Transcript

evacuate the building. I'll start by asking my fellow members and officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right with members. Councillor Gillani Choudry, I'm substituting Councillor Rosalyn O'Connor. Councillor Kallaji, I'm a member of the committee but down here was a substitute for now. I'm Finn Craig, Councillor for Arsenal Ward. Paul Conroy. Paul Conroy, Caledonian Ward. Thank you, and officers starting on my left. Baker, Assistant Director of Planning. Paul Conroy, Planning Applications Team. Owen Griffiths, Planning Officer. Laura Avery, Legal Advisor. Thank you, and we already note apologies from Councillor Rosalyn Ogunro and declarations of substitute members. And thank you, Councillor Jeeves and Councillor Gillani. Are there any declarations of interest? On to the order of business then. As chair, I have discretion to bring forward items or vary the order of the agenda where there is a lot of public interest. If there are many objectives to an application, I will request that you choose a spokesperson. Can I have a show of hands please for who is here for each agenda item, starting with item B1, Priors' Estate. That's three, thank you. And then item B2, Florence Street. That's five. In which case we will vary the order of the agenda and take 50 Florence Street, item B2 first. On to the minutes of the last meeting. Is everyone happy to agree the minutes? Thank you. In terms of procedure for the committee, please note that this is not a public meeting. It's a meeting of the planning subcommittee held in public and therefore all remarks should be addressed through me as the chair. The item will be introduced by a planning officer. Subcommittee members may then ask questions of the officer. Objectors will then be invited to speak, followed by the applicant. The objector and the applicant will normally be allowed to speak for no more than three minutes each. After the objectors have spoken, the applicants will have a similar length of time to reply. The subcommittee will discuss and deliberate on the application and only those invited to speak at this stage will be able to do so. When the subcommittee has finished its deliberations, I shall read out the officer recommendations and proceed to a vote. Once the vote is taken, there can be no further discussion of the item. On to item B2, 50 Florence Street. If I can invite the officer to give their report. Thank you chair. Just to update first that the conditional 4 is worded incorrectly and will just need to be tweaked slightly to address some grammatical errors. So the presentation will start. This is for 50 Florence Street, which is in the Angel North conservation area. Okay, so this slide just shows the site location plan. The site is 50 Florence Street on the corner behind the Shell station, which is Upper Street. It's located just outside of the Upper Street North local shopping area. Okay, this is just the aerial view of the site. You can just see what I described, the corner site behind the Shell station to Upper Street. Then we have some street level views of the building. It's in a bit of a dilapidated state at the moment. The rendering is failing as well as the cornices. The ground floor is still showing some signs of the existing pub use, but the existing use of the building is currently office on the basement, ground and first floor with a residential unit on the second floor. The picture on the right, you can see the single storey side extension, which is proposed to be removed. So the proposed development includes the removal of the ground floor infill side extension, replacement with a two storey side extension, basement extension, alterations to fenestration, restoration of facades and installation of plant on the roof. So the key considerations for this application are land use, design and conservation, impact on the amenities of neighbouring residents, basement development, standard of accommodation and sustainability. So this is just a historic picture of the building, just probably taken around the turn of the 19th century with the pub use shown on the ground floor and likely located on the first floor at this time as well. So then we have the existing ground floor and first floor plans. This just shows the internal partitions that are currently in place and the single storey side extension can be seen on the bottom right of this image. Moving to the proposed plans, this is just to show that the floor spaces will be considerably opened up to facilitate a new restaurant use at the site. Currently the building has a lawful existing use under class E, which includes a restaurant. So going from the existing use of an office to the proposed use as a restaurant is not considered to be a change of use. You can also see that the internal circulation will be moved to the side extension, which frees up the open floor plates for the restaurant use. Then you have just showing the proposals in elevation, you can see that the façades will be tidied up and cornices restored. The ground floor shop/restaurant pub façade will be reinstated and the side extension will be finished in brick just to make it subservient to the main building. This just shows the inside elevation, just the brick façades and you can see the plant equipment on the top left there, the air source heat pumps and the chimney on the top left will be the extraction flue for the kitchen operations. This just shows these renders just to visualise the proposed development. So the application was assessed for land use, although not considered to be a change of use, there were quite a lot of objections about the use going ahead. The building has a lawful use under class E, which can also be used for a range of uses including restaurants and shops. The building contains a residential floor space on the second floor. The current application will facilitate the restaurant use but does not constitute a change of use. A license for the use has already been approved by the license committee in April and this includes various conditions including an operational management plan. The use of the restaurant is therefore acceptable as it accords with the prevailing land use of the site. There are various benefits to the application from a design perspective because the dilapidated building will be refurbished, the two-storey site extension and the windows and cornices will bring heritage benefits to the wider conservation area as well as to the local listed building. So there has been quite a lot of local opposition to the application, mainly due to concerns over noise. The