Transcript

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Planning Board. Filming and recording is allowed, but must not disturb proceedings. Flash photography is not permitted. Only those public speakers who have requested and have been accepted will be called to speak. No other public speaker will be permitted to address the meeting. Speakers' comments must be relevant to the application and planning matters, and you should not repeat comments already made. Once you have made your address, you will not be permitted to make further comments unless I invite you to do so. I retain the right to reduce the time given to speakers. Councillors will have up to five minutes. Accepted representatives of residents and amenity groups up to four. Individuals, two. The applicants and their teams, ten. On item four, I have Carlo Frabini, Colin McGowan, and the agent, Mark Westcott. On item five, I have Clyde Marderner, Dave Thompson, and on behalf of the applicant, Richard Quilch and Felicia Crickler. On item six, I have Councillor Gardner, and on behalf of the applicant, Marie-Claire Marsh, Dominic Glantz, and Ross Rafferty. Item one, apologies for absence. Pologies for lateness and possible absence have been received from Councillor Larder, and apologies for absence from Councillor Babatola. Item two, urgent business. Planning officer addendums were published in advance of the meeting in regards to item four, five, and six. Paper copies have been supplied to speakers and the agents in attendance. Public submissions were received in regards to item four, and an applicant's submission in regards to item six. Both have been emailed to members in advance of the meeting. Further submissions were received in regards to item four and five from the applicant, and from item six from a member of public. As these were received after the deadline, with the agreement of the chair, they were forwarded to officers for their attention. Item three, declarations of interest. David? Sorry, I was going to claim an interest on item six because I have predetermined by expressing my opinion on that, and therefore withdraw and speak on that item as a ward councillor. Thank you. I'll just give my colleague a couple of minutes or a couple of seconds to settle down. We now move on to item four, which is 2B Rathmore Road, Charlton, London SE7-7QW, reference 234073F. Andy? Good evening. Thank you, chair, members, and those in attendance in the gallery. Tonight I'll be presenting the scheme at 2B Rathmore Road. The current application seeks full planning permission for the demolition of the existing building, which is an MOT garage comprising 466 meters squared of B2 industrial use. Redevelopment of the site is proposed for mixed use, comprising 20 residential units and 476 meters squared of B8 industrial or self-storage use with associated amenity space, cycle, and refuse storage. On screen you can see the application sites and end of terrace development, as I said, comprising a single-story MOT garage located on the corner of Rathmore Road and Victoria Way. The site is in a regular rectangle shape and features vehicle access off of Rathmore Road and also dropped curb access off of Victoria Way. The applicant advised that there's easements serving the adjoining property, the gateway, which is to the east. The site has a P-tal rating of 4, which indicates a good level of accessibility close to shops and local amenities, and it's 7 to 5 minutes walk from the Charlton Railway Station and several local bus routes. To the north and the east of the application site is predominantly characterized by two-story terrace houses. Immediately to the south of the application site is a stand of mature trees, primarily sycamore, which fall on land owned by Network Rail. Further to the south is a railway cutting containing Network Rail tracks, and then there's a further development to the south, which is primarily comprised of three and two-story buildings. To the west of the application site, across Victoria Way, is a housing development characterized of residential buildings ranging from two to ten stories. The closest buildings associated with this site are Cassidy House, which is five floors to the southwest, and Thompson House, which is four floors to the northwest. The wider surrounding area of the application site features a local shopping center 190 meters to the north, Charlton Station, about 500 meters to the east, Charlton Stadium, 830 meters to the east, the Faustine Primary School, which is a Grade II listed building located 130 meters to the south, West Kiln Park Station, which is located 700 meters walking distance to the west. Again on site, you can see this is the existing MOT garage, and the adjoining building, the Gateway, which is a two-and-a-half story building, which is not currently on the Council's local heritage list but is in consideration by the Council's heritage officers. And across the street, you can see the Victoria Way housing development. And on screen, this is the proposed development. As I said, full planning permission is sought for the demolition of the existing low-rise building and redevelopment by providing a mixed-use development, associated amenity space, cycle and refuse storage. The proposed development will be four floors plus a fifth floor, which is set back, as you can see on the screen. The development features 20 private residential units. The mix is one studio unit, nine one-bedroom units, seven two-bedroom units, and three three-bedroom units. Two of the units will be M4/3 wheelchair adaptable units, and all the remaining units will be provided as compliant with M4 part two, which means they could be adapted as wheelchair units. In terms of replacing the existing commercial space, the development will feature 476 meters squared of a storage facility, which will result in an intensification of employment space on the site, split over a ground floor and basement level. In terms of the objections received, these are summarized on screen. An addendum report was published, which indicated 59 responses have been received since that was published. A further 28 letters of support were received, four of which were submitted by the same address or the same responders. So this is discounted to 24 additional responses of support. So in total, 87 responses have been received, including from 29 objectors and 41 supporters. No further issues have been raised from those which are summarized in the main reports and addendums, which have been shared with members and published on the Council's website. The scheme does not clearly imprison the provision of on-site affordable dwellings. The development is accompanied by a viability assessment, which has been subject to review by the Council's viability consultants. The Council's consultants have found that in using standard viability methodologies, the development is unviable, cannot support the provision of affordable dwellings on site. This is demonstrated by a deficit of the scheme, which has been subject to sensitivity testing in terms of a 5% upside or a 5% downside, still demonstrating a deficit. But notwithstanding this viability position, following negotiations with officers, the applicant has agreed to a commuted sum of $200,000 to be paid by the developer towards a provision of off-site affordable housing within the borough and to offset any harm identified by the proposals which are considered in the concluding section of the report. As I said, the development includes a mix of family size units up to 15% and 15% two-bedroom, four-person units. This mix as a private development has been accepted on balance. In terms of the quality of the accommodation, the development would comply with the nationally designed space standards. The family size units would be above the minimum space standards, which is welcomed. That includes their private amenity spaces, so their balconies. The development will deliver 10% accessible units. 70% of the units would be double aspect and the units which are not double aspect are compliant with the relevant sunlight and daylight tests. No play space has been proposed on-site and this is due to the site constraints, the site being small. The developer has indicated that they consider this is acceptable due to play space being within walking distance of the development. While this is regrettable that no communal play space is provided on-site, in line with the local plan policies which indicate this should be provided for developments over 50 units, this has been accepted on balances acceptable with policy HE of the borough's core strategy. Overall, the design has been found acceptable in terms of massing, layout, architecture and materials. This is based on feedback that's been received from the Council's urban design officers. Some concerns were initially raised in regard to the potential for over dominance on the adjoining building, the gateway which is shown on screen which is being considered but not currently on the Council's local heritage list. To offset this, the developer has stepped the tallest floor further away from the gateway, creating a greater amount of visual separation distance between those two buildings. There was also concerns raised by the off-site trees and the developer has reached an agreement with Network Rail where those trees were trimmed and that's secured by condition and that ensures that the south facing units would be provided with a good level of outlook. This is just to show and demonstrate what I was discussing on the screen. So you can see that top fifth floor is stepped in and that was an amendment that was made after the application was submitted to overcome those design concerns that were raised so there's a light well on the eastern side of the building and the whole of the top floor was stepped in. And that's just to give members an idea of the design and there were some other amendments that I can touch on that were made through discussions with the Council's urban design officer. And these are the southern most units and it was agreed that the outlook would be sufficient if those off-site trees were trimmed and that's to ensure that these rear southern facing units are provided with a good level of amenity. Overall the materials were found to be acceptable. The urban designer felt that further work could be done to ensure that the brick choice is compatible with the local environment so that final brick colour is secured by condition and full bricks are to be used to ensure high quality construction and overall the materiality was found to be positive. No privacy concerns were raised in relation to the adjoining existing development. To the west there's an 18 metre separation distance. To the north on the street there's a 14 metre separation distance with the nearest window serving a hallway and 37 metre separation distance to the south the nearest residential development. In the adjoining building the gateway is a commercial property so there's no concerns about privacy to the development immediately to the east. Development has been found to be acceptable in terms of sunlight and daylight impacts in neighbouring development and overshadowing of neighbouring amenity spaces has been tested and is found to be compliant with the BRE's guidance. In terms of heritage impacts through the course of processing the application it was raised that there is an existing airage shelter within the basement. While it's regrettable that this could not be reused or incorporated into the scheme overall on balance this has been found to be acceptable based on the evidence that it couldn't be retained as part of the scheme and that's because the retention of the existing airage shelter would not be feasible as it would be in the middle of a floor more or less. This was we consulted historic England on this and they did not object to the loss of the airage shelter based on the detailed report of the airage shelter that was submitted by the applicant. It was demonstrated that this hadn't been a publicly accessible airage shelter so it wasn't identified that there was a high level of community value associated with this and it's currently not accessible to the public as it's within the grounds of an operating business. In terms of impacts on the Fossean Primary School as I said we consulted historic England and they raised no objections in terms of loss of significance to the Fossean Primary School as can be seen by the image on screen the Fossean Primary School sits above the application site and therefore is considered that it's prominent position within the local context is appropriately maintained as a result of the development. And that's again is shown from the other angle. Overall in terms of transportation TFL and highways have provided the council's highways department provided the support of the scheme. The scheme is car free so there's only one disabled car parking space being provided on street. The residents of the future development will not be allowed to apply for car parking permits which will ensure that there's no increased parking demand in the local area associated with the development. Cycling and transport contributions have been secured and there's a low level of movement anticipated from the proposed self storage use. It will be about two vehicle movements a day. So overall considering the existing uses in MOT Garage vehicle movements to and from the site despite the increase of units on the site are considered at net to reduce as a result of the proposed development. 36 long stay cycle parking spaces are proposed and two short stay parking spaces for visitors and TFL have found this provision compliant with the London plan requirements. In terms of environment and climate change the proposed development will deliver a BNG increase of over 10% compliant UGF urban greening factor contribution due to the car free nature of the development. The development will be air quality neutral. The development will achieve a 72% carbon emissions reduction beyond part L with the remaining exceedance offset by a financial contribution of 15,000 pounds. The commercial element will achieve a Bream score of excellent and the offsite tree removal would be agreed with the neighboring landowner prior to the commencement of the development. This is just to show that that BNG score can easily be achieved as there is not a high level of onsite habitat currently. It is primarily hard standing. So in summary the benefits that will be delivered by the scheme are 20 new homes within the borough, the delivery of three bedroom family size homes and three two bedroom four person homes, the provision of a modern commercial floor space, a reduction in vehicles using the local highway, replacement of the existing building, reinstatement of a public footpath so they will reinstate and upgrade the footpaths in front of the scheme as part of the development. The developers committed to employ local people as part of the storage facility and as I said earlier 200,000 pounds is proposed towards the provision of affordable housing within the borough. In addition to those contributions to ensure the scheme is policy compliant, a 20,000 pound contribution towards the council's local employment initiatives have been secured, 640 pounds towards cycle training. The carbon offset contributions and the carbon offset contribution is discussed earlier. So in summary the office's recommendation is to grant planning permission for this mixed use development and just again to show members that is the view of the scheme.

Thanks Andy. Any questions for the officer? David, Pat. Thank you, Chair, thank you, Andy. So this is in my ward, so I know this very well, this site, and my first question is around the use of the ground floor as storage. How sure are we about that given the record of developments? Often these things remain unfinished and empty for years and years and then the applicant will come back and say oh no, we can't sell it, therefore we want more residential. And in terms of jobs, two jobs, how does that compare with the current employment at the garage site? And I also wanted to ask in terms of the floor, doesn't it being the ground floor, doesn't it being commercial actually in the way it's set out? Therefore it's incongruous with the rest of Rathmore and that side of the Victoria Way which are all street properties which have active frontages opening up onto the street. Provides a bit of a sort of difficult corner really. And then in terms of your it's very pleased to hear about the pavement which I hope will meet London pavement standards of two metres clear following our taking account of street furniture but also has there been a discussion about some entry treatment like a continuous pavement or so forth between Victoria Way and Rathmore to improve the overall look, feel and pedestrian safety at that point from the development. I'll come back on the issue about unless other members raise it, I'm going to come back on the issue later of the viability assessment. Can I just go back to the I'd like to know more information please about the storage facilities. How you say that it's only expected that there will be two vehicles per day so how many storage facilities is that area going to break down into? Because it's on a busy corner and what will the hours be when the storage facilities can be actually when they will be in use when people will be coming to deliver or take away their goods. We don't know much about it at the moment. And also can I just ask you at the same time I'm looking at that photograph there and have there are two things that absolutely stand out to me. The windows you've got those beautiful arched windows and that lovely brick on that building and then next door we've got those square windows and the materials you say that the materials you've discussed it and they seem appropriate. To me the materials it just stands out it's just incongruous with anything else. I mean it's set in stone if they were a different shape that the windows and if it was a different material just doesn't sit next to in character next to that the other building. And like Councillor Gardner I'll come back later with other questions. You want to answer those Andy? Thank you chair thank you members. Yeah I'm happy to start answering those questions and I've written them down as best as I could but we'll ask for clarification if anything is required. So your question was in regard to the use of the ground floor storage and how this is secured in ensuring that it's delivered and that it doesn't remain vacant. It is secured through the conditions as part of the policy test in the London plan for existing industrial use to be replaced. It does need to be delivered from the outside of the development and so it's secured in the conditions that that space be delivered from the start of prior to the residential element being occupied. I think there was a question of why storage and I believe that Pat asked how many lock up units are there going to be within the storage and operation hours. Yeah so that's not confirmed at this stage just the overall square meterage but in terms of planning requirements if there's internal changes in terms of compartmentalizing the interior of the commercial unit they would need planning permission so I can't advise at this stage how many individual storage units would be located within the scheme. I'll ask the developer later and my other question was about the windows and the materials used for the brick work. You know sort of how much discussion you know you have had with the developers because it's totally out of character the way it stands at the moment and if you could tell me a little bit more about materials and the shape of the windows why they are that shape. Certainly so as I said the adjoining property is being considered for inclusion in the council's local heritage list. The existing development on site was not and it is the case that those arched windows they're quite unique it's quite a you know it adds a high level of significance to that scheme but it's unique in that it's the only building within the neighbourhood in that immediate area that has arched windows like that so it wouldn't be considered incongruous for the adjoining building not to have those arched windows. The building that is there at the moment the low level building at the garage and that is of the same material isn't it as the one next to this new building so I was just wondering why that was so different. I think slightly darker brick colour the existing building yeah if I go back to the it's a slightly redder brick than the adjoining property and that was one of the things like I said in terms of the exact brick colour the urban design officer wasn't fully convinced of that and that's why that's been secured by condition to ensure that the most appropriate material is chosen when the scheme is ready to be delivered. I think also it's probably fair to say that the development takes its cue design wise from the scheme across the road the more modern development of 40 Victoria Way there's definitely echoes of that scheme within the one you're looking at tonight. What I'm looking at as well as I'm looking at the lovely terraced well they look nice terraced properties on the corner of the Rathmore Road opposite I'm not looking at the main building you know sort of if we can again look at if it's possible those terraced buildings on the other side of Rathmore Road. I think this is possibly something the applicant can touch on further but the intention was you know not to have the scheme be pastiche in terms of you know providing a modern development that was made to look historic. It was meant to complement the existing environment so that doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to imitate every single existing feature and I think if it possibly if it were to you know try to mimic every feature of that adjoining scheme it may actually diminish the quality of that that building. Yeah so I can go going back to your question about the level of jobs and whether it's sufficient so the London Plan requires that there's an intensification of employment use and so it's increasing by 10 square metres of employment space as a result of the proposed development. It was reported in the application form that there was two existing employees. The developments proposed to provide two further employees I note that