Transcript

of the visiting council's main planning committee. My name is councillor Martin Flute. I'm a member for the St. Peter's Canal Side Board and chair of the committee. I'm going to start by asking the colleagues around the table to introduce themselves. First I'm going to start with members of the committee. I'm starting on my left here. Thank you. Councillor Kaye, Mildmay Ward, subbing for Councillor Shane Lander. Councillor Playa Habdas, Highbury Ward. Finn Craig, Arsenal Ward. Councillor Paul Convery, Cardinal Ward, but not attending for Item B1. Closed to the councillor of Canterbury Ward. Councillor Jim Wood, Holloway Ward. Councillor Ruth Hayes, Clark and Well Ward. Councillor Valerie Bosman-Kwashi, Fort Bunhill Ward. Councillor Toby North, St Peter's Sinclair, Sideboard. Now I'm going to ask officers around the table to introduce themselves. Mary Green from committee section. Nicholas Biddleford, case officer for this application. Nat Baker, assistant director for development management. Laura Avery, legal advisor. I'd like to, in particular, welcome councillors Ward and Bosman-Kwashi to the meeting this evening. They're new members of the committee. I'm very grateful to them for stepping up to the task of this year. So, we have one apology for absence from Councillor Nanda and Councillor Kaye's kindly agreed to substitute for her. Do we have any declarations of interest in this application? How do you propose to deal with this? Are you going to recuse yourself? Thank you. Order of business. We only have one item on the agenda this evening. So, that's beyond contention. Minutes of the previous meeting. Can we agree those as a true record? Thank you. That's agreed. Before we go any further, I'm just going to explain to everyone here how we run the planning meeting. And for those of you that might not have been to a committee meeting before. We start with a presentation from the planning officer, which you can see on these two screens here. The officer will run through the main, main points of the application. And there will be some images of the development and some slides containing some information about it as well, which will give us an overview of the scheme that we're looking at this evening. Once that presentation is finished, there is then an opportunity for members of the committee to ask questions of clarification to officers. Once we've finished with those questions of clarification, I will then invite anybody who wishes to object to the application to speak. Objectors generally get up to three minutes each to speak, and we generally take up to three objectors, meaning being a total of nine minutes. If there are more than three people there wishing to object, I will probably ask them to go into a huddle and decide which three people are actually going to speak. Once you've heard from any objectors, we then invite the applicant to speak. We'll keep a note of how long the objectors speak for and give the same amount of time to the applicant to respond. And if there are objections, it's very helpful if the applicant can respond as closely as possible to the objections that they've heard from objectors at that point, because it helps the committee with deliberations. One of the members of the committee has just left the room. I think we'll have to wait until she comes back. So, once we've heard from objectors and the applicant, there is then the opportunity for members of the committee to ask any further points of clarification of applicants, objectors, or officers, on the basis of everything you've heard to that point, we then move to what we call deliberation, which is where the committee discusses in front of you our view of the application and comes to the decision on whether to approve, defer, or refuse it. And once that decision is taken, the decision is binding, and there can be no further discussion on it. I'd just like to remind everybody in the room that these are quasi-judicial proceedings, and this is a council meeting held in public, not a public meeting. And as such, all comments need to be addressed through me as the chair. We have one piece of housekeeping on the agenda before we actually move to the application, which is the membership terms of reference. The report is included, which identifies the members of the two planning subcommittees that are the committee. I'm happy to approve that report. Thank you. Right, and now we will move to the application for this evening. Can we have the presentation, please? Good evening. Tonight's application refers to the Belmonton South Estate. This image shows the estate, outlined in red. The centre of the image to the south is the Regions Canal. The road going north-south, middle is Cardinian Road. The road going east-west in the middle is Copenhagen Street, Kings Cross to the left-hand side, Varnsby to the right. This is the site itself, the house is at Belmonton South, Cardinian Road, bound to the east, Twyford Street to the north, Belmonton Street to the west, Copenhagen Street to the south. You have Orkney House on the right-hand side, Dunoon House on the bottom, and Cateness House forming three sides of the square on the north, all surrounding an area of open space in the middle. That's the estate, the view taken from the south-east, looking north-west. Orkney House is the biggest building in that image. You can see the courtyard, the middle, surrounded by Cateness House and Dunoon House. The view taken, looking south-west, Orkney House, as a point of reference, the left-hand side. And Cateness House in the foreground, Dunoon House in the background. And this is the landmark building that's currently in place on the estate of Orkney House, just 130 metres in height. Attached to the north is a ballgames court and a petrol station beyond that. This is the view looking north to south from Twyford Street, Co-op as part of the petrol station to the left-hand side. You can see the car parking and internal roadway in between Cateness House and Orkney House. This view taken from close to the corner of the junction of Copenhagen Street and Co-op as part of the road. The Cali Resource Centre, situated on the left-hand side behind the tree. Orkney House, on the right-hand side of the white building. And Dunoon House, also on the left-hand side. This elevation is very, very briefly in drawn form. Orkney House, on the top, the nine storeys. And then at the bottom you've got Dunoon House at four storeys, from the frontage to Copenhagen Street. Being as it is, the estate is close to Heritage Assets. Directly opposite the site on