operational management plan that was part of the license has been included as a condition on the planning application. There was a lot of opposition as well about the potential for the building to be used as a pub again, but that wouldn't be possible without breaching both planning regulations and licensing regulations. So there would be enforcement powers possible if that change of use were to occur. There were further objections about overlooking from the first floor to the residential accommodation on the other side of Florence Street, but overlooking over a highway is considered to be acceptable. There are further conditions recommended in relation to hours of use, plant noise and basement works to minimize impacts. So that concludes the presentation. The official recommendation is for the application to be approved subject to conditions. Thank you very much. Questions to officers? One from me. Can you clarify how recently the site was in pub use, if you are aware? I think it was around 2012 that it ceased, maybe as late as 2013, but over 10 years ago. Thank you. Any other questions from members of the committee? Okay. In which case we shall move on to objectors. Please could you raise your hand if you would like to speak in objection to this application? You will have three minutes to speak. It would be really useful if you could just introduce yourself and your relationship to the proposal as part of your remarks. Thank you. If you could just pop your mic on. There we go. Oh, it sounds very noisy. Good evening everyone. My name is Katie Rank-Broadley and I live on Florence Street opposite the pub, sorry, not pub, restaurant opposite 50 Florence Street. Does my three minutes start now? Okay. So I live on Florence Street with my husband and baby daughter. Florence Street represents my concerns which are shared by many other Florence Street residents, some of whom who are here this evening, others of which were unable to make it due to it being half term. Florence Street is a quiet residential street. It's in the St Mary's LTN. It's got a pleasant community vibe and importantly there's no non-residential nighttime activity on Florence Street currently. This means the street is ill-equipped to deal with the changes which will be brought by the operation of 50 Florence Street as a restaurant. As you noted, the merger of use classes mean that there is no change of use to operate as a restaurant. This is due to the merger of use classes in 2020. One question I would like answered as part of this process is what is the distinction between a restaurant and a pub for planning purposes because I think we're all a little bit fuzzy on that. So just moving on, our two main concerns about this application are intensification of nighttime use and noise. 50 Florence Street is currently used as an office as you stated. So operating as a restaurant will inevitably lead to an intensification of nighttime activity. Policy R10D of the Local Strategic and Development Management Policy states that proposals for new nighttime economy uses including redevelopment intensification are only acceptable within the central activity zone or town centers. Florence Street is neither of those. That aside, the intensification of nighttime use resulting from the proposed changes means the applicant is required by Policy R10B to incorporate measures to limit sound vibration and other effects of the intensified cultural use on existing and potential future land use. The applicants failed to comply with this requirement. Under their proposal, noise will leak from the building even when the windows are closed due to the use of slimline double glazing rather than standard double glazing with acoustic glass. Furthermore, the fact there is no air conditioning will mean they will need to rely on open windows for ventilation and this will lead to significant noise emanating from the building prior to 10pm. Due to the street's architecture, even quiet noises can clearly be heard inside nearby homes. More than 10 years ago when the premises was operated as a pub, there were 38 noise complaints made to the council over a seven year period. The addition of a side extension in conjunction with the other changes such as moving the staircase and removing the internal walls will increase the space used for patrons within the building by substantially more than 8% once you've adjusted for fixed amenities. These changes allow more covers to be served within the restaurant resulting in substantially more noise from patrons. During the day when windows are open it will be as if the patrons are dining in my front room. This planning application should be rejected or in the alternative subject to three strict conditions to mitigate the impact on Florence Street residents. The opening hours of the basement, ground and first floors should be no later than 10pm after which there is no legitimate need to be open if you are indeed operating as a restaurant. All doors and windows should be made from a glue stick glass and remain closed at all times. I ask you to carefully consider the impact of this planning application on the health and happiness of the residents of Florence Street. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Members may come back to you with questions shortly. I'd like to now invite the applicant to speak as well. You will have three minutes which is what we gave to objectors. Be useful if you could try and address the objectors' comments in your remarks. Thank you. 50 Florence Street is a vacant former pub that closed its doors in 2013. Its subsequent use as retail and offices was only on a short term basis. As a result the building has suffered a lack of investment and significant deterioration. The building is an important locally listed building within the upper street north conservation area. The local listing states that the building has special street value but sadly the street facades are now in very poor condition and many of the historical features have been lost. My client is seeking to heavily invest in this locally listed asset and the proposals to alter and modestly extend the building will return the building to its former glory and finally bring it back into permanent active use. The existing poor quality temporary style side extension providing access to the first floor is to be replaced with a well designed brick and tile two storey extension. We have worked very closely with the council's conservation officer to ensure the extension is an honest modern extension which ties in well with the original building. There is