through the course of the objections received and as those in the gallery will likely touch on tonight objectives have considered that there's up to four or potentially five employees but in terms of square meterage there is going to be an intensification of square meterage. And then your other question was about whether the layout of the ground floor unit was acceptable in terms of activating Victoria Way and that's again something through the pre-application stage through to submission ensuring that the ground floor commercial space appropriately responded to the surrounding context was important. The initial scheme featured full glass almost along the ground floor and given the existing you know primarily residential context we felt that that fully glazed approach potentially wasn't appropriate so they've incorporated further pilasters onto the side of the scheme which break up that facade and make it more compatible with the surrounding style of development again is best said more in line with the adjoining residential development of Victoria Way so that's a view of the facade that will be facing Victoria Way and those are those brick pilasters that I was referencing. And then your further point was about what the ground floor layout looks like in terms of the foot path. I should have a visual so this is the it's about meeting the two meter London pavement standard and also where the consideration of being given to a contribution towards further treatments like a continuous pavement to improve pedestrian safety and the look and feel of Rathmore Road. Yes I believe that the the footway upgrades are secured through the section 106 agreement will be secured through a section 106 agreement and so the the final designs for the pavement would be agreed with the council's highways department. And on the so if I may chair sorry just to come back on those questions because there are a couple of points I was unclear on so I'll ask the applicant about the what what further public realm benefits there might be but to come back on the point questions before just to clarify your your responses that you're saying that there will there is a condition I will read the conditions but there is a condition that the industrial area must be occupied before the residential areas are so they we won't get a situation where we've got an empty ground floor hanging around for ages that we get in so many developments just clarify that that they have to occupy that first and secondly but we'll hear from the objector who I don't know at all that there will be a net loss of jobs although there will be an increase in in space because it will be storage space. Yeah just just to clarify counselor that it's condition 33 commercial premises and I can I can read the condition out of thoughts of assistance so it's prior to the occupation of the residential uses hereby approved evidence demonstrating that the use class B8 self-storage use hereby approved has been completed and is an operation shall be submitted to the local planning authority for review and approval in writing. So that's to to secure in in line with London policy E7 that that commercial use is is that replacement commercial use is delivered. Well perhaps I could just ask maybe Beth being there you might know we get a lot of applications including actually the one opposite which went to residential eventually in Victoria Way that stay empty for ages the residential properties are sent immediately so are you confident that this is a new condition that we haven't put down before and it will mean that the commercial space will be occupied almost straight away and we won't have residences the the ground floor will be left empty for ages. Yeah I mean it's it's it's certainly a good incentive for the developer because they can't occupy their residential there is obviously nothing to stop a developer coming back to vary or remove that condition but that would have to go through a consideration process in the same way as any kind of planning application would. Labe. Thank you chair I'm in total agreement with what Councillor Pat said earlier about the character of that street that's a great two listed can we go back to that picture please that's a great two listed building and I believe there's anything we should be doing in this borough is preserving our culture preserving our heritage that's not the picture I want as a picture of the arch windows beside the new development please not this one not this one it's the fact that you have a grey building besides the brick building and just across yes if you if you click on that one please yes please that one yes no not that one the one up on top of it please. Yeah it's probably the one. Yeah I can talk through it otherwise you're looking for it that's it if you take a look at the colours just take a look at the colours how they do not match we need to be in my own opinion making sure that we retain the character and flavour of our streets of our borough of our towns that is very very displaced in my own opinion you have the yellow you have the grey you have the yellow you have the grey it's not matching if there's anything that can be done with regards to the character of the windows and also the colours that's a great two listed building we need to preserve it it's not just the building we're preserving we're also preserving the environment it's a heritage that's one thing we should be proud of that we have in the borough and so anything that would deflavour it we need to make sure we remove it that's the first one the second question or not the second question is around the two hundred thousand pounds affordable can't remember exactly what it is for what's that money going to be spent on if I may ask please forgive my foolishness if I ought to know and I don't thank you Councillor for your questions and just just to clarify so this adjoining building is shown on the screen here it's not currently listed it's not listed it's not a grade two listed building the grade two listed building and that's likely my for confusing that in the presentation so this is this is not a grade two listed building this is a building which is currently being considered by the council for inclusion in our local heritage list and the grade two listed building is actually up the hill slope we're considering this one in as I said previously so the council's urban design officer has has secured a condition where he we considered they can go further in terms of ensuring that the materials the colour of the building specifically the colour of the bricks used is compatible with the existing environment we have secured that full bricks will be used instead of brick slip facades and so that will ensure that it's a high quality build that's appropriately high quality in terms of that adjacent heritage so despite you know some some differences in character it's not considered inappropriately unsympathetic initially the scheme featured a large white render feature at the top of the scheme as you can see the existing locally listed building actually the renders at the footing of the building and so we thought that there was some incongruity between those those two buildings because of that and the applicant has taken that advice on board and he's removed they've removed that that feature of the development so they have taken the the council's urban design officers advice and and um what what's been asked of them to to ensure that the building is sympathetic and not detrimentally impacting that that adjoining building and through those conditions in terms of the materials what will go even further in terms of ensuring that that brick colour is appropriate and then the in terms of the how the two hundred thousand pounds would be used by the council are you happy to speak on that it would be used towards the delivery of affordable housing by the council essentially so it would contribute towards something like the Greenwich builds program so it would be ring fenced for the delivery of affordable housing thanks any further questions for the officer David sorry to delay thank you so I wanted I as I signaled before I wanted to just drill down in terms of viability so yet again we have a proposal for a small lure but there's still a major element without any social housing just a contribution to basically half a house somewhere else or half of that which is well below policy of thirty five percent we are told that this is because of viability and we are told they're one point two million short I just invite you to put some colour some granularity in terms of how that one point two million is arrived at what the total land cost is the build cost or the anticipated build cost and the anticipated minus the anticipated sale or letting of the commercial area therefore what the revenues are and therefore what the profit would remain given I know we have to factor in a twenty percent profit so I'd just like you to put some granularity and colour behind this assessment because we're always being told this that no virtually no development is is is is is is viable with me to meet the thirty five percent will doubtless you know will return to this in future but it is quite critical because it's about meeting our housing need and this may develop more houses to meet our housing target which is good but it doesn't actually meet the core housing need that we have my second question further question relates to play I can see obviously in policy H E about children's play areas that they're not there's a fifty unit threshold but this is an area which I know very well where residents are very concerned about the lack of play space there is no the nearest play space proper play space is Charlton Park which is quite a considerable distance away or Marion Marion Park which is about the same distance and we've been in discussions with Network Rail about using some of their land near the power station but it's paying for it and paying for equipment and things and what have you but would have have you had any discussions with the applicant about making a contribution towards a local play area given this is very much an area of play space deficiency and a green deficiency generally thank you for those questions so Beth why Andrew's looking at that I noticed that we've got we've got an early and late stage review of this so taking up the viability point do we have confirmed figures for that viability study or were they flexible figures which could change between now and build out yeah there will be figures that are fixed that go into the section 106 and there'll be a formula and it's a standard approach set out by the London plan this is the formula this is how it works so certain inputs are fixed and then when we come to review the viability either at the early stage or the late stage we compare what the actual costs are compared to what those fixed figures were that went in there so if there is an uplift in value we do secure that as either on site if it's early stage or further cash in lieu payments if it's late stage thanks Beth Andrew you want to come back to David's point yeah so thanks for your questions just to first go into adding some granularity to those numbers so the the applicant's financial viability assessment was appraised by the council's independent viability assessor BNP Paribas and they they engaged a further specialist Savills-Brown to assess the the build costs so you know we had two independent specialists look at the information that was submitted so as a result of that information they identified that there was a deficit of potentially 1.9 million pounds and they also did further sensitivity testing with an upside of 5% and a downside of 5% and so that's to account for whether there's any residual values decreasing as a result of you know changes to construction inputs or changes to different costs within the scheme so in in terms of if if their costing was less 5% less than what they assumed it would be there'd be a deficit of 1.17 million and if there was a downside if they'd incorrectly accounted for the cost there'd be a potential deficit of up to 2.7 million and it's like adding further granularity so the developers cost estimate for the construction was 7.5 million our independent consultant got into the details of that in in critique that cost and found some differences so their comparable cost estimate which they thought was accurate was was a build cost of about 7 million or 2777 pounds per square meter and in terms of the gross development value was assessed at 9.8 million the net development value was assessed at 9.7 million and the net realized value was 9.7 million and so that's you know you're looking at a seven seven million pound construction cost in in terms of that realized net value of nine million and then on top of that there is yeah professional fees marketing letting fees disposal fees additional costs miscellaneous fees financing costs and in that context the total cost come to 11.7 million and that's including a profit of 1.9 million I'll give you time to digest those numbers and possibly possibly come back when yeah it raises more questions than answers chair but it would actually I mean I assume it's online the viability assessment I will try and look at it if I can yeah yeah the applicant's viability assessment is is on on their counsel's website yeah yeah I'm I'm just I'll come back but I'm slightly because we get emails from you know lobbyists and so forth if they're employing lobbyists they're clearly spending a lot of money on fees which and are arguable anyway any further questions for the up just one and I know that when you look at this one street scene assessing and you look down Victoria where it is at the moment and I can't remember what was said about the trees you can see greenery and trees by the side of the garage and and but then when you look at the proposed site with this new building you can't see any trees at all that one there and I just wondered if there was any where that some trees could be planted because you know looking down Victoria that's bland and be that the moment it isn't they've got that the green area where the low garage is I don't whether it's worth putting that up so perhaps I should ask the applicant now as well and that one yeah no thanks for that question and I would say one this this visual probably isn't extremely helpful because it doesn't actually have the the greening that's proposed at the front of the site so there is a landscaped area which I can try and quickly show on screen though it's not submitted in in a in a detailed form it's a it's a fairly high level plan it at this stage yeah so there'll be greening at the front and the applicant can likely speak further to that just in terms of the trees there there aren't currently any trees either on that part of Victoria Way I think what you were seeing in that original image is the trees behind it which in the proposed images you can't see because the building is there but the trees are still there behind it you all okay any further questions no Andrew thank you very much I now wish to call on Carlo for bringing hi Carlo yeah we got we got here today yes eventually I sent some material last week I just want to check first if everyone has received it yep yes have you received hope has been able to review in advance so I've got two minutes right so good evening everyone I'm a resident and I strongly object to the proposal to replace a successful local MOT garage with 20 residential flat this garage is not closing due to lack of demand as proposed or mentioned by the developers is thriving employees have increased over time up to four now five and essential for our community contrary to the developer's claim that they are not there are too many MOT garages in the area in fact the garage is needed and it's replaced yet with another storage facility is unnecessary we have already three massive storage facilities as you have seen in my paper within 600 meters do we need one more the proposed five-story block is just 40 meters as mentioned from existing Victoria's terrace house is disproportionate in contrast nearby buildings on Victoria Way are only three stories and set back 20 meters that in proportion is 50% more this new development will reduce daylight and invade the privacy of our houses including my own by overlooking our homes and gardens as shows in my presentation last but not least approving this set of dangerous precedent because replacing a thriving business with flats for financial games could lead to a loss of utter veto services are the garages tennis clubs shops can be next our community has grown by 40% in the last 10 years as mentioned by the developers and we should be protecting not reducing successful services for the community I urge the council to reject the proposal it is based on false assumptions invade privacy and harm the residents well-being thank you for your time thanks Colin any questions for the speaker Pat thank you very much two questions how many people are employed can't remember whether we had this before employed at the moment so I spoke with the garage and he told me that there's four people and there is a fifth one that is due to join in December okay and my other question is where you live how are there any and will there be windows won't this sort of opposite I mean main windows lounge windows if you can see from the pictures attached to the presentation the first picture is from the first garden so can you go on the slides when there is the view from the top if you don't mind I think is lie too yeah thank you if you can put in presentation mode thanks so as you can see on basically on the opposite side I took the first pictures from the garden of the first house that is an opposite and you can clearly see from that picture how the block will be in front and will definitely invade the space in the view garden the second picture that is in the presentation is from number 31 that is six blocks sorry six houses further on Victoria Way that is my garden and and you can see that also from there from the garden you will see the garage so if you see the top of the garage already clearly it will definitely see five-story building all right thank you thank you very much thank you any further questions no Carla thank you very much thank you Carla could you pass the microphone I'm speaking here today to object on the proposed build of the five-story a 2b Rathmore Road I won't be naive enough to suggest that anything I say conceive Riverside garage which for 30 years and up until this point has been a fantastic business for all of se7 they J Lloyd Joe Matt when he was working there were great with myself every time I had a pickle mechanical or otherwise I know that Riverside garage the one of only a few remaining independent motor vehicle garages and se7 will undoubtedly be raised to the ground for this new proposed development alas what will take its place will it be this behemoth node and ode that has been proposed by the developers of something smaller for example a three-story that would blend into Rathmore Road Victoria Way and the immediate purlieu of se7 I fear not I fear that this five-story which I deem as unsightly will be approved but rather than set supine voiceless which is the weapon in this particular arena I say no I'll be heard my desire is that this build blends into the surrounding Edwardian quaint area of Rathmore Road rather than follow the suit of the bills in 40 Victoria Way that have the space to pull off a five-story with all the ameliorations that the proposed build of to be Rathmore Road cannot because of their limited plot size the developers cannot provide a children's playground grass areas semi-mature trees as 40 Victoria Way did but they're demanding the same privileges apropos height five stories developers have an opera moi that deluge mentality which means which is French for after me the flood which means as long as I get my cash in my pocket the flood can take it I don't care my submission is that I want this five story to be reduced to a three-story thank you thanks kind of any questions for the speaker look kind of thank you very much thank you very much like I can assure you we we did hear you and we absolutely take all the evidence that's produced on board I just wanted to drill down if I might on I think in the application the applicant will ask the applicant say is that the the garage is unviable but what you're saying basically is the garage is is operating perfectly well and is is viable the garage is a hub for everything and it's it's it's well run and it's a good business and I know I know every business runner and they know me I've been coming up and down that side of Victoria where my wheelchair for 13 year and they'll carry me out of Victoria way in a pine box supine but uh it's a good business and the height and a density are an issue but that side of the footpath the limited amount of footpath right next to that proposed build is also an issue two women with two prongs with a child in tow they might have difficulty it's very very tight and I know it because I'm up and down it every day so there's a lot to think about before this gets approved but again I fear that anything that's said here tonight is going to fall on deaf ears so can I just go back to my concerns about the storage facilities you're saying that it's it's very narrow the footpath and it's on the corner how I can't remember which side the storage facilities were going to be whether it was Victoria Road or so you're saying it's a narrow footpath so how do you think storage facilities would fit in there sorry sorry can we get the illustrations up for the entrance the proposed entrance onto the site because I think there's a bit of confusion here from Victoria Way and Rathmore I think the entrance onto the site is going to be on Rathmore isn't it uh yeah that's correct the entrance will be on Rathmore and looking at the drawings the entrance to the building is going to be set back that's that's correct right so the narrow foot or the the narrowish footpath on Victoria Way is going to remain as is they're going to remove the vehicle access so they're going to reinstate it'll be all all footway at the front so currently there's there's no there's no narrowing of Victoria Way but there is there is going to be a setback on Rathmore yeah is that correct yes you can you can see in this image this is the