get a really successful response I think in this particular area, in terms of the geometry of the roof What we're doing is we're balancing the embodied carbon of the building, the need to retain the asset and all the carbon expended already in delivering that We need to balance the practicality of a reasonably challenging building in terms of access and egress But also the conservation concerns about a legible and coherent mansard Particularly on those primary elevations of Honduras Street and Golden Lane So actually the area directly adjacent to the gentleman's property that he wished to represent about Is where one of the existing staircases moves directly up and down the building So taking away space from the top of that was one of the most difficult levers for us to pull in balancing those constraints in collaboration with the council team So in this scenario, the value of that existing staircase from its heritage point of view From its functionality and again from the deliverability of the space which drives the saving of the asset if you like That was the balance that we made in collaboration with the planning team and decided that where we were at was the best balance of the premises Thank you. If there are no more questions, we'll move to deliberation about this application So we've had one idea for adding a Sheffield. How many Sheffield sounds did you want to add? So if we can add that to the heads of terms, that would be great Any other comments? Very much agree with the applicant about their approach to retaining the building and trying to make the best use of it and to bring it back into use I think it is quite a characterful building and there's one more thing I wanted to suggest which is that I noticed that replacement of all the windows is proposed as part of the application and that the materials condition just requires samples of windows There's a much more wholesome comment about the windows in the officer's report which says that there will be new double glazed, crittled style metal windows and double glazed timber sash windows to match the existing window styles I wanted to suggest that that phrase was added into the condition to tie down the types of windows that they do actually put forward So I'm suggesting amending that condition to include those words Other than that, I accept the arguments about that there are some limits to the daylight and sunlight to that roof terrace but clearly at the time of year when it's most valuable it's not that badly affected so I think the compromise there is reasonable I'd just add I think it's welcome to see an old building like this have its life extended I was particularly struck by the fact that of the addition of more accessible toilets and the new cycle parking it really is uplifting this very attractive building for the modern era So I'd be minded to support with the conditions that we've attached With those additions, can we agree this application is agreed? Thanks We're going to move on now to the first item on the agenda which is B1 Bingfield Garages, Bingfield Street So there are no objectives to this so we'll just move on to the planning officer to introduce this item, thank you Thank you chair, this is item B1 Bingfield Garages, Bingfield Street in Caledonia Ward So this is the site location plan, you have Bingfield Park to the north and Bingfield Street to the south The application links to the undercroft garages below 52 to 68 Bingfield Street This shows the rear of the site, you can see the undercroft garages at the bottom of the main building and the Bingfield Park And this is the front of the site to Bingfield Street which shows the council owned residential building So this is just some ground level views, the first image you can see the garages on the left which is the main area of the application The wall on the right in the first picture is to be removed and then the second picture shows that wall from Bingfield Park So that wall is proposed to be removed as part of this application So the application is for a change of use from ancillary residential garages to eight separate class E studio units, specifically class EG units As well as the installation of new frontages, the removal of the boundary wall I mentioned previously to Bingfield Park And the provision of refuse storage and a shipping container for storage So the key considerations for this application are land use, design, impact on neighbouring amenity, inclusive design, safety and security, transport and servicing, sustainability and trees On land use the development is considered acceptable because it complies with policy R3 that seeks to protect local shopping areas and surrounding town centres The site is located outside of these designated commercial areas so it was proven by the applicant that there will be no impact upon the surrounding shopping areas as a result of the change of use So this just shows the existing space, the eight garage spaces, they have been internalised because they are currently used as storage by the council for white goods But they were previously open car portals underneath the main building for the residential use And here we see the proposed ground floor plan, this shows the eight studio units They're all around 20 square metres, unit one is slightly bigger and unit eight as well Number two, second from the right is the shared facilities unit which will include two bathrooms and a kitchenette One of the bathrooms will be an accessible bathroom and then on the left there will be the storage container for storage of the units And there are also two refuse storage areas, one on the left and one on the right And this just shows the future elevation of the different units, glazing will be added to the facials as well as doorways And this is also to the west of the site, this shows an elevation, the storage container and the refuse container And then in section you can see the internal space And this shows that in more detail, the top image there And the units will be insulated for sound because there is a potential issue with noise transfer to the joined residential accommodation And then the below image just shows a representation of what the development should look like But there is a materials condition applied for the details of materials to come in post-consent And this just shows the new access arrangements Here we can see the refuse storage below but there will be new gated access to the main studio units area This is shown in plan here but there is further details condition for this to be provided Because there is a potential security issue with mopeds accessing the park So with the gated access here being secured it will avoid unwanted vehicles accessing the park As the wall will be removed, if they were to access that area they would have access to the park So the gated access here was improved for security reasons That does conclude the presentation Thank you, any questions for the officer? Well I'm not, I can't actually get a picture of this gate giving, you know, elaborate on that So the image on the left is taken just beyond where that gate will be So if maybe, oh this is moving now, so it will be located here, that's where the gate will be So vehicles can currently access the site here but a new gate will be installed here to avoid vehicles getting into the main area You can't go round the 'no' it will be up to this other fence here and the details of this are secured by conditions so we'll get more details of this to make sure it is completely secure post-consent I've got another concern which is about this shared facilities, so you've got eight units and they're all using the shared facilities, is there anything in the management that stipulates maintaining and looking after that facility but some responsibilities? I believe so, I mean there's