also the opportunity to introduce sustainable features into the building and my client is proposing to install air source heat pumps which will be discreetly located on the roof as well as low energy lighting. As you've heard the lawful use of the building is class E use and therefore restaurant use is already a permitted use for this building. The building also has a premises license for a restaurant which was granted by the licensing authority earlier this year. It will have a much lower capacity than the previous pub. Whilst there's an application for change of use and only a very modest uplifted floor space proposed my client has been very happy to submit the operational management plan approved as part of the license with the planning application of these measures to form part of the planning condition. The measures which seek to minimize the noise and amenity impacts on neighbors include internal acoustic treatment, main entrance to be lobbied to prevent noise outbreak to the street or windows to be closed at 10 p.m. only background music to be played, signage asking customers to leave quietly and respectfully, neighbors to be provided with a dedicated email address if any issues arise. During the application process we also sought agreement with the conservation officer to install conservation style double glazing across the entire building as a direct response to noise concerns raised by neighbors. This also has sustainability benefits. My client is also very happy to consider additional measures as required. I hope members are able to support the application this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Do members have any questions for either objectors, the applicant or two officers? If you could just pop your mic off as well please. Thank you. One from me. Two officers. If you could just respond to the objectors point defining in planning terms what the difference between a restaurant and a pub use is. Yes a public house is predominantly for the serving of beverages, often with vertical drinking and whilst food offering might be there it's not essential to its business. Whereas a restaurant is predominantly the cooking and serving of food, predominantly seated and often with an alcohol license that means you have to have bought a meal to get that alcohol. Thank you. And a further one from me. Objectors also raised that there was not acoustic glass proposed as part of double glazing. Could you clarify that point? Well it's slimline double glazing because it's in the conservation area. That would be the standard specification for conservation area in a localistic building. So it's usually around 12 to 16 millimeters in thickness. It should provide good acoustic attenuation as well. Maybe not as much as thick glazing but it should still do quite a good job of sound attenuation. Any other questions? Councillor Cheaps. I've got two questions here. One is what are the proposals for the use of the first and second floors? What do you propose doing with those? And also it says here that there's a basement extension. Can I have further information about what do you mean basement extension? Is it digging out more in the basement or is it fixing what is already there and repairing things? Thanks. The basement extension is there's vaults underneath the side extension. There's currently vaults and they're going to remove two or three of them to extend the floor space into those vault areas. So the actual floor area is not being increased. They're just increasing the area of usable floor area. When there's basement work such as this we do put conditions on the planning consent to make sure construction management is managed correctly and for a structural engineer to be on site while those works are taking place. In relation to the first question, the first floor is a restaurant floor space. It's going to be opened up as well to be used as a restaurant and the second floor is a residential unit. It's currently a residential flat on the second floor and part of these works is to remodel that flat because the stair core and the circulation is being changed. Any other questions? Councillor Convery. So can I just confirm the proposal is to double glaze, is that right? Yes, all of you, sorry. I thought I heard objectors suggest that it wasn't going to be double glazed. And then a question from me to the applicant. Residents suggested, well there is the question as to why a restaurant would need to be open for hours which you would consider to be more akin to a bar or a pub, particularly the midnight opening at weekends. I wondered if you could comment on that and in particular whether you would be amenable to having shorter opening hours. I think these days restaurants do open similar times to do pubs. It's not uncommon to have restaurants opening those hours and there are plenty of examples within the borough. The licensing authority were perfectly happy with those hours for a restaurant operator. It's something I would need to discuss with my client whether she would accept hours that were considered to be acceptable for the licensing authority. I can confer with her now if she would want to consider that. We would want to stick with the hours that the licensing authority considered at length to be completely acceptable in this location and for a restaurant use. If members are concerned then obviously that's something that can be considered. Any other questions from members before we move on to deliberations? Thank you to objectors and to the applicant for sharing your comments on the application. We will now move on to liberation. I think from my perspective whilst I recognise there are significant concerns around the operation of the premises emanating from a kind of historic pub use which there are a number of complaints attracted to, I'm convinced that with the licensing conditions that have been imposed by the licensing committee as well as a set of conditions attached to planning use that those impacts on residents could be appropriately managed. We also need to consider the heritage benefits of this proposal. It's a building which is in quite a tired state at the moment and the proposals to bring it back into busy use and also to restore the historic facade. I think to be supported. That's my view but I'd welcome other members' thoughts on the application as well. Toby, I'll choose my wording carefully here. This was a pub I knew quite well some years ago. It had a period in which it got quite rowdy and that it seemed to me was around about the time it stopped being a pub that was used by police