front of the garage and this will also be where the front of the proposed residential scheme is fronting Rathmore yes at both both the residential entrance and the residential or and the entrance for the storage facility will both be fronting Rathmore so there'll be two two separate entry doors next to each other if you've got a ground floor plan and yeah let me see if I can find you the image on the right is the the ground floor plan I'll just zoom in so you can see on the right hand side you can see it's written it's the residential entrance and so it leads into a lobby with access to the bins and then the cycle storage is in the basement and there's two lifts and then this is the same so this is the there's two entrances for the self-storage facility ones for customers which will enter a front lobby and office and then there's a separate loading access which has wider and also has direct access to the bin stores in terms of servicing and and that's showing that that landscaping at the front of the site that makes sense back okay thanks okay um no further questions for the speaker sorry la de thank you chair so you conceded we're hearing your voice and thank you for speaking now you mentioned that the five-story is an issue for how advice these three stories will that be acceptable sorry it's best personified on page 87 figure 10 and you look across that little it's like a meniscus that represents the railway line and now if you look at the other side of it that's a three-story and it's I don't think people appreciate subsequently that's where I live there's a natural topography a gradient where you can see the landscape of London and you're sticking this it's if you look at the natural gradient of Victoria Way the only tall building is Fosse Dean Fosse Dean school and it's a listed building so it and it is kind of like the sign assure of the you know community I mean why is this getting such privilege on this side of the road to almost parallel with Fosse Dean and it's it's a slow increase up Victoria Way and then it's that and then it slows slowly increases again so it does get in the way it's a behemoth and I don't think those pictures show just how tall five stories is for that particular spot it's very very out of place so somebody said it was unique it is unique but not in a good way those five stories thank you okay no further questions for the speaker Callum thank you very much and I now wish to call on Mark Wescott I'm up you get up to 10 minutes and you've probably got a load of questions coming as well chair members thank you for allowing me to speak this evening my name is Mark Wescott I'm a director at Kearney Sweeney planning consultants and the planning agent representing the applicant as has been explained by the case officer Mr Sloan the scheme will deliver 20 much needed new homes for the borough as well as provide 5,000 square feet of b8 storage space meeting a local need for a small-scale storage provision the site is currently occupied by b2 car repair garage in a poorly conditioned building which does not make effective use of brownfield land the replacement of the garage with another B use is wholly in accordance with London plan policy we have submitted evidence detailing Greenwich to be the seventh highest London borough based on the number of water repair garages as well as indicated a need for storage space especially smaller units such as that proposed anecdotally there are a high number of repair and MIT garages within walking distance of the site with many based at Ashley industrial estates so to put it another way there's a strong supply of garages in the area versus an under supply of and growing need for storage uses the applicant has worked closely with officers having first engaged at pre-application stage the details of this is set out in Mr Sloan's report the proposal submitted is reflective of the feedback received and includes additional minor revisions with regards to its design as a result of comments received during the determination stage and notably 41 representations of support have been submitted by members of the public the design has been well-crafted to account for its context its scale massing in architectural quality of which it is high has accounted for local receptors such as the next door gateway building the stepped building heights of the adjacent Victoria way development and the immunity of neighboring residential properties whether it be daylight and sunlight overlooking or outlook against all of which no significant issues will arise the technical data in the submitted daylight sunlight assessment demonstrates this conclusion whereas the proposed units will be at least 18 meters for neighboring properties habitable rooms similar distances from the nearest gardens will also be achieved and this is this is important because it's in accordance in accordance with guidance on neighboring amenity found in the borough zone urban design uh spg and also the london housing spg the scheme will sit neatly in its townscape setting and will contribute positively to the predominant residential environment the presence and indeed removal of an air raid shelter is regrettable and was not known to the applicant during determination until during determination sorry our team assessed whether it could be retained to do so would prevent the delivery of the commercial unit and would undermine the delivery of the whole scheme the council's conservation officer is satisfied that the information presented in the submitted heritage impact assessment is a sufficient recording of the of the shelter and accepts its removal in addition to the recording the removal of the shelter will be outweighed by several benefits that will be delivered by the proposal and i'll present these in a moment um there are trees located on network rail land on the other side of the site boundary to the south they have been assessed as not being of high quality and we have been relating with network rail over the trees lopping owing to the effect in situ that they would have on the living conditions of a limited number of units network rail is content with this this approach and an agreement has been signed by both both parties so there's the commitment there this sets the basis for the relevant ground pin style planning condition which requires removal or lopping of the trees prior to the commencement of development we are cognizant of residents being worried over car parking and vehicle trips to the site um the scheme is proposed as scarf car free safe for the blue badge space which will be provided on rathmore road and that's secured in the the 106 agreement new residents will not be allowed to apply for parking permits overall vehicle trips are predicted to be far fewer than the number generated by the existing repair garage deliveries to the residential units are not expected to be materially above the current situation and those that are generated will likely be delivered or be whilst delivering to other nearby properties at the same time and finally the storage unit will be limited to one delivery vehicle per day with regards to construction impacts the construction management plan is required by condition and this will set out a number of of um mitigation measures um to be complied with during construction so returning to the benefits the scheme has been shown as agreed by the the council's advisors to be um as being unable to virally support affordable housing um notwithstanding the applicant has agreed to a 200 000 pound financial contribution in addition to early and late stage viability reviews meaning if market conditions improve and the scheme can generate a much higher return than the greater contribution may be possible this situation has been recently accepted by members on another application at pound place where comparable 10 000 pounds per unit was proposed on an unviable scheme other benefits in addition to the 20 new homes include family size housing and include reinstate in the public realm on rathmore road modern commercial space that will meet a local need a highly sustainable building including the design's ability to achieve brian excellence for the commercial space and provision of solar pv panels and s or heat pumps and economic gains through construction jobs the construction supply chain and spending the local economy by new residents to finish the uk is facing a housing crisis and greenwich is no different i therefore respectfully asked you to approve this application for new housing which is a valuable social infrastructure against the backdrop of the the borough's lack of housing lands and challenges in delivering new for a new housing against its targets um taking consideration of the many benefits that will be delivered thank you thank you um before i go into questions i just want to pick up on a very important point that's just been mentioned um one of my colleagues earlier asked about the type of storage and during your speech just a minute ago you said that deliveries to the storage will only be limited to one per day um and i just i'm just wondering what type of storage facility you're providing and how can you tell us that there's only going to be one delivery a day when if there's multiple units there obviously people are going to be in and out yeah thanks thanks chair um i mean that's it's limited by a condition um but when i say deliveries i mean a um like a courier van turning up to career parcels or something visitors will still can come in their numbers and the prediction as per the transport assessment is up to two two vehicles per day based on the floor the amount of floor space proposed i mean back to the point that was raised earlier how many separate units do you do you envisage in that basement facility at this moment in time i i can't tell you because the operator is not on board um but the way transport is calculated if you like is on the amount of floor space against the proposed use so against the b8 use um up to two vehicle trips are predicted to be generated on on a daily basis and that is far fewer than the the existing use generating 42 vehicle trips i mean i'm not going to keep repeating myself but until you've actually decided how many units you're going to have you can't actually tell us how many times people are going to be in and out moving things in and out and if it's a local storage you know and local residents are there and it's you know it's it's all very hypothetical at the moment just to finish and with all due respect i i do understand the question it's just the way these things are calculated it's use against floor space it's not number of units it's the same for like office space if you had a building of say 10 000 square feet but that was divided into say four office units it wouldn't the calculations wouldn't be based on the four units it would be based on the 10 000 square feet of of the office space questions for the speaker lade pat macy thank you chair i'm still going to go back to the question the chair asked it's extremely difficult for me to accept and to understand that you're predicting the number of cars that would come in when you don't know how many units i'm assuming that each unit to be rented by different persons and that's what's going to determine the foot for to the access that's the first one the second question is around how how did you determine that the current mo t the current cash shop is not viable did you do an environmental impact assessment was there a survey around did you get to know how many customers they have did you get to know how busy they are do you have an idea of the turnover do you have an idea of what they contribute to the local economy it would be great to know and lastly is um you said that um that loads of other cash shops in the in the borough compared to what you have in other boroughs which other borough did you use to benchmark um and you know the question i'm asking is benchmarking with a borough that has similar demography as Greenwich thank you yeah thank you for those questions um on the trips i've explained as best i can um i think perhaps to look at a slightly different way is in storage terms we're not talking about a huge amount of floor space so bearing in mind the um the unit will be operational at least six days per week spread over those six days the average number will be quite low as as per the the forecast and as we've demonstrated in the in the transport assessment um with regards to viability we to make clear we have not submitted any viability evidence on the the garage and that's that's not required as under policy 7 of the london plan no what we've said is the um there are a number of car garages in the in the borough for starters and in the local area so there's there's a strong supply of car garages sorry what you've just said is very anecdotal you can't compare you don't know how many customers they have you don't know what their turnover is you don't know what their impact and what contribution they've made to the local economy so um your statement in my own opinion appeared very dismissive because i thought you had data fact and statistics that for example we've got 70 car garages in um in in Greenwich and out of the 70 you've looked at all of them this particular garage contributes only five percent so it's not exactly viable it'd be better for us to use the space for house but at the moment you don't have that but in your statement it appeared very dismissive of the existing garage without the data okay well i apologize if it appeared dismissive it wasn't meant to be the way that our approach to the planning application has been in accordance with the development plan and i'll refer back to policy seven and as i said at the start of my speech we are replacing one b use for another so its employment space is is being re-provided um with as i say we've not submitted the viability evidence again we've not been required by the development plan in in this instance the um the applicant has been um marketing the site for about seven or eight months but again i i just don't have that that data to present to you because we've not gone past the local plan threshold of of of 24 months but nevertheless the scheme before you is on in in in employment terms is in accordance with the employment policy so so picking up on that point then mark you're saying that the the site was marketed for seven months so so have you served notice have you had you already served notice on the garage with regards to serving notice chair i i don't know i don't have that information to hand but the the the free holder so the free holder leases the garage to the to to the business um as i understand it there's been a marketing on-going marketing exercise but for a number of months the reason i ask is obviously if they're marketing that there's been an agreement or there's been a disagreement between the garage and the free holder and and and the the the garage has probably been served notice otherwise they won't be looking for a new tenant as i say chair i it's not within my ability to answer that the seina okay um yeah don't worry then if it's not um pat yeah thank you chair got quite a few questions but the first one i'm not going to harp on about it but i've seen as i was the one who brought it up i can't believe this we're saying council gardeners saying how important it is to get make sure that the base that the basement the ground floor of these build that this building is actually used and not left these spaces so you know to me that's one of the first things you should get sorted and to say that there's only one vehicle a day and then say well you don't really know how many vehicles and you don't know how long how many storage spaces it's going to be broken into you don't know it's open six days a week we don't know what hours it's open is it going to be open is it going to close at six is it going to be open at ten o'clock at night i'm really that's very disappointing um the other questions that oh as well you've got yes we desperately need houses but we desperately need three bedroomed houses and you've only got three three bedroomed houses proposed and but i'm going back to the materials and you think that materials and looking at the is there any way that you would could change the materials because the materials and the windows are totally incongruous with the building next door and with rough more street that are you've got all these edwardian i'm sure they're edwardian forgive me if i've made a mistake terrorist houses and and have you thought about fitting you know sort of and also have you had consultation what about the consultation process with the people who live locally because they're going to live there and they're going to be affected by and about the height and and the effect on those residents of sunlight have has yeah what consultations have you had and but really as i say my main ones are again not doing anything about the storage whether it's going to be night time how big is the office space inside how many people are you going to employ that's for the storage and basically and are you going to put any trees in as well because again you know sort of people this building is going to remove i know that view isn't always a planning consideration but in this respect with the street view i think it you know it it probably should be taken into consideration we take in the greenery the view of the greenery away by having this five story building instead of a low story building are you going to do you intend putting any doing any landscaping i know that it's just narrow the pavement okay on the illustrations there is a little bit of greening that can be seen andrew you want to put that image back up i think there's greening there's a there's greening on the front elevation by the doors there you go there's no alteration to victoria way being an old road and coming up to a railway bridge the the development cannot impinge onto the public highway so this development will not have an impact on structurally on to victoria way but what they're proposing is some green elements on the front elevation in rathmore yeah so with regards to landscaping as has been um noted it's a constrained site there's not a load of land to give over to landscaping but with regards to the the public realm um improvements the greenery outside the front is proposed to be in some sort of form of planters um you know sort of feature so um planters with small shrubs or or small trees something along those lines the the roof i appreciate you won't be able to see it but the roof will be greened as well where where possible and we've aimed for the the urban green factor which is a policy requirement um so i think it's important just to add that with regards to other questions um counselor um the timings i believe we've agreed to a condition unfortunately i couldn't find it but i think it's it's 800 hours in the morning to to to um 1800 hours so eight till six um on a on a normal weekday um with regards to the family size units again we're looking at we've got to bear in mind the site constraints here i appreciate viability's come up as a question um and there's been you know uh quite a bit of discussion on that but one has to consider and bear in mind viability and in fact the balance i think is is a fair balance for the site constraints and and and viability considerations with regards to the materials um at pre-app we were proposing more of a buff um color brick and and as mr sloan explained in the the presentation the design was a bit more toward the the um gateway building but it was felt it was a pastiche design and we wanted to create something that was contrasting to enable the the um the gateway boom to stand out that said with regards to color fenestration etc there is a condition attached to the to or will be attached to the plan of permission whereby those particular items can be discussed further of officers and perhaps a palette and appearance agreed which is something more towards what members are wishing to see so there is that sort of extended opportunity there um daylight sunlight amenity impact as i said in my speech that daylight sunlight technical data has been submitted and it demonstrates that um in terms of impact on on neighboring properties um there's there's a high pathway against the the um bre guidelines um with regards to to neighboring rooms and with regards to gardens neighboring gardens all gardens will pass the daylight sunlight test as per the bre guidelines so it's a very healthy picture in that regard um with regards to overlooking privacy i refer to the 18 meter standard as per planning guidance again those separation distances are are met the 14 meters that has been raised with regards to the um the flank wall of 41a i think it is victoria way that window is actually serving a staircase it's not a habitable room so that is to be discounted against the 18 meter separation standards so it's it's a as i say a pretty positive picture in terms of neighboring amenity i i hear what locals are saying but against the standards that we are to design to it's it's positive amazing um thank you very much um i had a suggestion and a few questions um just as a suggestion about the air raid shelter um might be i don't know maybe getting in touch with fosd in primary school and finding out which class is doing the second world war and arrange like a little visit with the class i think that's just a suggestion of what would be quite maybe a good thing to come out of that and i think probably local councils could help link you up with that um i had a question about the garage but that's already been asked um the one about um from sort of design massing point of view you've obviously taken the kind of your queue from the modern development opposite but we're not getting the affordable housing within that but i think that i think that that feels like a like a bit of the rub is that the the design queue you've taken is from that modern development but we don't get that affordable housing opposite um with it um so i think if you just sort of speak a bit more about that that'll be useful and um actually you just you've asked the overlooking point as well so i'll just come to some point here okay thanks for that council i mean yeah the school visit is a great idea and if we can do something then i'll take it away and talk to my my client about that i'm not sure whether