just general management plan is in the operational management plan or general management arrangements It does say management of accessible toilets and alarm at point B, that was requested by the accessibility officer We could add further wording just to tighten that up if you felt that was necessary So a contractual obligation to maintain it by the users? The site will have an overall manager and then that manager, yes, initially that's going to be the council but then it could be transferred in the future I was thinking that we could add something into the operational management plan to say if a future manager starts to manage the site then they would have to submit a new operational management plan just to confirm the new arrangements Are you sure about this heating, how it's going to be heated and how sustainable the heating is? Yeah, those details aren't in the application, the applicant might be able to help, yes, and confirm how the heating arrangements will work Over to the applicant, thank you Hello, my name is Graham Hughes, I'm a project manager in the capital delivery team So the heating for those units will be electric heating because there is no gas supply to that space so there will be electric efficient radiant heaters in each one Is it like individual for each unit? Yes And just to support that as well because at the moment they're just sort of open garages with metal shutters so by adding the noise insulation we're insulating the units, we're adding partition walling to the front with insulation and double glazed windows and doors So that will increase the thermal performance for each unit Thank you, Council North So within class EG I note that that could include offices, research and development and industrial processes So could you tell us a bit more about the type of tenants you might be hoping to attract to these eight studio units if you've given that any detailed thought Hello, I'm Alison Minto, program manager for Affordable Workspace, we envisage at the moment that it will be generally office use But we appreciate the breadth of use class EG because it gives scope for small businesses and micro businesses who may be prototyping or doing some elements of kind of creative work within the workspace Obviously within the limitations of being within a residential block so it gives us the scope for that We envisage that this will be a test as grow on space for people who are currently using co-working spaces and as a business grows able to take on their own unit Mr Hamdasch Great, thank you, I just kind of in the papers note the comments from the parks team who kind of expressed maybe some slight disappointment that there wasn't an uplift in either green space or greenery If we could just understand, were there any specific limitations about responding to that or working on making the space greener now that we're redeveloping it? Yeah, so the application at the moment just includes the removal of that wall, there is a wider ambition for that area with the wall coming down to expand the park into that space And to take up that time, that's not included in this application and that's a budgetary reason, but this is kind of a first step in what could become a wider project for that area Any other questions? Anyone else got? No? We'll move on to deliberation Oh, Councillor North It's not a question, it's a comment Notwithstanding what officers have said about the envisage that most of the tenants will be office type users I am still a little bit concerned that given there's eight studios and they could have quite a wide range of uses that I would want an operational management plan that captures and has appropriate mitigations for that range of uses So I would just like to propose a slight tweak to the condition 5 to say that the IMP should be submitted which details uses of each of the individual studios and that if that is to, when tenants change, that the operational management plan be updated and resubmitted as and when Comments? Thank you. I would like to just put into the conditions the ambition that the applicant just mentioned about really improving that green space when the wall is removed because they can't do it at the moment because of budget It would be good to have that, it's not actually written anywhere in this application, it would be good to have it in there as a, how would we do it as an ambition? I think it could be an informative for future because obviously it's not proposed in this application so it couldn't be a condition I agree with that, it goes in as an informative. Thank you very much. Okay, comments? Can we support this application? Thank you very much. That's agreed, thank you. Thanks a lot. So we're just moving on to the final application tonight which is B2, 54 Newton Green. There are no objectors, we've got Councillor Hamdas is recusing himself and so we can move on to the planning officer please, thank you. One of the very basic listed building consents that we ever receive, a very straightforward conversion of the, sorry, changes to the layout of the existing kitchen in the same location and just a slightly varied layout of the kitchen units. Just a quick note that we usually don't recommend a submission of listed building consent for such proposals because they very rarely affect the significance of the listed building but there were other parts to the proposal speech were withdrawn in the process so the listed building consent applied plus the kitchen layout, there are slight changes to the layout so they would still trigger the listed building consent necessity. There is a site location plan, it's a grade one listed building so that's another good reason why listed building consent would be required. It's a very rare survival of pre-grade fire terrace, row of terraces, number 5255 Newton Green. Here is an extract from the list description with a photo. I haven't included here but there is a 1960s photo of the same properties having shopfronts, 20th century shopfronts which were removed by Historic England in the 80s when the buildings were restored. There is a short statement of significance. Here are very basic plans. I don't have the layout of the kitchen as current but there is a proposed layout and the only changes are, so there is a rear window which is currently obstructed by the kitchen units and I will show that here. There is a rear window where there is a buffer staying right in front of it and the units and there is a, sorry it's not working, and there are tall units right next to the Bressemer beam which is over what used to be a fireplace. So these will be improved, these aspects within this room will be improved because the proposed layout here, you can't see but there is a freestanding fridge but it won't be right in front if you go back to the proposed layout. There is nothing in front of the window and the units right next to the Bressemer beam will be removed, it will be just open shelving so allowing much better appreciation of the room's proportions. Also importantly the kitchen island is going to be removed from the room again allowing the full appreciation of the proportions of this room and we recommend approval. One comment which they look like perfectly good kitchen units to me. I would like to question the sustainability of removing them. I am not sure if I remember correctly because it was some time since I've been to the site but as far as I understand Councillor Russell has got these kitchen units that are coming in stored in the storage somewhere because they used to be installed in her house. So there is a question of sustainability of recycling older units and I am hoping and I might be correct that these units, current units are going to be also recycled. Thank you for that. Can we go to deliberations and anything to add? No, can we agree this?