officers from the old Islington police station. They used to have lock-ins and all sorts of things there but with police officers in the pub it tended to be quite well behaved lock-ins. I can certainly understand why residents on the street having had an almost zero impact use there for some years since about 2012/2013 when the Florence as it then was closed down. It does seem to me that this is a development which doesn't quite reinstate a pub use. It's a restaurant use albeit a restaurant which won't be serving alcohol. I think the terms of the license are quite strict. It clearly is the serving of alcohol only to people who are seated in order to eat. Does that make it a gastropub almost? I mean generally a gastropub is a place that is a pub that also has restaurant seating and so forth. I can think of examples. For example, the Drapers on Barnsbury Street, the Albion on Font Hill Road, the Crown on Cloudsley Road. Those are just in Barnsbury. Where in the past conversion to a sort of gastropub and some very slight extension to ours historically was robustly opposed by people who said it would all be dreadful. Actually those are venues which are well managed, cause very, very little disturbance with some really strong emphasis on food rather than drinking. And from the little that I know about the applicants, it is a food led business. I suppose there's a clue in the name. It's called the Something Meat Company if I remember rightly, named after a place in Yorkshire I believe. It does seem to me that the pretty strict conditions that the licensing committee has granted which are replicated in the conditions for the planning permission, I think broadly it's something that would be welcomed. It might be out of keeping with the most southerly end of the street, but it's certainly not out of keeping with Upper Street which is very, very close by. Which is overwhelmingly restaurant uses and is a flourishing part of the borough as a result, perhaps over flourishing at times. So I'm reasonably comfortable that this is a reasonable proposal, but it will very much depend on the quality of the management, adherence to the licensing conditions and strict adherence to any planning related conditions that we apply should be granted tonight. And I'd be in favour of approval. Do we have any other thoughts to share, members? If not, I shall move to a vote. I propose we move to a vote based on the recommendations in the report which are to approve the application subject to conditions. Can I have all of those in favour of approving? And that's unanimous, thank you very much. That is consideration of that item over, so we will move on to item B1. Members of the public, you're very welcome to stay for the next item, but if you're here for that item, we are moving on. Okay, moving on to item B1, garages at Priors' Estate. Could you have the presentation from officers, please? Yes, thank you. So yeah, the garages at the Priors' Estate, Cumming Street, N1. The proposed development is the change of use of residential garages to garaging for car hire, a sui generis use. This is a retrospective application. The use has been in operation, we believe, for about, since 2017, so around seven years. So this is the site's location. Okay, thanks. So this is the site location plan. The site's just off Pentaville Road, between King's Cross and Angel. The site is situated in the Priors' Estate, and the highlighted area here is the internal courtyard, which is landscaped. So this is just a 3D aerial of the site. You can see the residential buildings surrounding the internal courtyard. Access into for the cars is from Cumming Street, which you can see to the bottom. This is the access ramp down into the site from Cumming Street. And then the image on the left shows the two entrances into the garage site, and then the image on the right shows that same view, but you can see the ramp up to Cumming Street on the right hand side. And then here we have just internal images of the garages with the stored cars. The image on the right, you can see there is a kind of office in the corner, and roughly where that image is taken from is the car washing area for the operation of the unit. So we have the basement floor plan. This just shows the various different parking spaces, 32 in total shown here, and then the washing area is on the top left, and then the office is shown on the bottom left, and then the ramp is on the bottom of this image. So the key considerations are land use, impact on the immunity of neighbouring residents, highways, transport and servicing, and sustainability, including air pollution. So Islington has a quite long established car free policy, but there are exceptions for that in policy T3 Part C for non-residential uses. So in this policy it does outline that if car parking is essential for the requirements of the use or integral to the nature of the business, car parking can be allowed in these sorts of circumstances. And given that the use is for car rental, the car parking and car storage is considered to be integral to the nature of the business, so it would allow car parking in this situation. So there were quite a few objections relating to neighbouring amenity. It was understood that previously jet washing of cars took place externally, which led to some complaints, but under the conditions recommended, it's proposed for cars to be washed internally. It is understood this has been happening for a number of years, and there have been near enough no complaints since this started. Also conditioned is for the rented cars not to be returned between 10pm and 7am to avoid any disturbance to neighbouring residents. And an operational management plan has also been conditioned for further details to be submitted about delivery, waste facilities, complaints procedure, and over controls for the revving of engines, because the stored cars here tend to have large engines that do rev more loudly. So highways and air quality. There are around 40 vehicle movements per week associated with the use. There's not considered to be an impact on the highway as a result of the use when compared to the existing use, and air quality impacts are considered to be neutral when the existing use of the site is compared to the current use. The use of the site has primarily remained the same. The garages are used for storage of cars, which was the same when the site was used by the residents of the surrounding estate. So the recommendation is for the application to be approved, subject to conditions. Thank you. Questions from members of the committee to