we can condition it so don't think it'll meet the test but nevertheless um i will speak to them about it i mean again design massing if we were to come down the value gdv will come down i appreciate costs will come down as well but um as i understand it the affordable housing will drop um so we're hitting an optimum position here um is is how we see it um the developer has to make a return that's accepted and allowed in planning practice guidance the developer's profit is quite short of of the 15 to 20 allowed in in practice but the 20 the 200 000 pounds you know it's something that the developer is willing to to contribute it'll be secured by a legal agreement there are early and late stage reviews um yesterday holly facts building society reported third month of increase in housing prices the bank of england are hinting towards interest rates coming down in a year's time there might be more to give but we can only you know say on on today's picture um thank you chair um thank you for the uh the lecture about housing need in the borough um i just um wondered i mean my surgery on saturday was full of people was just along the road in in on round more road actually my surgery it had quite a few people who are desperate housing need how many of those and they're all are on in low wage jobs or on benefits because of disability and so forth how many of those would be able with their housing need because they're desperate and some people have been in temporary accommodation desperate for for a decent house or flat how many of those would be able to be accommodated in this development when you talk about meeting housing need well as has been set out counselor because there's no on-site provision that there will be nil um nil provision for locals and that's there'll be half a home that you'll contribute somewhere else exactly i think one of your officers said that the turn to that will be ring fence for schemes in the bar could could i then uh come to the point i because the pally portal seems to be down yet again i can't access the um your viability statement so perhaps you could just help us here um the the going rate for a two-bed house opposite in bow and drive which is the blocks bow and drive is the blocks in victoria way that face victoria way on the other side um is half a million for two-bed so that's broadly the average then for what you would uh get um that 20 times 20 is is 10 million plus whatever you're getting for the industrial site and of course there could be some inflation so the value could be higher how does that equate to the 9.5 9.7 million that we heard about and um and and are you you know willing to to have any if you could afford it are you willing to have any social housing on site i'm not a viability expert um and i don't mean to to cop out i i can't go into the granularity of of what you're asking there counselor i it's unreasonable for me to even try with regards to on-site provision um if a registered provider could be found uh he was willing to manage the the the units then i think it is something that that could be considered but from experience and and i think my client did or has spoken to the housing department um the the colleagues of our planning department um i don't think there's registered providers out there who would be willing to take on two units within a scheme of this size we need to be hitting the sort of 50 unit and above type um size schemes so i think the contribution is the the best sort of offer in in this particular circumstance okay thank you for your answer there um i wanted to just come on to the um the the the the the outside area uh i asked the officer before about the public realm about the two meter london pavement standard that corner is very tight on the corner of rathmore of victoria way um as we can see in the diagram there are we sure will it be rounded in such a way that we will meet the two meter pavement standard which might mean losing a bit of your land um and would you consider a contribution to um a uh some um entry treatment for a pedestrian safe because obviously victoria way people going to school and so forth having a continuous pavement there and proper entry treatment would be tremendous as well as very good for your residents the future residents and residents of rathmore current residents of rathmore road and also i mentioned about play areas it's an area without any nearby parks or play spaces uh that's open to the public for you look would you look would your applicant would your would your client uh look favorably at making a contribution to future provision of play space if a site could be identified um so with regards to the two meter standards we're not seeing the scale bar on the plan forgive me i i would think the two meter standard will be um met just getting a feel for uh the scaling of the of the plan in terms of the corner i mean we were showing some landscaping there again it's it's very outlined the detail is yet to come forward um i think design could be offered whereby you do have a more of a rounded sort of um return as you come around the corner so i think that that could be sought out as per the the legal agreement um requirement um when you say continuity of of entry treatment do you mean with regards to the surfacing and materiality of the footpath itself or some other thing all right the entry treatment to rathmore road from victoria way uh so you you're you're familiar i presume with continuous pavements we have a large number in the borough uh this is near a school so it cries out for continuous pavement um and it's near all the charts and shopping area as well so it's a very heavily trafficked uh pedestrian trafficked uh street and clearly pedestrian uh continuous pavement which basically is a raised table which people can still drive over but it's very clear then that pedestrian because it's continuous pavement the pedestrians have priority um and obviously a contribution to the borough could put one in would be brilliant i i mean i couldn't confirm right here on on on the night um it's not something i can i can agree to right now um similarly with the play space contribution i think one what we need to understand is there are tests with regards to planning obligations um the table to one side with regards to the play space we are sort of policy compliant in terms of what we're offering um or not in this instance but the threshold i think per policy is 50 units and above are to to provide play space on site there are play areas nearby um within walking distance and and there is the accessibility accessible nurse of playgrounds for for for new residents to with children to to access um so i tell me where they are because i'm not familiar with yeah there's i think the nearest one is um bear with me springfield thank you chair top of the hill there is another one as well i think on fern is it fierran street there's a play area at fierran street fierran street yeah all right there is the fierran street yeah i know fierran yeah that's quite a way away and it is it is tiny it's but nevertheless it's it is existing provision it is in within walking distances within 800 meters well we've we've tested it on the um i mean it's in our planning statement we make the point we've we've done a walking diagram um it's within 800 meters which is a an accepted standard for for walking distances okay well um certainly not a very good play area but coming just one final question if i might chair in relation to policy h 5 4 i just wondered whether you're compliant with that that states a presumption against single aspect north facing units and a presumption in favor of dual aspect units where possible um so as you know north is facing uh the units that face rathmore um we mentioned that 30 the officer said 30 of the units would be single aspect but could you give us assurance that none of those 30 are just north facing are you facing rathmore road yes i can um the north facing units are dual aspects and that's shown on the on the plans the single aspect units are actually uh west facing um and again in terms of daylight sunlight all rooms pass daylight sunlight standard so the living conditions are expected to be good as they are throughout the development chair um another point was on my mind actually is we heard about bng and ugf which was under the north point for actually the ugf the urban green factor but does that take does that calculation take account of the loss of trees and how is the loss of trees on the embankment of the railway line how's that being compensated for because obviously our policy is very clear there should be no loss of trees and while it might not be on your site it's your application that's causing the loss of those trees so where will they be replaced and will you are you is it are you have you agreed to fund the replacement of those trees compliant with our policy so so those trees fall outside the the red line is has been explained and i think it's your word um counselor um there is no agreement to re-provide those trees because it's under the the jurisdiction of a of another landowner um in terms of bng um per se not not the mandatory legal requirement has which has now come into force because the planning application was submitted before that date um we're well ex we're well in excess of the 10 through the through the greening on the roof and the you know the landscaping outside um with regards to 0.4 forgive me originally we were compliant with 0.4 but because we cut back a little bit on the gateway side at the at roof level we lost that that point um 0.2 0.02 sorry and if i can just jump in there as well on the ugf so it is um consistent with the london plan guidance to prorate mixed use development uh there's a lower threshold for commercial uh so if you if you prorate the space it is compliant with the policy requirements but doesn't take account of the loss of trees on the network rail land which seemed to be out with the out with the planning application uh but but subject you know essential for the development it's a bit of a contradiction uh not all the trees are being removed and we have received advice from the tree officer that it is you know if it's on network rails land and if they um agree to that then that's that's something that network rails in control of in that instance mark can you tell us um if this development is a build to rent or build for market sale at this moment in time it's minus something that is it's for market sale okay thanks any further questions no mark thank you very much members i'm now going to open this up for deliberation any comments sandra thank you chair um i would say that um there was quite a similar development at cross meet um recently that we uh that was before us um and we determined that that was over development i wonder whether we might agree that this is similar um and i also wanted to say that whilst i disagree that that design has to be solely based on the building next door i do agree with the color choices um being poor um we're in a housing crisis we all know that um but i'm not sure it really sits well in the street scene um and i also wondered whether if the storage element was removed whether the height then would be more acceptable um thank you chair i very much agree with sandra actually i think the storage element is is is you know neither here nor there actually and is getting in the way um and that could reduce the high i my sense it's it's the height and the massing which is wrong in terms of the uh streetscape um it may complement the blocks that are set in much more land uh on bow and drive but it doesn't complement at all what's currently in rathmore road particularly the really nice building next to it which should actually be listed the the gb building um and it doesn't um and just the massive when you look at it against the streetscape the massing and the height is just out of as well as the color i think is is is is out of sync and i i would just um you know if if if if if you press to the vote i will actually vote against it although i think there are many good aspects to it including being car free obviously providing more housing um i'm i don't you know the loss of the garage i'm very happy with very i'm fine about that i'm sure it's a great business um but um uh but but i do think that um it it doesn't fit it doesn't add to the street scene um and i i think it does detract um and i think it could be a better uh it could be rethought with more you know more space at the back and so forth um and uh and lower um so it's the massing and the height uh that i have concern uh for and i you know would invite the applicant but see what other members who invite the applicant to to have a bit of a rethink as to whether they actually need this storage space thanks david back thank you chair and i agree with my colleagues and council gardner and um sandra that what worries me is the absolute lack of knowledge of how this storage space how the storage units are going to fit in with this development because at the end of the day it will have a major impact you will have good you won't just have one car you'll have various cars lorries whatever it's on a busy corner it's near a school and we don't know sufficient about it and i tend to agree that if that was removed it would be far more acceptable and i'm also concerned because it doesn't fit in in character with the street scene of strathmore road whatsoever those edwardian houses are so they've got so much character and that building with the arched windows and the brickwork and this next to it just it just doesn't fit in in any way shape or form and i'm concerned about the fact that five stories is going to have an impact on the lives of the people who live in strathmore road in in ways of privacy and lack of light and it's it's going to affect their amenity very much so so i think i will be voting against this thanks pat la de i have a lot of concern and one of it is the fact that we are in a housing crisis we have a housing register that when we speak with our residents we're kind of letting them know that if you're going to stay on that register the hope of you getting on social housing may take up to seven to ten years and the fact that this stock would not take even one off from that register is extremely concerning for me it's the fact that it's by select sorry it's straight away sales i'm very concerned about that i'm not going to repeat what councilor pat has said about my concerns i expressed already about the character of the streets being affected by the design um those are my two main concerns and there was a question that wasn't answered and that's around consultation i think it was councilor pat that asked that question where residents consulted i know that we had um i think we had 29 59 responses it would have been nice to know what the what the trend or what the trend sorry what the trend what are the main things the residents objected to but i if i was going to be voting for this i'll vote against it thanks ladi um i'll be supporting the um application this evening it's not a scheme that i would die in a ditch for i think as everybody's already served not particularly enamored with it but i will be voting for it the reason i'll vote for it is because i don't think a question has been asked raised that hasn't already been considered by our officers and our advisors and the consultants that have been used to appraise this uh project in some respects i think um the work that's been done to appraise the project to assess the project has actually been an extremely professional job but it demonstrates if you sense the sense that how difficult the balance is that when we need so many homes in actually in the bar and that we're actually trying to appease so many different voices and that the officers have actually assessed all that and come up with their um the best decision they can advise us with so i'll be i'll be supporting that because i think a lot of work's gone into it and it should be recognized mazie thank you very much um i share some of the concerns about the storage unit um facility with the my colleagues have raised i'm currently using a storage unit and unloading loading all the time but um uh i so i agree with uh council solivan about it is contributing to the um borrows housing stock the design points raised i don't have such an issue with i think that's kind of part of london that you have this the houses and then the buildings next to him um the lack of affordable housing is uh kind of very regrettable but i would follow um officers advice about that so i think if it went to a vote i would be supporting it clear any comments uh yep i i um broadly agree with the comments made by my last two colleagues um i think um it's really important that we do everything we can to alleviate the housing crisis every opportunity and i don't see this development as being um sort of so offensive as as to not be of more benefit than it is detriment i think in terms of the design points i think it's an area it's an area i know well it's full of different um types of architecture i think this is quite in keeping with the stuff across the road in victoria way and you know rathmore road flows around into troudson which is full of all different kinds of architecture and different and i think it's also very similar to um a valley house down on woolwich road so i don't think it's that out there um and uh i'm yeah i'm very happy to support this thanks claire um um i'm i'm actually not satisfied with some of the answers received around viability i think there's some questions there to be asked um again i'm looking at comments made by colleagues about street scene and the impact on the local area um i'd like to have more clarity around the viability because i'm looking at a 10 million pound project where someone is trying to tell us that there is not a profit margin and because of that we do not get any sort of social housing or affordable housing but we get a token gesture of 200 000 pound so listening listening to the sentiment of colleagues and and you know there's there's a there's a there's a lot been said you know in favor and not so much against but of concern so i would like to suggest to the board that we possibly defer this item so that we can get more a better explanation and more clarity around the viability and during that time maybe give the applicant time to consider comments made by all board members today to see if some improvements can be made um and maybe a more viable project or some variations brought forward i'm happy to accept that chair but um i just don't want to mislead people as i understand it from andy's uh presentation there were two consultants engaged and gave advice on the viability is that correct there were two lots of consultants that gave advice and viability is that correct that's correct so the viability information is supported by uh construction cost assessment and so we had a viability consultant reviewing and they employ an independent assessor who who looks at only construction costs so there's there's two two assessors involved okay but you also didn't you also say uh that there would be further viability assessments made and that's um positive or negative depending but there would be further it just seems to me what is the point in going away and doing another viability test and we've already had two substantial ones we've also also had the officers and we've also done our viability appraisal here at the committee which i think is ludicrous to be honest when we've actually paid substantial sums of money to consultants to give advice if we're not satisfied with that advice we shouldn't be paying them or the officers have accepted the advice we shouldn't be paying them but we certainly i think that way we are i just don't think a viability analysis is going to make us any wiser in two months three months time but by all means uh anything for a quiet life if we're not get back for a couple of months so be it david thanks i do hear what councilor sullivan um says um but we're off in this situation with viability i've not been able to access the viability statement tonight because of planning portals down um and it is it is quite crucial to this but i also think in what you said and what other people have said a deferral would also give an opportunity for the applicant to uh look at a revision that comes back without the commercial space which gives an opportunity to lower uh and maybe look at the residential format as well um that that that i think is also the key point okay i'm going to put this to the vote then on the suggestion of the deferral first off do i have a seconder okay all those in favor of offering the applicant a deferral so that we can actually get more clarity and better explanations around the viability and also give them an opportunity to look at some possible revisions come back with more detail around the storage traffic movements and address some of the points of concern raised by members so all those in favor all those against item is deferred we all good yeah we've got over this side yeah we now move on to item 5 1a and 1c ansham drive abbeywood london se2 9rq reference 240146f the board are requested to grant planning permission for demolition of existing car wash and pet hospital and any associated structures and the redevelopment of the site for a mixed use development including buildings comprising a re-provided pedestal 487 co-living rooms 110 bedroom hotel car parking cycle parking hardness of landscaping measures the application site is situated within abbeywood and is into the west of harriman away and to the south of ocean drive the area is characterized to the north residential surrounding by residential properties including the thistle perch traveler site and to the west the supermarket chain little surrounding neighbors and public were notified and an application received during support for an objection and two resonant comments and this also included a calling request and objection from council covers a further to the east of the site is the london borough of bexley who were consulted and in response provided no comment here are site images of the existing site which has previously mentioned comprises pet hospital and car wash and here's an existing elevation of the site when viewed from ocean drive the site and in its context would have further to its north ten speed and to its west