officers? Councillor Convery. I'm intrigued by what appears to be a sort of contradiction in the summary of the report, where you're reflecting on the fact that ASLington, and I'm quoting, strongly encourages the redevelopment or repurposing of car parking. But that isn't what's happening here. It's changing from one kind of car parking, residential, to another kind of car parking, which is commercial. So in a sense, it isn't really following ASLington's policy at all, is it? It's just switching from one kind of parking to another. Well, yeah, the wording of the policy does say the redevelopment of the car park is a change of use. So technically it is redeveloping the car park. I do see your point. It's not changing kind of fundamentally because cars are still being stored there, but it is for a different purpose, potentially a less intensive purpose than the existing use with unrestricted residents using the sites to park their cars. Yeah, there isn't a vast difference between the existing and the proposed use. I'd sort of press you on this because the next paragraph says, describes the repurposing of a disused car garage. In other words, it's no longer a garage used for storage of cars, residence cars. If it's disused, then surely there's a kind of change of use from not being used as car parking to being used as car parking. So there's actually, in a way, a net gain of car parking facility, isn't there? On that point, I completely get the logic of it. It's absolutely sound. But in actual planning terms, the land use goes with the land. Unless that use is abandoned entirely, which is a very hard test, the land use would still be a residential car park, even if it wasn't being used. Question from myself. The applicant obviously contends that the car park was underutilised as a residence car park. Have they submitted any evidence in support of that? No, it's the short answer. They did have a quite detailed planning statement when their application was first submitted and it outlined the existing situation, but no physical evidence, no reports from Peabody who owned the site. Thank you. Any other questions from members? What are the restrictions or the plans around preventing fire within this site? Are there fire extinguishers? Are there sprinklers? Are there anything like that? What is there on this site to stop any fires that might happen within the car? Well, fire restrictions and fire aspects haven't come into this planning application. Maybe the applicant could confirm if they're sprinklers, but there was no kind of trigger points for fire assessments or anything like that as part of the planning assessment. It's not something I can answer, unfortunately. Any other questions before we move on to objectors and the applicant? Could you raise your hand if you'd like to speak your objection to the application? Before the three minutes starts, can I just query a couple of things? I'm afraid you've got three minutes and there's an opportunity for members to ask questions. So your three minutes starts when you're ready. First, I'd just like to query a couple of things. One, the space is a lot smaller than it looks in the photographs. It's a lot more built up. I am on the top floor flat looking down into the space and if 40 cars are going, being hired out per week, I wouldn't know about it and that definitely is not happening. So what I want to do is highlight Islington Council's existing policies and commitment to a clean living space, which I think this proposal fundamentally undermines. First of all, Islington has clean air policies. It's declared an air quality management area. And Pentafill Road is within the area covered by Islington's air quality management area and plan. And the council has identified this road as one of the locations suffering from elevated levels of air pollution and they are working to address these issues. It's also made a commitment to protect vulnerable groups such as working with schools, health professionals and community groups to protect those most impacted by pollution. It's a mixed residency at the Priory Estate and Islington is working towards reducing emissions from road transport and encouraging a shift to clean active travel, which is not car travel. You've also committed to low traffic neighbourhoods, liveable neighbourhoods and active travel, as I mentioned, which essentially is moving away from car use into much more sustainable transport types, encouraging cycling, walk-in as well as using sustainable transport like buses, tubes, etc. You also have carbon reduction policies. In 2019, Islington Council adopted a vision 2030 strategy with the ambition to eliminate the borough's carbon emissions by 2030, focused on things like commercial buildings. You also have a EULES policy where you are essentially covering all of Islington to ensure that vehicles must either meet emissions standards or pay a charge to travel within Islington and these vehicles would definitely probably not meet those low emissions. Additionally, as you mentioned, there are high-end cars, which are tending to be more polluting. New cars also produce pollution bursts and these would be repeatedly happening within this small space, which is surrounded by residents and we already live in a great transport hub between Kings Cross and Angel, so essentially we need less cars on the road, not more. So, in conclusion, I would just say that granting the planning application for a high-end car hire business directly contradicts Islington Council's commitment to reducing air pollution, promoting sustainable transport and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2030. And we urge the Council to uphold your policies and turn down this application and support the move towards low emissions, sustainable travel and a more sustainable future for all your residents. Thank you. Thank you. If you can pop your mic off. Thank you. I would like to invite the applicant to address the committee. You will also have three minutes and it would be useful if you could address points made by the directors as well. Yes, excuse me, thank you, Chair and thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening on behalf of Peabody, the applicant. There's not much I can say beyond the comprehensive committee report, which robustly sets out the reasons why planning permission should be granted. The garages in question here are very much of their time, a product of previous years, especially in planning and car parking does tend to take up a lot of excess space. As the use of this has declined, this does leave a challenge