a number of people developments within and bexley the people this scheme that is directly to the east of the site which is empty does have consent for redevelopment however a newer application was submitted that is still under consideration and this includes up to 1950 residential units and up to 3225 square minutes of commercial floor space there was also notably another people this scheme which was granted in 2006 which is the north east of the site and this includes commercial floor space and a number of units and it's noted that a number of units are residential units are occupied within the site and also to the south of the site as we can see is abbeywood station which is a seven to eight minute walk from the site and this benefit this site benefit this station benefits from the lizabeth line station surrounding the site would be a number of heritage assets consistent to the west the grade two listed sculpture and abbeywood park a vast of the southeast is the lenis abbey scheduled monument and the grade two listed ruins of lenis abbey it is noted that the site benefits from an accent concerned on the site which included the re-provided pedestal 272 homes and 207 commercial floor space this is across a number of buildings and was a fast crap scheme for affordable housing securing 37 percent by hub room affordable housing by a broom this application has been implemented and an application was submitted in 2023 and it's a waiting decision to accommodate a number of internal changes including a second circle the car application as we can see has a number of similarities with appearance height and scale with accident consent the number the main differences would be externally in the tone of brick as well as emitting return external balconies minimal increases in height which will see increases between 0.025 and 0.775 meters in addition the uses and accommodation would change from residential to co-living and hotel over course the hospital being re-provided therefore we can note given the similarities of the proposal against the at content scent this is considered to hold significant weight in the consideration to pose development here today in terms of this impact to heritage accent the accent consent no to be was considered to have a less than substantial impact to learn a scheduled monument and the greatly listed names abbey the proposals is once again considered to have a less than substantial impact to both heritage assets but is again considered to be outweighed by the public benefits of the scheme here is a proposed self elevation of the scheme the proposed development is notable in terms of energy to achieve at least a 4 c 6.5 for overall site-wide reduction and regulated co2 emissions and this is no to be achieved by a number of measures notably few pvs and S or heat pumps and it was noted that the mean to an imminent impacts were considered in excellent consent to be acceptable and again accepted acceptable again in this game here is the proposed basement and ground floor pan of the development cycle parking would be situated at basement and ground floor 49 car parking spaces would be pros and waste provision would be situated at ground floor and consideration for mitigation waste collection waste storage theories are recommended by condition and also the proposal would secure a number of highway works which would be unsecured via the legal agreement here we can see the proposed pdsa pet hospital which was situated within building a ground floor only and this is a reprovision as per the excellent content the proposed hotel with b 110 rooms and would be situated building b and we located across ground to sixth floor the hotel the application site is considered acceptable in policy terms and this has followed the applicant undertaken a sequential assessment for its use of the site and this was notably reviewed by policy colleagues and also noted that 10% of wheelchair rooms would be proposed as part of this proposal in terms of the co-living we can note that entrances would be would be situated with eight buildings a c and d and we can see the elevations for these buildings it is noted the co-living use would meet the location requirements under london plan to be situated at the application site before the before i go further in terms of explaining the co-living proposals and set this out further i'd like to provide some background as to what co-living is co-living or large-scale purpose-built shared living is defined by the by the mayor's lpg as a type of non-self-contained housing that is generally made up of at least 50 private individual rooms and communal spaces and facilities the lpg goes on to note there's an emphasis on communal living which isn't the case for normal private housing it differs from hmo's and that this form of housing includes on-site amenities facilities for residents and is included as part of their rent and lastly differs from hotels in that there is a requirement for minimum tenancy lengths of three months under london plan requirements for co-living there is no requirement to provide affordable rooms on site like we see for housing but they are required to be viability tested in an enterprise the council for contribution towards off-site affordable housing and that is the equivalent of 35 of units but with over 50 percent discount of the market rents the table above is taken from the night frank co-living demand study of the site this provides just purely a context of where co-living scheme would sit within the rental market in the borough co-living would sit alongside private mental cell which includes rented room in a property or flat such as hmo and exit builder rent the average rents that are indicated and used by the night frank grant is not being secured for the site and it is noted when the council's viability review this reviewed the viability of the site they considered a different rent for the site but the graph is useful to provide a context that this former rental provides single occupier residents in the borough and importantly an alternative formal accommodation from studios or embed and lastly unlike private rental cells such as hmo or builder rent there'll be no additional costs on top of rent such as council tax and bills and will be inclusive as part of your rent the co-living proposals will provide 487 rooms and this consists of three room types standard premium accessible rooms the standard rooms and premium rooms in terms of size would be in the whole considered acceptable and compliance on the rooms would be considered further and via condition as the accessible rooms this will be proposed as 11.7 and has been considered compliant at this stage by the occupational therapist with more details to be considered at condition stage further details and amenities within the room such as tables and chairs will be considered by condition to ensure further compliance with the lpg in terms of internal immunity provision this will be indicated in the areas indicated in yellow in the plans above communal immunity will be situated at ground and first floor whilst community kitchens would be situated in the upper floors the facilities for the community kitchens would exceed requirements for the lpg and this is being secured by condition here is the proposed co-living external immunity provision which again would exceed requirements as set out in lpg for external immunity and this includes outdoor studio dining and seating and here are some precedent images from other co-living schemes in london to give an idea of the internal external provision that could be provided for such a coat for a living scheme in terms of housing it's worth noting that's consent previously noted secured 272 room I mean to housing the total number of co-living rooms would be 487 rooms and using the london plan this would count towards 270 houses towards the borough's housing target although this will result in like minimal loss they're still considered in relation to the accident consent a positive towards um counting towards the borough's housing target in terms of viability the scheme has been reliability tested and reviewed over the course of application the applicant made an affordable housing contribution of just under 7.4 million and this was considered by the council's viability reviewer to be about 10.8 of the rooms on site this is less than 35 in the rooms and this will be as such subject to a early and late stage review and this is recommended to be secured within the heads and terms the affordable offer was being reviewed by the council independent liability reviewer they considered the offer to be reasonable as a set within a range of possible delivery models and is notable that the gla and considering applicants of a considered the maximum viable house bill contribution however the gla and the council's viability independent review considered the hotel would have a negative impact on schemes finances but the hotel was still considered acceptable on policy terms and to mitigate against this it's proposed for the late stage review to be amended in the event the hotel is not delivered on the site when the late stage review is triggered we can also consider how the off-site affordable housing contribution could be used to deliver affordable housing in the borough it would need to be verified as to whether this contribution could be used to greenish bills in defense there's a delivery option but it could potentially be one option or alternatively it could be used to subsidize the purchase of units within the section 106 or subsidize the purchase of homes designated as private cell and using them for affordable housing examples of this form of delivery where um from private cell is within block 203 within gmv where 100 flats were bought from the developer in conclusion the scheme before you is considered overall acceptable and offers an officer's note notable benefits including the foldable house off-site affordable housing contribution as well as a number of contributions and obligations as such officers recommend that time permission is granted in line with an officer's recommendation thank you chair thank you leslie any questions for the officer david nade uh thank you very much uh leslie um that's that's been very helpful um i i just looked at the comments from uh network rail um and i was been looking at google maps at the um how um how good the walking route is from there to the station obviously with co-living people obviously no uh car free which is great um but the the route having a safe route to the station is very important that's well i can look see from google earth that it's well um you know a good a good walking route but it's a very busy road and i wondered whether you know network rail tiffel have now been satisfied in terms of the walking route being continuous to the station and whether we looked and discussed with the applicant a contribution to better green that road and landscape maybe make the cycle lane put a proper barrier between the cycle lane and the carriageway and so forth um is just improvements to access the site given that there will be that very strong uh dependence on abbeywood station i mean it's it's a short distance people won't get the bus unless it's pouring with rain or they've got mobility issues but but they will um they will want to walk it and having that reassurance that we can make it as safe and attractive as possible both to walk and to cycle so thank you yeah thank you for your comments so this was the um that route was considered as part of the active travel zone assessment that was submitted by the developer and firstly on your point on the network well comment um unfortunately they did seek a contribution to provide an improvement however just due to the fact that they were that access was in relation to a development that had consent and potentially could come back it was felt that it wouldn't be appropriate in that location to seek to improve the access in the event that um the development there was was coming forward again but um if they were to come forward again that would be looked again by highways but there is but to ensure that there is an accessible route one of the as part of that zone assessment tfo raised to provide a raise table so this is at the crossing that is just um by the car park as you're going into the sainsbury's and for that that is being secured as part of that to travel zone and contribution and then i think also and also as part of that to travel zone contribution um there will be um barriers just on on by the roundabout where that existing cycle lane is so there'll just be some raised barriers to help apply that thank you very much leslie um very explanatory um i'm very familiar with that route because i take that route daily when i go to work so um there's actually a dedicated um cycle lane yeah there already and uh i know that the um pathway or the walking path is quite generous um it's quite a good walk from there to the station my concern is about the number of units my concern is about because just opposite this are the peabody buildings going up and we do know that all the wolver cuts you know all the buildings directly opposite the road they're going to knock them down those are the concrete buildings and skyscrapers will be going up there that's the bexley side and i suppose bexley didn't commit because they know that they've they're doing their own bit at that end i'm very concerned about the impact on our existing infrastructure 487 i took a picture of it because he went through very quickly bear with me one moment please so it's the um oh i didn't get it if you could go back to the page it'd be really helpful the number of units we're going to have the coal living this one yes thank you 487 coal living the concept of coal leaving is every definition of hmos let's just take it redefining i say it's not hmo it is hmo because what you have you have people with individual they still share they share communion spaces they'll share kitchen share the lounge and all of that for me it's a concept of creating another ghetto that's the truth i'm extremely concerned about this number of units if you could just go back to the to the page please it looks nice here but when you have 50 people in um i i i've seen a similar one and i know what it is like um it's also my other concern as well is about the homes um the the other apart from the hotel how many units would we have for um for homes i mean you need so you have the hotel you have the code living and then which is the third bit it's the re-provided pet hospital sorry it's the pet hospital that's been re-provided on the site okay okay okay so my concern is just about those number of people i didn't see any play area there from what you just showed for children um is there any or did i miss that out it's not a requirement because um okay it's another major concern you know for me um no play area definitely you have families there not in the coal living space um but it's just a fact that i don't know it's it's it just um i can understand your concerns but i think the number of rooms i think we can think about in the in relation to the accident consent if you look at in terms of especially if i go back to the scale of the development so yeah so if you compare it in relation to the accent consent it's even though saying this seems like a number of rooms but it's just purely in terms of the way that co-living works and that they have rooms and they have sharing facilities but it still would provide the borough with like a similar number of housing towards um or housing and just on that it's not for families they are they are small self-contained rooms with some facilities in the room but then a number of communal facilities throughout the the various floors but it's not for family units and it's not exactly the same as hmos so we wouldn't we well so this is a co-living product as as um leslie said in her presentation it is it is different to the hmos that come before you in for example in the local committee which are small family houses converted into you know five or six rooms this is this is a proper managed block of flats and and no doubt the applicant will be able to give you some more information about who who will take on the co-living rooms who will manage them but they are they are not quite the same as hmos sandra thank you very much chair and thank you leslie for your presentation i just wanted to ask um obviously the seven million is a nice contribution towards um our housing um but was there any discussion about maybe discounting some rooms so we could get some people off the housing list so as part of the policy requirements for co-living we're not required to provide affordable housing on site it's just purely looking at the viability in order to provide an off-site contribution so um just so it's in line the policy we didn't look at having affordable rooms on site clear thank you very much chair i just wanted to um possibly explore a little bit that what this co what co-living is and how it compares to hmos so um i've lived in hmo before i know what they are i don't think they're in any way um similar to uh co-living spaces so could i just confirm in a co-living space generally you'd have one i suppose maybe it was a couple one or two people living in one room that would have um typically its own bathroom and some um single spaces um facilities just for the person living there so a kitchenette uh seating area um and like a lockable sort of door things like that that's that's correct i think right but they would basically see as part of the standard and premium rooms and these are these are assessed against uh lunt um the lpg so they give standards in terms of the amenities that they're required to be provided in the room including like tables and chairs as well as to have a knack of small kitchen so it's just like it provides us with the requirements for each of the rooms and what differs from hmo is that they do have on-site communal facilities so i don't know let me just go yeah so they get um as part of it potentially they get cinema um co-working spaces they get potentially gyms so they get a lot more in terms of the on-site facilities that are included as part of their rent so um as competitive sorry so leslie would you say it's more like a residential hotel to be fair as part of the lpg it does say the difference between a hotel and that co-living is that they have longer tenancy lengths in that sense so they consider for longer well whereas in a typical hmo that you typically see in this borough what you traditionally get is a house that was originally built for a family that's been converted into um probably three or four bedrooms um residents typically probably less affluent young people sharing likely one bathroom sharing a kitchen probably between strangers um with uh basically no space to themselves compared to yeah no i to me i think the communal spaces so we did actually view one as a as a planning board we went and viewed one in wendy which is actually not necessarily exactly what this one's going to be like but what i thought was that the communal space were typically uh desirable add-ons you know that as as um um you just said like uh yeah uh co-working space uh gym and things like that so i don't know i think to me they're very different any further questions for the officer no thank you much thanks thanks lisley um i now wish to call on clive marner sorry wake you up there clive well thank you um good afternoon good evening um all of you it's nice to see uh a lot of friendly faces or some old colleagues sorry other colleagues of apologize to the old um okay i'm a resident of abbywood and i've been living there for over 40 years um and i stay right at the beginning i'm familiar with the area i am not against development and i'm not against um the area changing all i know that we need the right development for abbywood so for me i will be objecting to this application the areas of my objections are as follows number one the lack of social housing in my opinion the co-living is not an alternative and in the event that money is going to go off site secondly the height of the buildings 2009 abbywood and tems mead had what we call a supplementary landing document that document related precisely until about tall buildings and it talked specifically about the limited the number of tall buildings in abbywood it wanted to preserve the village nature of abbywood i will accept that the mayor in 2002 2020 i beg your pardon designated abbywood as a as a area of opportunity and i accept that um so i'm not saying that there should not be an opportunity error in development but this development is not for abbywood secondly i strongly believe that is over developed there's just too much things going on at this site in terms of the hotel the height overshadowing massive um so i will be asking you to reject that and we talked earlier about the viability assessment the gla views is that the development developers goals is to raise profits at the expense of affordable housing and lastly consultation and engagement the public consultation numbers are very low and this should be a concern for any of those for the members sitting around this table it would be important to know a little bit about the history and i'll do this very quickly in 2018 this application the previous application was turned down unanimously by this planning board it was then called in by the mayor and then granted planning permission to the people who knew abbywood well said this is not what we wanted to greenwich for abbywood do you want to wind it up there clive winding up yeah right i've just got four points and that's it well over your two minutes okay um so i'm asking the board not to be fooled by the seven million offer if you want to take that money that money has to be invested in abbywood to provide family homes not off-site somewhere else and finally i would need to know in terms of the co-living is that going to be a managed area and if it is who is going to manage that and is the as a condition i would want the panel to give consideration to having a management agent before any development is taking place and lastly i thought that was the last one well i apologize i've just seen my over bit and lastly i mentioned um the vibe last i mentioned the confrontation there was only six people according to their document i would ask you to relook at that because my view is if you are going not to have the full cooperation of the local people and with the development nothing will work on site thank you very much i'm happy to take any questions you haven't got enough time to answer them now um questions for the speaker david uh good evening uh having said that as a seasoned former member of the planning board don't you understand that where there is extant permission it might be that we turned it down but the mayor approved it yes therefore we we we do have to take that fully into consideration and the danger is if we reject it on the grounds of height and height alone um uh then uh we would just lose the appeal yes and i will say this to you uh david and the rest of the board matters um you should not be concerned about an applicant appealing that is not a material consideration you should look at the you should look at the application as it is and make a decision on that that's my response to you and in any event that's it clive no you've answered you've answered the point i'm aware of time other people have got questions for you no problem okay okay clear hi clive just on your point about co-living not being um a sort of viable alternative where do you think young people abby wood should be living who can't afford to uh buy and are not like going to be um eligible for social housing anytime soon i didn't could you say that again please so i was just saying so i understand your point is that co-living is not a suitable alternative to social housing which it's not meant to be so where do you think young people in abby wood should live if they can't afford to buy just yet and are not going to be eligible for social housing like anytime soon because we know how long the list is where do you think they should be living that's correct well my focus is on what is the need right now um for those people waiting on greenwich housing list and i accept there are young people waiting who can't afford to buy and i accept all of that all i'm saying is um in abby wood there are family needs and we need family homes that is that is that is a priority that's what i'm saying and i'm not saying um that because even though i must admit i do not understand it to the greatest level uh but that doesn't seem appear and looking at the needs of greenwich and abby wood um that doesn't seem the way to respond for those people who live in abby wood who are or who are that's the need in terms of family homes yeah but so you're you're answering about families but i'm asking about those like young people single or in couples young people who are not families yet so do you think they're better living somewhere like this or in hmos or living at home with their parents no i i totally accept that i totally accept um one of my big bug bears is about access for young people onto the house market i totally accept that all i'm saying is is that in response to that is how it's managed what the rents would be that's the point i'm making i'm not saying quite clear what we'll do we've got the applicant's team here these are questions that we can direct to the applicant's team and get answers this is what i'm asking you and to put to the applicant yeah so so we'll raise these we'll raise these points later on when we can when we can get some answers and then obviously that will lead to other discussions yeah that's correct any any further questions for the speaker no clive thank you very much thanks for the short visit you owe me three minutes all right i now i now wish to call dave thompson hi dave hi yeah thanks very much two minutes and don't try it on like clive did okay thank you chair for giving me the opportunity to address the board in support of this application my name is dave thompson i'm the head of estates for pdsa the people's dispensary for sick animals we're the uk's leading provider of a veterinary charity and we provide treatment to pets and support owners who would otherwise not be able to afford veterinary treatment and this is pdsa's main raison d'etre we've been founded in 1917 we've got currently 49 locations throughout the uk and we treat 400 000 pets per annum and so we supply 2 million treatments a year and we provide care to pets of over 300 000 people in financial hardship across our hospital estate we treat 10 pets every minute we employ 1600 veterinary staff and we run coordinated training schemes for graduates and apprentices 28 percent of the pet owners we support are retired and 30 are disabled or living with a serious health condition that makes everyday life difficult our veterinary services cost 75 million pounds a year and that's all provided from public donations we don't get any grants or government funding we've been providing a service in this borough for over a hundred years and our first service was actually established in 1923 our current site in angeham drive has six consulting rooms two operating theatres and x-ray and isolation facilities and kennel facilities the treatments include emergency surgery consults for acute and chronic animal conditions together with vaccinations and use ring from this site we help every year seven and a half thousand owners in the borough in financial hardship and we treat 9 250 pets in need within the local community the services that we deliver are delivered by a team of 34 pdsa employees including 10 vets 17 nursing staff and seven admin assistants it costs the charity 1.2 million pounds a year to run that service from that site the current site which we um constructed in 2001 is no longer compatible with the advances of veterinary and medicine and it's causing us difficulties operationally and certainly from inefficiencies currently we have to drive up efficiency throughout our sites due to the financial um issues that we're actually facing as a charity in order to continue to provide this vital service to the local community it's essential for us to upgrade those facilities to provide an accessible available environmentally sustainable attractive facility to serve the existing residents within the borough who are eligible for our charitable support thanks yeah i'm nearly finished as well as new residents in future years the proposed development meets our operational requirements and provides the facilities needed to ensure the long-term sustainable future for that service i therefore ask you to support this application thanks dave questions sandra thank you chair i've heard nothing but good things about pdsa in the borough and you do a fantastic job um what would the interim arrangement be while while you were being built out uh currently it's anticipated that we would remain in occupation so they will actually and obviously you're asked the developer but the idea is that going to phase the development that will allow us then to continue in occupation and then when they've built one of the first blocks we will then transfer our facility pat david thank you thank you very much and yes and i agree with my colleague can i just ask you how do you feel that this new build of yours which you do do brilliant work will sit and with the hotel and the the sort the um co-living and i'm talking in terms of perhaps um refuse and waste because you will probably have a lot a great deal of clinical waste for the amount so it's how is it going to sit with the other buildings thank you yeah clearly that we we've got facilities all in different sites right across the different different uk so we've obviously got sites in the middle residential um developments so i think we we manage those situations according to the circumstances we find ourselves in so in terms of clinical waste we will either increase the frequency in terms of obviously that sometimes we have to remove dead bodies and things like that so again we've got storage facilities or we actually then increase the frequency of collections thank you echo the i referred quite a few constituents to pdsa over the years they're not used it myself um i just um going to ask about parking uh because currently you have 28 parking spaces but and obviously some people need to bring larger pets by car uh but smaller pets can easily be carried by public transport um and i i just wondered whether you really need 28 spaces is that absolutely i know it's going to be reviewed but is absolutely essential could we have more greenery and so forth rather than more parking spaces yeah i mean to be quite honest we've got an application in hull where we've actually been asked the same question and obviously that we've got the support staff so there's 30 odd staff presumably they all use active travel um they will but some might come from further afield um but equally we've got patients that actually have to come to the site as well so that's uh that's our current assessment obviously that um as part of the scheme that will probably be reviewed but what we found from experience that actually those people with pets sometimes do need to travel in across the borough to actually get to us don't forget we're serving the whole borough not not just the local area any further questions thank you very much i now wish to call on richard quilch and felice crickler thank you chair and counselors for the opportunity to speak um my name is richard quelch and i'm the planning consultant on the project and sat next to me is felice crickler from a sale architects um so we've undertaken a thorough engagement uh engagement including pre-application discussions with the council and the gla public consultation and liaison with key statutory consultees we're pleased that officers agree with us that the scheme offers a number of significant benefits and have recommended to you that the council should grant planning permission the applicant is aware of the pressing need to deliver housing and wants to ensure that the site does not remain vacant but can contributes towards the council's housing target the site has remained underdeveloped for a notable period of time and the applicant wants to fulfill the aspirations for this brownfield site within an opportunity area by bringing forward this new scheme for this reason the proposed development is deliverable and can be delivered soon it will provide the equivalent of 270 homes as leslie mentioned which is circa 10 of the council's annual housing target co-living will provide a different form of housing accommodation for people who want to live in abbey wood but cannot access the conventional housing that is currently provided and will be provided in the future as officers have indicated it will help to achieve a more mixed and balanced community we've already heard how the scheme will benefit the pdsa and it will also deliver a new hotel for tourists business people and those visiting family and friends in abbey wood we're aware co-living is a new housing type within the borough so felice will be able to explain a little bit more about this thank you richard and good evening so i'm felice crickler i'm an architect and director of herself architecture um and as an architecture practice we specialize in designing buildings and places where people live and we have the experience of having designed a number of co-living projects similar to the one that we're talking about today and a number of which are built and now operated and including the one that you can see there on the screen which is a project in knell's field which has now been open and people have lived there for two years so we have the benefit of knowing how these schemes work are lived in and operated as well we've also worked with our client on this particular project and have designed for them a project in harrow which also is operated and managed by them so co-living is a really important type of new tenure um i think because not only because it offers high quality solution for renters but mainly because it's responding to a need which is not currently being met by the general housing market um today it is for individual renters who would otherwise often end up having to rent in poorly run informal hmos because they can't afford the price of renting a one-bedroom apartment and whereas here in in this development they can live independently in studio apartments which are well designed with added access to many shared social spaces facilities and also access to events it's not aimed at a specific demographic um we know that there are people from varied ages that live in these developments and interestingly the data from our previous projects shows that it's quite attractive to women in and quite often because of the secure nature of these developments and of the rooms because there are locks on studio doors and there is 24 hour concierge which is really different to what you would find in a typical hmo so in terms of the design we have used best practice principles um both from the sort of the jla guidance and the age 16 policy but also through the principles that we have learned through feedback from our built and operated projects and i'll just run through i have a few bullet points so this is delivering good rental homes that are well designed and managed to a much higher standard than the existing local private rented sector it's offering a variety of co-living home sizes which are all well planned to maximize the use of space and the view onto the outside and and use of light it's offering inspiring and generous and varied amenity spaces in a sustainable location which is close to abbeywood station and in turn it's it is going to become an important part of abbeywood which is an area which is slowly changing with its the new redevelopments facilities and shops and all of this will help create a neighborhood that all residents can benefit from in the future we're offering security of tenancy for tenants in this development with all inclusive fixed billing people know what they're renting and there's 24-hour community with on-site maintenance and security and we're very much creating a community offer that ties into the surrounding context and also contributes locally by being open in certain areas and inviting it's not a ghetto it's not an island we're providing a mix of uses within the development which is interacting and complementing they're all interacting with each other and complementing each other in a safe way and they're encouraging daytime activity in the area weekend activity as well and these are buildings that can be managed efficiently have low energy use through design and construction we're also enhancing the urban greening and biodiversity with planting and providing interior amenity spaces but also very much external spaces and in general it's we're creating overall high quality architecture which is designed to stand the test of time so just for my part in conclusion this development is about creating high quality professionally managed rental homes that are going to be promoting local activity social cohesion and in turn reduce loneliness in for people thanks very much for lisi well just to do now is summarize the planning benefits of the scheme some of which you've already heard heard but it's maybe quite helpful just to concisely explain them so the planning benefits of the schema as follows the regeneration of a brownfield site within an opportunity area the delivery of the new pdsa facility with its benefits a new hotel to serve abbey wood a new housing type which will deliver circa 10 of the council's annual housing target the creation of 50 new jobs linked with the co-living management and the hotel in addition to the pdsa jobs a scheme which reflects the scale and massing of the consented scheme a new community space within the development that will be available for local groups for up to 20 hours per week free of charge a biodiversity net gain of 198 with 90 new trees planted and as mentioned before the policy target is 10% biodiversity net gain and the payment of 7.4 million pounds in affordable housing contributions which has been mentioned along with an estimated 3.3 million pounds in sill nearly 1 million pounds in section 106 which is a total of around 11 and a half million pounds in both sill and section 106 monies thank you questions david pat um well thank you very much that was a really good presentation um i just um following on from uh mr martin's one of mr martin's points he sadly is gone now um in relation some concerns about obviously the management of it you mentioned illsfield um i don't see the owners this abbeywood property limited i'm not sure they've got any expertise in who will actually be managing the co-living facilities and um just a concern that maybe it doesn't work out uh and and therefore it just becomes basically a poorly managed facility they give up or set it on and so forth what guarantees could local people have and we have that it will be an excellent high quality facility that will be sustained for a good period of time um so in terms of the uh the applicant abbeywood property itself isn't uh isn't a co-living operator but but the people behind it have a company called diffrent and they are the operators of the co-living scheme in harrow um obviously we've mentioned that so in terms of uh in terms of experience they obviously have experience in that um the scheme has obviously been designed to be of a particular quality uh in from a co-living perspective and that's why i say we're appointed because of their expert expertise and in terms of um ensuring that the applicant wants to ensure quality because that's what attracts people to go and live in co-living schemes in the first place because it's a nice space with lots of social activities and good communal space that is the draw to it and i think in terms of a in terms of more of a guarantee um there is a within the london plan and within the section 106 there'll be a detailed management plan that will have to be put forward at a very early stage which sets out exactly how the space or how the scheme the co-living element in particular will be managed moving forward and that would obviously have to be adhered to Thank you chair and can i just get clarity please on are these all meant for single people or are some of them for couples or and and the other question i have is i know you've said it's imperative isn't it that some scheme like this will have to have like you say 24 hour sort of um coverage because we all know that sometimes other people might try and gain entrance um to this building so i think it's really important that there's some form of control all the time and and i i think it's brilliant i mean i what i love about it is the fact that you've got these communal spaces where people cuts they don't need to be lonely loneliness is something um you know sort of and very close to my heart and but yes just to make sure that it's managed properly and it's the rooms are not abused in any way with numbers etc thank you i mean the the management strategy is is really integral um and you know having somebody at reception that people know when they come in and you know who also will be there to facilitate what happens in terms of programs of events um booking spaces for example that can be rented for using like dining rooms shared dining rooms for example so yes there will be on-site presence um you made another point about oh yes so the rooms are the expectation is that it's it's for single people um it can rooms can sometimes have two people um in them they're designed so all the the they're all designed with double beds within them because this is the expectation um for this type of housing but yes it's it's for single people i'm loath to uh bring up my family circumstances yet again because i think i brought it up when we talked about the height of more than uh more more recently and my wife and i fell out you know surprised and i would fall out about this one too uh because i i think what's not to like about these uh but that's because we've got a 23 year old postgraduate son living at home we can't afford to move out i'd be quite happy if he could move into one of these uh well she'd be quite happy with him staying at home for the next 50 years uh what you know i had a conversation with david earlier and i think it's been mentioned here i mean it's it's one thing to think these are a great idea and a great innovation on hmo's on the great and they really are a great introduction to the market if we're not going to get um affordable housing we're not going to get what the market or what we feel is really necessary and we can send a product such as this have we any assurance that something will actually get built or are we just land banking you know a more maybe a more valuable asset as something which is a consented co-living as opposed to a block of flats that'll never get built uh i can assure you this isn't a land banking uh exercise we uh i've been under considerable pressure to get this to planning committee as soon as possible because the developer has uh funding in place in order to deliver the scheme and has a has a team in the background waiting in order to start looking at delivering the scheme they want to get on site um and deliver it as soon as possible richard what happened to the funding that was in place to develop the flats when you got the last application because we heard a similar story when the application came before us and we were looking at uh residential family residential units that went extremely quiet and here we are now with a different project which is probably more lucrative to the developer because co-living you can make more money on a co-living room than you can on a two-bedroom flat so you know and here we are i think we're five five years down the road i think i believe uh yeah we well yeah we are uh i mean it's not a situation that the the developer wanted to be in i was part of the project at the time and when we obtained a resolution to grant they had appointed a team who had started working up the detailed design and construction drawings we'd started discharging planning conditions what happened then was two things covid hit which obviously caused a lot of difficulties for a lot of developers firstly but secondly we we struggled or the applicants struggled to secure an rp we went through a long exercise of trying to secure an rp which the council and the gla's affordable housing team know about and what that did was unfortunately we couldn't start the development firstly because of covid and secondly for that reason and that delayed