both in terms of the nature of the space which has been created and where this sits in terms of the wider development, in terms of being able to identify alternative uses for that space. As it was less used, it unsurprisingly became a bit of a magnet for antisocial and indeed criminal behaviour. The specific nature of the use by the tenants works on many levels. The space is purpose built for parking and storage of cars, i.e. the same as it always has been lawfully used. As your officers have noted, the fallback position on this space is that it could revert back to private car storage and use and this would not require planning permission. This is a very important baseline to take into account when assessing the proposals. The tenants operation is less intensive compared to that baseline and should permission be granted, it will be further managed through the conditions which have been suggested, including operational management plans. The use has also provided a deterrent to antisocial behaviour as the site is now better monitored. All statutory consultees, including environmental health, policy and noise have raised no objections subject to the agreed conditions. In summary, the modest operations do represent a sustainable and pragmatic reuse of this space and we would respectfully ask that the committee supports the officers in recommending approval this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any questions from members to objectors or the applicant or indeed to officers again? Councillor Jeeps. I've got some questions about the fuelling and refuelling of these vehicles for the applicants because I asked about possible fire hazards in there which could occur at some point or other. So can you answer about how you're going to deal with what fire preventions or fire risk facilities you're going to place in there, what are there, are there any sprinklers, will you put anything in and then also around if there are going to be electric high powered cars that are going to be put on there, are you going to install an electric refuelling point or whatever you might want to call it, are you proposing anything of that sort? So a couple of questions there, firstly in terms of refuelling, my understanding is that refuelling takes place off site so that doesn't occur on the site so vehicles would be storing fuel as with any other vehicle which would be parked within the space. If it was being used by private individuals they would top off site and then store it so there's no fuelling on site. The space was originally designed, I think it's largely concrete built with the design of cars generally in mind. So it's not in that sense, the building is designed to contain cars within there and is built to relevant fire standards. The size of the space doesn't necessitate us to install any sprinklers or anything like that but if that's something which was important to committee it's something which I'm sure we'd be able to include by way of a condition. I'm not aware of any EV charging spaces on the site or intentions to put any EV charging spaces in there. If that was to happen, certainly if it was outside that would need a separate planning application which would need to be forthcoming in due course. Thank you. Can I ask - yes it is, it's still very loud. Can I ask what may sound like a really foolish question? Why is Peabody going into the car higher storage business? It's simply a product of trying to find a tenant to operate the space so it's not as if people do. No I understand. So you're applying on behalf of a tenant. Do you know who that tenant is yet? I'm acting for Peabody, Peabody the applicants, so they have got the tenant on site at present. I think as the officer has said they've been there for, that operation has been there for circa seven years, something of that order. There's an existing tenant on site that's been operating without a planning permission for arguably about seven years. I have a number of questions which I would like to ask of that tenant, of the actual operator, which I'm not sure you're going to be able to answer, which are operational questions. So how does the tenant move and return vehicles which have been hired? So it's not possible to hire a vehicle, say you or me wanted to hire a vehicle, we do not turn up on site to take the vehicle. It's moved by staff from the site to a pre-agreed location where whoever has hired the vehicle then picks it up. So in other words, their staff come and go in vehicles between the hours of nine and five for what sort of clients and customers, what sort of vehicle hires are these? Are they by the hour, by the day, by lengthy periods, do you know? It changes, so mostly staff who are turning up on site will do so via public transport. So they will arrive on site, so let's say an order is being made, they will then take the car off site to the locations that we talked about. In terms of who hires the vehicles, my understanding is this is, for example, if people are shooting a music video or sometimes if there's TV shows that a vehicle needs to be hired for, they will use that. I believe as well that if you wanted to hire something for, say, a wedding, you would be able to hire a vehicle as well, so those kinds of operations, but to make clear that it's not a location where members of the public come to pick up a vehicle. The reason I'm particularly asking you this, and I don't know very much about weddings, but I do know about the business where high-end vehicles, period cars, et cetera, are used in film and TV production, be it commercials or feature film. I have a single film shoot that operates on a 9 a.m. pickup and 5 p.m. delivery schedule, and I have to say, before disclosure, it's in my patch, these vehicles are not being removed and returned between 9 and 5 because they are being taken very often to film sets where they're starting at 6 a.m. and they're finishing when the light fails, or if they're shooting nighttime shots, pretty much 24/7. So my concern is that, because I do believe that a significant number of the vehicles presently being operated out of this garage are being used for film and TV production, that means the 9 to 5 restriction which is being proposed is not an operating hour that the current tenant actually meets their business requirements. Thank you for prompting me because I realised that on your first question, I didn't come back to you, that cars, the higher period will extend over a number of days, so it's not necessarily on a daily basis, so that what one could hire on, say, a Monday and drop it off on Thursday