the project as a result of that delay which we didn't foresee obviously construction costs change finance cost change which meant that the consented scheme was not deliverable um so that that was that's the explanation as to why that happened thank you chair how much will the rent be um because i think it's quite key um that is it that is it been report okay i missed that it'll be very helpful to know that it will be an affordable rent so i can give you the the target rents for the room so these include all the bills so these are around 1 120 to 1400 pounds a month so if you can yeah that's that's the answer to the question and that's including that's including that's including um bills and any any further questions clear just just touching on that um i i don't know what you guys probably have more um sort of market expertise on this than i do though i do spend a lot of time looking at rentals um and rental prices around the borough i think actually to me that appears to be a relatively reasonable rent given that it's all and of course it's a target and things be nailed down further on as things um progress so i'm not trying to sort of pin you down to you know committed right now but given presumably council taxes included and all bills off the top of my head most um sort of one bed flats are kind of about a thousand to eleven hundred just on the rent before you look at any council tax or bills so i don't know if you can sort of i guess not confirm because you probably have right move open right in front of you but that that's to me that seems to be a relatively reasonable comparison bearing in mind it's all bills included yeah so so the work bearing the work that we've done looks at so what i describe as a rented sector studio unit um how do i explain this simply once you include once you consider all bills being added to that we've estimated you would say between 250 to 600 pounds a month obviously depending on what the studio is that you're comparing to in terms of the exist or the existing studios but that's a sort of that's the that's an estimate of the saving you would have and obviously those studios don't benefit from all the communal facilities that you would get as well within a co-living scheme so richard how much do you see those figures increasing over the next four years before you've built out 25 percent i would be the i'm the wrong person to ask i wouldn't try and answer it um if but if rents do go up we've obviously got the late stage review mechanism which kicks in and would be relevant in terms of any increase in affordable housing contribution um so yeah i don't think i could reasonably answer the question sorry thanks any further questions mazy sorry could you confirm does co-living pay council tax is that that's not i was included partner okay all done any further questions richard please see thank you very much members deliberation david uh thank you chair um i think um we do need to be mindful of the extent despite what mr martin says i do think we do mean to be mindful of the extent uh permission um and um personally i would prefer it i think it is too high but i don't think that's within our uh i think that ship has sailed um the planning board took a view before and uh that was overruled by the mayor of london so we're you know left with this height um but i think it is actually putting the height aside it's an excellent um uh application that introduces a new element of housing to the borough uh which i we've looked at um well some of us have seen and and i think has a significant amount to offer it also provides some hotel space and very importantly it renews the very important pdsa operation as well i'm very pleased a couple of things i was very pleased about one was offering community space to local residents i think that will help with community cohesion um and it'll be a challenge i think given it's thistlebrook next door uh but but you know it'll be good to see how uh the operator rises to that challenge so i think that's really positive and secondly i think it's very positive there's a contribution to um improve the public realm again i would like there to have been a greater contribution to um to social housing i think that's the minimum but i'm actually pleased in this case the gla have stepped in and uh sort of with their viability assessment and actually said you know you can do better than that it's very clear that there have been some difficult discussions the gla have put their foot down and therefore the applicants coughed up just over seven million which is uh an improvement so uh thanks to the gla for that so i think over overall um we should and i will be supporting the officer's recommendation thank you david sundra thank you chair um yeah i i share the excitement around the room um at the prospect of a new kind of housing and i hope that it leads to more and different offers if the the rents were slightly less i think i've been more excited um but i think there's a real need for that kind of housing and it will help a lot in the bar i'll be supporting thanks any further comments pat um just to echo what my colleagues say i will be supporting this because and i'm excited by this fact of core um the living the coordinated what is it called co-living um and that word loneliness sort of um yeah it's good there is a lot of loneliness in the borough and often people spend too much time in their own rooms but you've got if they've got the communal areas that's good i suppose again my only concern is but it would be anyway whatever it was the sort of doctors and i mean if it's a single people that won't need schools probably but you know the doctors and the dentists um in the area how they're going to cope but i'll be supporting this thanks clear thank you um just as a sort of larger point on the housing market i think hmos are a key part of the housing market while we're in a housing crisis but holistically they're not really a good thing i don't think they're good for the people who live in them or the communities in which they're situated and if anyone wants to see ghettos i would say come and look at some of those hmos where people share basic living facilities like toilets live on top of strangers with doors they can't lock and every single bit of communal space has turned into a profit-making bedroom so i think this is far and away better than hmos the demographic worst hit by the housing crisis is younger single young single women which as you touched on there are a demographic who are attracted to this kind of housing um i would add the young the majority of young single people that we have on our housing list which we quite rightly regularly cite as a a pressure and a reason we should be building the majority of them are on band c will not be housed anytime in the next 10 15 years if ever you know we're being realistic about it so we need to find ways for those people to find a decent high quality affordable housing they can live in um i think this is a well-located site close to abbeywood station um from what i can see it appears to have a decent pavement and cycle lane from the site to the station so i think supports the ability for people to use public transport and active travel and it can re-provide the important space we need for the animal hospital um and yeah high quality housing below market rate when bills are included provides a really important better quality of life to our young residents and gives an opportunity to save to move on to looking at buying so i'm very pleased to support this application and thank you very much for bringing it to us thanks there any further comments no okay down to me um i'm disappointed that we've lost family accommodation but co-living is the new the new product being um supplied to us um instead of things like shared ownership so co-living is a better option um i know the area extremely well um there is an awful lot of development along harrah manaway from abbeywood station not just because of crossrail but because of the redevelopment of tems mead i think it's going to be imperative that you have extremely good management and supervision and security not just because of your neighbors but just because of the sheer volume of people that are going to be using the facilities you know and strict management will make sure that everybody has a good quality of life um and also the the redevelopment of the p-body tems mead estate is going to add an awful lot of foot traffic um i sat through the last refusal which was a shame because you ended up bringing it down four stories which was what we were after in the first place you've now come back with a product which is acceptable to us you've heard the committee sentiment um i'm going to support the application and i wish you well in this project i hope you do manage to get good supervision and good management because um we've got a late stage review um where we'll be looking for more money um saying that i'm gonna i'm quite happy to support the application so i'm now gonna if there's no further comment i'm going to put this to the vote all those in favor of the officer's recommendation please raise your hands none against no abstentions this item is approved and good luck okay we're going to move on quickly we now move on to item six land to the west of west parkside and east of millennium way greenwich peninsula se10 reference 241874 f trillion we're getting there thank you chair good evening members today we are requesting the panel to consider planning application 24/187 floor f for the retention of the decked car park for a period of up to 10 years the application site is located on the greenwich peninsula west park site is located to the east of the site and millennium way is located to the west of the site the deck car park is shown in purple on the screen for clarity the site is included within the defined boundaries of the 2015 outline planning permission and the 2022 outline planning permission for the greenwich peninsula with reference to the map on the screen the 2015 outline planning permission is shown within the blue shading and the 2022 outline planning permission is shown within the red shading as stated on the screen the 2022 permission defines revised parameters for specific parts of the peninsula which supersedes aspects of the 2015 permission the deck car park currently exists on site and was erected due to the development of the silvertown tunnel on the screen the location of the deck car park is shown to the east of the silvertown tunnel entrance the development of the silvertown tunnel was authorized through the silvertown tunnel order 2018 schedule one of the silvertown tunnel order sets out development which is authorized specifically point f of these defined works required the construction of a temporary deck car park to provide replacement car parking facilities for the o2 arena during construction of the silvertown tunnel the temporary deck car park was ultimately constructed pursuant to the silvertown tunnel order as set out within the planning board report an o2 car parking agreement exists between the owners of the o2 arena greater london authority property team and night dragon the agreement was created in 2017 and notes that a minimum of 2 000 car parking spaces must be made available on the peninsula for use by the o2 arena this agreement is separate from planning permission however it is highlighted to members that the car parking agreement requires a minimum of 2 000 car parking spaces on the greenwich peninsula at all times this is a legal requirement the responsibility of providing the 2 000 car parking spaces fall to night dragon this quantum of car parking has also been established in the 2022 outline planning permission specifically condition 58 of the 2022 outline planning permission states up to 2000 aeg parking spaces for the o2 is required currently the o2 parking requirement is spread across the peninsula it is important to note if the decked car park cannot be retained then the legal obligation to provide the 2 000 car parking spaces will mean that alternative surface car parking will need to be provided elsewhere within the peninsula this would ultimately increase the total surface area of car parking on the peninsula and mean that residential development of certain plots is delayed in delivery with regards to site context to the immediate north of the site is a further grade level car park which forms part of the o2 car parking provision to the south of the site is a pedestrian cycleway which is adjoined by plot 1701 and 1703 of the 2022 outline planning permission these sites are currently vacant however expected to come forward for residential development by 2027 to the east is west park side followed by central park and to the west is millennium way followed by gp3 which is in envisage sorry to come forward as residential led mixed uses the site does not form part of a conservation area however i would like to highlight the local and statutory list of buildings located to the southeast specifically the pilot inn which is locally listed building is situated approximately 160 meters from the subject site similarly 70 to 84 riverway are grade two listed cottages and directly join the pilot in the site has good public transport facilities with a public transport accessibility rating level of three where one is low and six is high the deck car park comprises of a ground floor and first floor with a total capacity of 723 car parking spaces the car park is constructed of a metal frame and is screened by blue fencing around the parameter of the site it is highlighted the first floor level of the car park is open and does not contain any roofing or partial covering this is the street frontage from west park side this is the street frontage from millennium way this is the frontage to the south and this is the frontage to the north with regards to site photos shown on the screen it is evident the deck car park is low-lying and constructed from muted materials which includes timber paneling these design features ensure the deck car park does not present as a visually bulky bulky sorry or overly dominant from the adjoining streetscapes in terms of wider longer views towards the deck car park i would like to draw your attention to the three viewing points shown on screen with regards to the design district which is a popular and important hub of the greenwich peninsula the deck car park is not visible due to established trees which line west park side and also fencing present this is similar to views from central park which is east of the subject site and from old school clothes which is southwest of the subject side to date 29 public comments were received for this application two letters of support were received from the greater london authority property team and the o2 27 objections were received which includes an objection from council councilor david gardner which also requested the application was called into committee key themes are summarized on the screen and have been addressed within the planning board report the temporary decked car park is situated on plots 1503 and 1603 of the 2022 outline planning permission these plots are shown in pink on the screen the applicant has stated these plots are not due to commence construction until 2033 and therefore the temporary period of up to 10 years is sought for the deck car park just highlighted these plots are zoned for residential development once the silvertown tunnel works are completed the applicant strategy is to close surface level car parks which in turn will reduce the overall quantum of car parking on the greenwich peninsula with regards to the graph on the screen it is important to note two specific dates firstly by 2025 the closure of the coach car park and car park 7 will result in 2000 aeg parking spaces which is the minimum required under the o2 parking agreement secondly by 2033 the total number of overall car parking spaces on the greenwich peninsula will be reduced to 2000 by temporarily retaining the deck car park the overall quantum of peninsula parking will be reduced this will mean that only the minimum number of spaces legally required to be delivered for the o2 are provided the retention of the deck car park will therefore not result in any increase in car parking rather it maintains the existing arrangement for a temporary period at the same amount as approved under the 2022 outline planning permission i would also like to note that by retaining the deck car park for a temporary period of time plots will become available for development which enables the delivery of residential led plots across the peninsula helping to deliver the overall 2015 and 2022 outline planning permissions the phasing plan and table on the screen include indicative dates which are also set out within the planning board report if members refuse the deck car park this evening it may have implications for the delivery of housing on these plots in future the agreed 2000 car parking spaces will be provided in two approved multi-storey car parks on plot 8 and plot 1501 these are shown in red on the screen the multi-storey car park loaded located on plot 8 will begin construction in 2031 and is due to be completed in 2032 it is noted this construction time frame for the multi-storey decked car park on plot 8 is included within the addendum the multi-storey car park located on plot 1501 will be constructed in 2043 which will see all additional car parking closed in this context the principle of retaining the existing deck car park provides a sustainable approach to providing the continued parking requirements of the o2 arena until the permanent car parking provision is provided on plot 8 and plot 1501 the retention of the temporary deck car park would ultimately allow for the reduction of total surface area of car parking on the peninsula which in turn ensures residential led development plots can come forward on the basis that the proposal is temporary in nature and in view of the associated benefits the retention of the deck car park is considered to be acceptable in principle with regards to transport and highways the capacity of the deck car park would not be altered the proposal would therefore not give rise to any increase in vehicles coming and going to the site as such the proposal would not bring forward any unacceptable impacts to adjoining roads above and beyond those that currently exist and have been considered to be acceptable it is also noted council's highways department stated within their consortee comments that the deck car park has now operated successfully without any significant issues for some time the consolidation of car parking on the peninsula will also allow motorists to navigate to a single point access to the deck car park is solely from millennium way after this consolidation coaches and car will have will have no use along west park side which is the main route on and off the peninsula this will therefore improve bus journey times and reduce congestion particularly during events at the o2 with regards to environmental health the temporary retention of the deck car park will not result in a net increase in car parking on the peninsula nor a change in existing site conditions and therefore would not give rise to any increase in vehicles coming and going to the site as previously stated by temporarily retaining the deck car park the overall total surface air of car parking on the peninsula would be reduced as such the proposed retention of the decked car park will reduce levels of congestion for local residents which in turn ensures no additional impacts to air quality and noise on the greenwich peninsula council's environmental health officer reviewed the proposal with regards to air quality and raised no issues with the proposal with regards to lighting the external lighting to the deck car park is not considered to create any unacceptable impacts lighting was previously considered by the local planning authority before the construction of the deck car park the officers report noted site specific lighting measures have been utilized to minimize the adverse impacts on adjoining and adjacent and adjacent sorry buildings wildlife sites and land uses moreover there is no inappropriate lights built outside of the subject site council's environmental health officer reviewed the proposal with regards to lighting and raised no issues with the existing arrangement with regards to heritage the deck car park is not located within close proximity to a conservation area nor any building which is of heritage significance it is acknowledged the closest buildings of heritage significance are the pilot inn which is a locally listed building and 70 to 84 river way which is a great sorry which is a group of grade two listed buildings these buildings are located approximately 160 meters to the southeast of the subject site given the substantial distance between the temporary deck car park and the heritage buildings the proposal would not give rise to any half harmful impacts on the setting nor structure of said buildings with regards to design the height scale and bulk of the temporary deck car park remains consistent with existing conditions and would not be altered under this application it is considered that the retention of the decked car park on a temporary basis would not bring forward any unacceptable design impacts on the character of the application site it is also considered that due to its height scale and bulk and when seen in the context of other built development that for a further temporary period of time it would not have an adverse impact on the wider character and appearance of the Greenwich Peninsula in summary the temporary retention of the deck car park is considered to be the most appropriate solution to meet the two thousand car parking requirement until the permanent car parks are delivered through the 2022 outline planning permission the temporary retention of the deck car park will not result in an increase in car parking on the Greenwich Peninsula the quantum of parking will in fact be reduced meaning that only the minimum number of spaces required for the O2 are provided the temporary retention of the deck car park will deliver wider benefits including enabling the delivery of residential led plots across the peninsula helping to deliver the overall 2015 and 2022 outline planning permissions members are requested to consider officers