or Friday, something like that. The conditions which have been set out do permit drop-offs up to 10 o'clock at night, that was in accordance with the noise assessment which was undertaken to support the planning application, and that window was certainly acceptable from our perspective, but again, I'd reiterate the point that that assessment, which was based on the activity taking place, and from the existing ambient background noise levels in and around the site, an assessment was made of that activity relative to that baseline, and was found to be well within acceptable levels, that's what was assessed by environmental health colleagues and that's what necessitated the condition. If that was a particular issue, then again, that's something which is open to the committee, but we've been through a very robust technical assessment to get to that, and those operational requirements which have been put forward, we're happy to accept those conditions alongside the operational management plan as well, and some of the details of that include mechanisms for when complaints, for example, might need to come in, so having points of contact so that people are able to review and follow that up. One of the other interesting observations in terms of how this has played out over time is, yes we acknowledge that there were complaints submitted several years ago, but actually one of the issues with that was as a result of whenever cars were perhaps being cleaned externally, all of that now takes place inside, so there was an investigation opened up by the environmental health officer, but that has now been closed because they are entirely content that the nature of the operation is taking place. Can I just finally say, the phrase that you've just used there is an important one, I think you said the conditions that we would be bound by. Again, it's a feature of not having the actual operator here. Peabody is effectively acting as a buffer in between the council as the planning authority and your tenant who will be the operator. If these proposed conditions are in place, any enforcement is going to be enforcement against Peabody. Is Peabody able to ensure that these conditions are then passed through into the tenancy terms with your current operator? Yes, it's a figure of speech. The conditions will go with the land, they go with the planning permission and those who are bound by that, so it would be both Peabody and the tenant who would be in breach of those conditions. We can certainly pass on, I'm just conscious that we're talking about something which sits under a lease and something which sits under planning, but if there's a breach of those conditions it will be absolutely apparent if there's delivery outside of those hours, which we would be able to be enforced against. Thank you. I'm just going to jump in on that point, if I may, Councillor Craig. We're in a slightly unusual position of having residents who've got lived experience of an operation here to tell us about the impact it's been on them. I wondered if you could just talk to any impact of this use over the last seven years when it's been in operation, particularly thinking about those management points around having been disturbed by drop-offs and pick-ups late at night, that sort of thing. As I mentioned earlier, the garage and the drive down is actually a lot smaller than it looks in the photos and it's very built up around it, that's essentially surrounded by houses on one side, blocks of lots on the other, so it does really reverberate those loud exhausts. There's definitely not 40 cars going back and forth because we would all be up in arms about that because we're already being disturbed by the noise already. I was one of the ones who raised the issue about the car wash because this was happening every day and this wasn't just people bringing their cars back to be washed and then they were parking them, they were queuing, coming in, having their cars washed and leaving, so they were essentially operating a car wash. I did look to find out who owned this business, I can't find any details of it on Company House, so we had nowhere to go to complain, so this is why we made a complaint against them to the Council. Our concern is that we already live in a very polluted area, just on Pentaville Road, and having these high-end cars coming back and forth, because once a planned application is passed, or if it is, then I think things will really ramp up. We will be experiencing much higher levels of pollution, and as we know, it causes respiratory problems as well as cardiovascular problems. This is an area of concern for the Council, so for us as residents, we don't quite understand even how this has got so far when this goes against all your policies for a greener, cleaner Islington. Thank you. Could I potentially just add something? If it's specific to the kind of impact of the current use on yours. We are also part of an action group that we recently set up against Peabody in the last 18 months regarding the unkempt maintenance of our estate generally, and not holding their own subcontractors to account. So I would worry that this application and holding the tenant to account of the upkeep would lapse. Additionally, this particular tenant is also noted for having many trucks come in, I guess, for car days where the cars are parked and taken onto trucks on Cummings Street. And that has also caused a disturbance, particularly for the three of us who live on and face both Cummings Street and the quad in question. I guess that's all I could add here. Thank you. There's just a couple of points I wonder if officers could come back on there. In particular, has the applicant made the point that the current, or the proposed use, I should say, they suggest is less intensive than if it was used as a resident's car park and fully occupied? Have they submitted any evidence on that? And finally, just addressing that point around the delivery of vehicles on trucks, has they submitted any information around management and servicing which incorporates that? No, it was my understanding that there weren't trucks delivering or picking up cars, so there was no information, traffic-related transport plans submitted. And remind me on the first question. Whether they submitted any evidence in support of their assertion that the proposed use is less intensive than use as a residential? On that point, like you alluded to before, they just mentioned that there was four cars parked in there when the previous use ceased, so this has gone to a more intensive use, but the existing use