recommendation to grant planning permission subject to conditions thank you thanks literally just to ask i tried to get my head around it and failed miserably we're talking about this commission recommendation allowing up to 10 years but if you've got your head around has anybody got their head around when is is there a point at which it might be achieved earlier because i can't get my head around the two different master plans and so on i'm just thinking about the time scales and phasing of all this is there a time in which it might be achieved earlier yeah i think if we go back to one of the uh the yeah this one um i think it's it's slightly difficult for us here as officers to say that night dragon could deliver it earlier and obviously they are here tonight and you may want to ask them the permission um has certain triggers for delivery of items within the section 106 you know affordable housing etc but it doesn't set a time um other than a very distant time limit for when the whole commission has to be built out um this is an indicative timetable um but essentially the if permission was granted for less than 10 years um it may require night dragon to build the um multi-story car parks earlier um which would impact on um their cash flow their delivery potentially of some of the housing on the peninsula um and if they weren't in a position to build a multi-story car park they would have to facilitate more surface level car park king so i think it's up to 10 years it doesn't mean it has to remain there for the full 10 years but it has to go after 10 years so basically bev like if we were to approve this it just frees up time for them to develop out all the other areas if if if there is a problem with this then other plots earmarked for development of housing would then possibly have to be re re juggled i think that's a fair summary yeah any questions for the officer no i see none um i now wish to call on councillor gardner evening david good evening chair um thank you very much um for giving me the opportunity i must state there aren't quite a number of people that are very concerned about this car park this car park was we were told at the time only built for this awful silvertown tunnel which is going to make our ward even more of an urban heat island we already have far more parking spaces in our ward non-residential parking spaces than any other ward in the borough if you look at us we're one large grey tarmac area particularly if you're taking account to sort of ikea and the chart retail park and so forth and it is appalling we should never have agreed back in 2005 chair or 2006 to this you know american aeg wanting these uh 2 000 guaranteed spaces indeed if it is contradictory to the london plan if you read policy uh t64 hotel and leisure users parking it is very clear let's make one other thing clear the relevant petal rating here is 6a this parking is for the dome the o2 and the uh petal rating for the o2 is 6a in the caz and locations of petal four to six at any on-site provision should be limited in operational needs um disabled parking spaces and parking required for taxis coaches and deliveries or service things under the lund 2021 london plan leisure uses in uh anything zone four and above should not have non-disabled parking or service parking so we should not tie this to the aeg the agreement that this historic agreement that was done at the time that people were desperate for find a use for the old dome um is really uh you know past its time and has to be addressed chair there are other points i would like to make there are already 3300 spaces at the moment uh non-resident spaces uh in within the vicinity and while that that's planned to be reduced the 2022 uh master plan updating the 2015 marta plan actually took didn't take into account the um the the the use of a um a a tiered car park um the report says there'll be no although the environmental health officer did ask for air quality assessment actually if you read the report which wasn't provided as part of the application no2 levels day in day out and pm 2.5 levels exceed who limits in my ward which has among the worst if not the worst in the borough and that will get worse probably with the opening of the silvertown tunnel next year um and um you know we we do need to address the overall parking area and the impact that is having on our um climate emergency on biodiversity and so forth um so the london plan says it should be car free um and the original conception of greenwich peninsula was to be an urban eco quarter uh largely car free uh but also chair it is ugly look at the pictures of it pass it it is absolutely ugly it is not fit for purpose and if you do take the view that you have no choice and i understand that to agree this at the very least it should be landscaped and at the very least it should have solar panels on top indeed if you read and i could quote london plans if i had time there are very clear policies in london plan that all new developments should at least where they're able to have solar panels and should have landscaping this has none it was meant as a temporary thing for two or three years for the dco in the silvertown tunnel if you're now going to give it 10 years those policies in the london plan should apply and we should make sure they have proper landscaping in front of so you can't see it from the outside because it's so ugly and um it has solar panels in france every car park has to have solar panels and you know i think there's policy coming in that way in the uk we should be leading on that night dragon suggest we'll put solar panels on top which at least means it is generating electricity for the grid and mitigating some of the environmental damage it's done um also chair i could read the policies but but time uh presses also chair i am concerned about the buses now it's interesting to her and the applicant confirmed to me i was originally told by night dragon they people will go out to west park side rather than to millennium way it causes less disruption to buses as they go out a millennium way but anyone who has been on a bus out of the um out of north greenidge station as the o2 are coming out will know because that dog leg and because of all the traffic coming out of the car parks how long it takes to get on the bus routes the bus routes are already so busy from north greenidge station and there are more there are three bus routes along millennium way there are 10 on west park side which is where i thought they were coming out but there will be more planned as we've heard in relation to other applications to go up and down millennium way and cars coming out particularly at the end will delay those um so chair i do think that that that um that we should we do need to put a line in the sand in terms of the amount of parking on the peninsula it is atrocious and goes against all our policy perspective it is a it's an urban heat island as i said but if you are persuaded uh that you have no choice because of previous uh consents given uh but to approve this uh then at the very least uh as councilor sullivan said let's put a firmer time limit on it or review period on it and let's ensure that um it's got solar panels and has proper landscaping because it is just so ugly and lets down the rest of the peninsula thank you very much councilor gardner any questions for the speaker sandra just one small one um tfl don't have any objections um to the application indeed they are worried that the there aren't enough coach spaces what have you got to say about that um well uh tfl don't know what the gla policy is obviously um and the london plan uh policy i i i i think basically they're wrong there are far too many car parking spaces people going to the o2 shouldn't need to take their car there is brilliant public transport uh i think there's a point about there is at the moment plenty of co most of the coach parking actually if you if you look into it most of the coach parking is actually leased out to companies that go to central london and to greenidge and things they're not actually for people visiting the o2 it's it's quite interesting when you look into it the demand for coach parking is actually quite low and it's actually sort of just leased out to external people it's a big cash cow for aeg basically all this parking area and it's a concrete monstrosity it's a time that we're deviating um any further questions for the speaker clear sorry i have a question this might be a stupid question it might be more appropriate directed to the officers but so um the the crux of this sort of comes down to i think the uh contract will deal between night dragon aeg to what extent is that something that like we how how tied into that are we if you understand my question yes so it's it's not an agreement that um the royal borough is party to it's an agreement between yeah the gla um london property team at night dragon and aeg however it did inform the 2022 master plan in that that requires the two thousand spaces so it is material essentially okay not the agreement is material but the fact that you have to provide two thousand spaces because it's part of the it's in the commission that's that's very helpful thank you any further questions no councilor gardner thank you very much i now wish to call on marie claire marsh mic and ross if you want to come up as well okay thank you chair um my name is marie claire marsh i'm head of planning at night dragon and i'm joined tonight by my colleague dominic lans head of projects and our planning consultant ross rectory um firstly i'd like to thank the officers sorry cannot hear um firstly i'd like to thank the officers for producing such comprehensive committee report and presentation this afternoon um there's not really a huge amount more to say on this matter so i'll keep it but shorter than we intended but as your officer set out the application is to secure the temporary retention of the deck car park for up to 10 years to enable us to release existing surface level car parks for the construction of residential plots or meanwhile uses the application is entirely in line with our section 106 legal obligation and the contractual requirements between the gla as landowner and aeg as operator of the o2 being able to retain the debt car park is a priority for us and it allows us the most efficient use of land on the peninsula and one which is in the most convenient location to improve traffic on the estate roads um the solution that we propose means we can deliver new homes more quickly and efficiently and can provide me more uses enhanced environment for our residents um yet we're here to answer any more questions any questions for the speaker pat um counselor gardner referred to the fact that it looked ugly the car park and suggested landscaping um how would that be possible please because i agree with what he said there yeah i mean the car park is ultimately a functional facility to provide car parking at single story um any additional landscaping or works to it now would be uh temporary um landscaping would then need to be removed as the development plots come forward and our overall thought is that we should really be focusing our attentions time and money because it's expensive to put that all in on the development plots that we're bringing forward clear uh thanks could i um could i sort of invite you to answer the point raised by counselor gardner before about um uh if um i'm not able to cite the parts of the london plan the way he was but um if you were now proposing a permanent um car park you'd have to install um solar panels various things is that something you intend to do now that it's being made a long-term thing so i hope that question makes sense i'm not aware of policies on the solar panels but yes um there is no roof on this currently and again it's a similar thing it's a temporary structure um so to invest time and resource and money into improving it and putting those sorts of facilities on it i think will be detracting from the residential developments at the moment we put all of that stuff on our residential plots as we bring that forward as a permanent solution yes thank you um thank you very much i just add that obviously as a case officer today has explained the future plots for the permanent multi-story car parts will be coming forward in due course and they will have detailed reserved matters applications accompanied with those where detailed elements such as landscaping and the detailed design of those will be able to be considered ten years has been questioned what are the chances of you bringing forward the other developments or the multi-story car park um sooner than the ten years i'll start and if you want to add anything um so ultimately i think this plan is quite helpful to see on the screen right now phasing on the peninsula it's a massive site there's a lot of houses 15 000 more to go um and we ultimately work the phasing at the moment is working inwards so we're trying to complete the plots in lower riverside work on radine keys work on pen central peninsula central sorry brick fields and then we leave this central part of the estate so ultimately keeping the debt car park because of where it is located at the moment it just means that we have that extra flexibility on terms of having the longest time available to keep the parking there before having to deliver the multi-story car parks in their final form not really i think i think the key thing for us is um we're hopefully going to be we're in heads of terms conversations on the 17th some affordable housing units to the south of the car park land you've heard from your previous applicant about the challenges of the rp market right now um i'm hoping the government will change all that budget in the next couple of weeks or so and um some hopefully some exciting announcements that will come with their help the housing industry i really hope that that car parks long no there for not longer than it absolutely bloody needs to be um and we've got we've got housing coming on there and so temporary permission we're hoping for 10 years no more and looking looking at the pictures um obviously it's got uh some form of wooden railing around the perimeter is is there no way of finding some cheap fix i wouldn't say cheap i'm just saying um you know is there not is there no way of putting some sort of decorative fascia fixing something onto there you know either a trellis or decorative you know just some just something to to take away the eyesore um sorry ladai you can't make any comment because you walked because you missed the presentation you you walked out halfway through the presentation you you can't take any further part in uh sorry about that um yeah is there is there anything that could possibly go around the top you know some even a bit of color david gives us a hard time on our sort of uh greening of our plots so i think i'm hoping it rather i spend our money on trying to make our plots greener than than a car park that we're hoping is not going to be there for longer than we absolutely need it to be yeah i'm just trying to find a quick fix even even if you painted it green any further comments thank you very much um just to sort of what kind of discussions are you having with the o2 about their sort of like future like do you think it's like in the future will they need less than 2 000 cars parking spaces or kind of is there any kind of discussions you're having with the o2 about that we've we've spoken to um aeg with um and the gla we've we've listened to david's concerns about the car park numbers but um it's a world-class entertainments venue on our doorstep that provides great tourism great employment um and all the other activities that it does provide for the community there um and they're the experts in operating this business right now and they're standing by their requirement that they need 2 000 car parking spaces our challenge is to manage it as efficiently as effectively as possible in that case why we i know if we're trying to show that we can provide this venue this exciting venue is it not worth actually i'm going back to putting some greenery or even changing the color of that fence to green because it is offensive to the eye to see this wonderful venue i'm not sure i find it quite as offensive but um i'll happily walk around with him any time sorry to come back again but i have now actually managed to find the bit in the in the london plan we've got it here on um obviously 9.2.3 it does say all developments maximize opportunities for on-site electricity and heat production from solar technologies and and so forth um i i so i i understand the point that it's not a permanent a permanent structure i don't expect you to necessarily treat it as that were permanent but 10 years is a long time to be um wasting those opportunities that could be provided from a what is essentially now looking at a you know i understand it in sort of planning and development uh time 10 years is not that long but you know that's a long time that we could be trying to maximize the space that we're now granting quite a long life to there's there's there's really no scope to try and um just make this more beneficial to everybody involved i think just rest assured we are we're working with tfl at the moment on how we how we can install some electric car parking points around the peninsula i think in that car park itself there's four or five i think tops at the moment so we are trying to explore opportunities for more electric charging points on the peninsula certainly um we reckon we recognize that that's a challenge for us that we need to we need to pick it up i think as marie said it doesn't it doesn't have a roof on it so but you could actually i would think putting solar panels on that would require some fairly hefty structural alterations for it to be able to bear the weight of um you could you could you could probably put a line of solar panels across the top of the railings at an angle and easy fixings you you get the you get a framework that will screw into that wood because that would i mean i've been over there it's it's it's not it's not flimsy it's quite robust so there there is there i mean if you've got and you've got plenty of engineers that work for you um you could quite easily put a row of solar panels from one end to the other um and you get plenty of data plenty of sunlight on that on that spot as well so there is it might be worth looking into it's it's feasible whether whether whether it's viable or not is is another thing any any further comments or questions domini marie thank you very much members i'm going to quickly open this up for deliberation um any comments sorry well i mean i know that you know i probably will vote for this but at the same time i just don't think the applicants are giving they're not prepared to to sort of talk about they're not giving way at all not you know i'm sure that when it comes to the solar panels as you say and when it comes to green greening 10 years is a long time and they're trying to say yes this is an area you know people come from all over the world to see the o2 and that's very disappointing that they are not prepared to give an inch um with what they're prepared to do and what they're not prepared to do well that's thank you dominic based on the comment i made about possibly looking into putting solar a row of solar panels across the top of that railing so it's not interfering with any car space it overhangs would it be something that you could look at doing some sort of feasibility study just to see if it was a possibility okay fine david you're okay with that no he's not um okay fine thanks um okay any any further comments from members we're in discussion now david deliberation and just sort of time well just to say that um obviously aeg and um night dragon are very important uh partners to to the borough and um i think we welcome so much that they're doing the contribution they make to the uh greenidge economy and i think it'd be unreasonable of us to expect them to become distracted from their plans from their strategies in order to invest too much time actually in in in beautifying this um this this structure uh but i do think the fact that um you know david's impassioned plea uh which i've sympathized with much of what he had to say you know does does in a sense becomes more reasonable when you think that this is for 10 years if it was a structure that was going to be pulled down in a couple of years time you might think okay uh we'll just have to grin and bear it we're talking about 10 years which could easily become 10 to 15 um i think that there ought to be some further consideration or some thought put into how we might be able to come up with a low-cost uh uh short-term solution to to this this this challenge i don't particularly want to make a condition that it's if you know the solar panels are installed but i would like to think that we took it away uh this evening and actually had further conversations between officers and um and the colleagues that are with us this evening to see what can be done given that we are talking about 10 years quite often you know we talk about we're saying up to 10 years this could easily become 10 to 15 years you know we don't know how the markets are going to pan out over the next uh decade we hope that things will go well with with the peninsula and with aeg but i think we ought to spend some time uh which i'd like to support this this evening but i'd like some uh caveat that we have further conversations about any short-term measures that are viable on the low cost any further comments no okay um i'm going to put this to the vote now all those in favor of the officer's recommendation please raise your hands all those against abstentions item is approved dominic you've heard the sentiment of the board um and of the ward councillor um if you are open to suggestion we've got some really good creative centers like the art hub who may even be able to put some sort of decorations or something else affixed to the boundary fencing you know there's yeah there's all sorts there's all sorts of stuff that can be done creative to tidy up and then obviously the solar panels you know it'd be be nice to see the some sort of feasibility to see if it's doable especially like you could use that for for the charging points yeah yeah okay brilliant all right thanks everyone here we go [BLANK_AUDIO]