could, you know, camp up as well. But there's been no evidence submitted in that respect. Thank you. Councillor Craig, thanks for your patience. I was just curious, you mentioned one of the positives would be a reduction in antisocial behaviour around the garages. Do you have any evidence that there has been antisocial behaviour prior to the current use? So, my understanding was before this was in place, do I have CCTV images or anything like that to show you? No, I don't. But what I'm reporting is what we've been advised by both Peabody as operating the estate. That when it was being less intensively used, that there was people gathering round there, there was evidence of dealing having taken place, and I've no reason to doubt what we were being told at that time. Can I ask, was that the resident's experience of it as well? No. Essentially, I've been the resident for the longest. When I moved in, Islington Council was starting to do a big refurb of the park opposite. They put in basketball court, which is another issue, but there was a big problem with antisocial drug use and sort of loitering, things like that, and that has completely been cleaned up. Also, there was somebody living in the bottom flat who's moved, so that sort of beacon for drug users just doesn't exist anymore, so I can't see that the antisocial behaviour was an issue there because the park was essentially the real focal point for where people met. Do we have any other questions? No? Okay. In which case, we'll move on to deliberations. I am really struggling with this application myself, not least because of what we've just heard around servicing and management. Information has not been submitted to planning offices. I don't think we're getting quite a full picture of the operational impact of the use and what the use could be. I wouldn't be confident giving an approval based on the information we've got in front of us this evening. I'm just weighing up a proposal which I would like to put to committee, whether that's deferral or whether we elect to give permission for a temporary period of one year to see whether the use can be effectively managed in order to mitigate the impact on residents. I'm just weighing that up and I welcome the views of other committee members. I have very similar concerns to you and my additional concern is we are meant to be trying to reduce car use in Islington and this doesn't do that. Councillor Convery. Toby, you've suggested two possibilities. I have a third. I haven't proposed anything. I've said I'm weighing up. I've commented that there might be two possibilities, well actually there's four possibilities. Grant, defer, the second one you said and the fourth one which is simply to refuse. I would say I don't think this disused residential garage is suitable for the kinds of uses that, interestingly, we would have to speculate about what might happen if they were granted this use. Because they've been using it for seven years without a valid planning permission and the reality is, this is not a rent a car business, in fact there is one just around the corner which is perfectly fine. This is a business which essentially supplies classic cars, period cars, interesting vehicles, primarily for use by the film and TV industry. And as the residents have indicated, almost always vehicles for film and TV use are trucked to the location or the studio which may be some way distant, they're very, very rarely driven. If you'll forgive me, there was once a business very much like this on my streets 20 years ago, a company called 10 Tents which is a very famous supplier to the TV industry, owned by the Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. And he moved the business out funnily enough because it was just a real hassle trucking the vintage and classic cars out of Gifford Street all the way around our bit of Kings Cross, eventually, you know, very, very long distances to studios and locations. That is primarily what's happening here. I mean it's interesting that the operator, we still don't actually know who the operator is, is making a business out of this but that's the modus operandi of this kind of business. They are trucking vehicles in and out. And it seems to me that our policy is to repurpose disused garages, but it would be perverse to repurpose a residential garage with a garage use. That isn't repurposing a disused garage. And I think that there are perfectly reasonable grounds for refusing climate emission on the grounds of adverse residential amenity impacts in this particularly tightly concerned residential use. For those of you who know the area, Cummin Street just off, as we've heard, just off Pentonville Road. It is a sunken entrance, there's a forecourt area, this is below ground level, and then these underground garages and they're surrounded on three sides by people's front doors, in effect. Jelani will know this site very well. This housing used to be run through what is now at the bottom end of Kelly. I just think it's a really unsuitable place for this kind of view, so I propose that we refuse. I would say to the committee that I would agree with the residents' comments regarding Peabody and Peabody's actions with all sorts of things to do with managing their sites. I don't have any real confidence that Peabody could enforce anything here. I'm sorry, if I'm saying this, but I've had rather negative experiences of Peabody running houses in my patch, so I don't have confidence really about how Peabody could manage this. Thank you. I agree with what Paul Convery has said. We should reject this one. We've got a proposal on the front bus then. Just a reminder, the officer's recommendation was to approve, but Councillor Convery has moved a motion to refuse the application. Do I have a seconder? Just on the point of clarification, in terms of the motion, was that a refusal on the basis of adverse residential immunity and noise and disturbance, anything about air quality? And is it deferred? We just need to be clear on exactly what's in the reason for refusal and then obviously what they're wording. Residential immunity, noise and disturbance and sustainability. With a final wording to be delegated to officers in consultation with the chair. Councillor Chaudry seconded the motion. Can I have all those in favour of the motion to refuse the application? That's unanimous. Thank you very much. That brings that item to a close. There are no urgent non-exempt matters. I therefore declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much for your attendance and for your leaving. [BLANK_AUDIO]