Cardinian Road is a listed terrace grade two, listed terrace. And this next image shows the site and the context of Heritage Assets and the wide descent. So the green is the conservation area. The darker bits in that conservation area, took off the opposite side of the listed buildings in Cardinian Road and beyond. This is also a view taken from the Barnard Conservation Area across part of Barnard Park towards the current Orkney House in Cardinian Road. You can see the backdrop to that development taking place at Kings Cross. The application that's coming currently for your exhibition tonight in its current form is basically involves the demolition of garages and rooftop, ball court, the construction of 54 new dwellings, community space, part affordable, part private homes, providing three blocks, between four and nine storeys, as well as we designed the lower two floors of Orkney House with parking, bus school parking, public realm, extensions of ground floor to create a commercial floor space podium, and extension of the rear of Orkney House to form additional accommodation. This, in its current form, is the description. This application was first submitted in 2022. It was a much more substantial comprehensive development involving two storeys of build-overs to Caithness House and Noon House, providing somewhere in the region of over 80 units. Due to structural issues, objections, fire safety, design concerns, large parts of the scheme have been changed, so the build-overs have been removed from the scheme. What we have now are four substantial structures, which consist of Orkney House extension, the new north building above the ball games court, and extension to Caithness House and the Noon House. This is our landscape and considerations. This site is subject to site allocation in the adopted local plan. It sets out for regeneration, redevelopment of parts of the housing estate of Wellington South, to form a new building on the top of the ball games court, to create inflow extensions at the Noon House, Caithness House, to improve the public realm, and to create new commercial retail floor space, to fill in the gaps in the local shopping area frontage, that forms a large part of the Caledonian Road. Also, the car parking, cycle parking, and to improve the public realm within the estate. The application provides for 54 new dwellings within these structures. This includes 23 units for social rent, 4 units currently for shared ownership, and 27 units for private sale. The 23 social rent units contribute 22.5% to the overall unit provision. That constitutes a gender and affordable housing. Taken together with shared ownership, that provides in policy terms 50% affordable housing within the scheme. The ground floor layout, as shown here, this is the key part of the commercial floor space, forming 9 units of commercial floor space, incorporating a wide range of flexible use classes, in the Class E category, broadly speaking, including retail, personal office, financial uses, cafe and restaurant, gym, leisure, creche, nursery, and so on, with scope for social community infrastructure to go into those four space units as well. So, this is the first image of Orkney House. You can see, on the ground floor, the commercial floor space podium, with an active retail frontage, principally on Caledonian Road, but turned around the corner into Caledonian Road, activating what's largely a fairly dead space, with political function and use in public realm. This is a close-up image showing what the potential appearance of that function, that space could be. Note the improved public realm enhancements on the pavement, the public realm there. In terms of the emerging context, this should be seen as one development out of various emerging schemes in this locality. The most principal, most substantial development form here is the Barnsbury Estate, directly opposite the site on the junction of Caledonian Road and Copenhagen Street, with nine-storey buildings on Caledonian Road and lesser heights on Copenhagen Street. So, that forms a large part of the kind of townscape, built form context for this site, and to a lesser degree also to the far corner. That's this image, is the King's Cross development in Camden, York Way. This is the view west to the site across from Barnsbury Park, which is showing in blue Barnsbury Estate, and in the red colour of Orkney House and New North Building. That's the view west along Copenhagen Street. So, you can see over towards Caledonian Road, and the red image is the new development here tonight. Recordly proposed elevations, left-hand side is frontage, you've got the Orkney House on the right-hand side, the New North Building. This is the rear elevation, same pair of buildings. This is the view taken from Caledonian Street, so you can see the Orkney House on the right-hand side, Dunning House on the left, and then between the pair of those is Dunning House extension. That's the looking south from Twyford Street, so you can see the Dunning House extension there. That's the New North Building with Cape Ness House from Twyford Street. And that's the proposed elevations of Cape Ness House, looking westwards through the mews. Two CGI's and images of the proposed scheme. The Orkney House in the centre of the picture, to the left of that is Dunning House. Looking south along Caledonian Road, you can see the New North Building just behind the petrol station. This is the new view across Barnard Park from the conservation area, across Caledonian Road towards a new development. This is the view into the development through the new mews public realm landscape now, with the enhanced Orkney House on the left-hand side, and the extended Cape Ness House structure, which is to be built over existing car parking spaces. This is the Dunning House in Copenhagen Street. This is the view of the Cape Ness House extension and Orkney House behind it, when viewed from within the courtyard of the space area in the centre of the estate. Proposed landscaping, a significant enhancement in terms of biodiversity, open space types and tree types provide a better natural planting environment, enhancing over-greening factor, enhancing biodiversity net gain. This is another image to show in the landscaping in planned form. This image shows the kind of distance currently proposed between the mews extensions to the rear of Orkney House in the New North Building, and the Cape Ness House extension across the street. Some of the sustainability principles involved in terms of ventilation, dual aspect, cooling, sustainable materials, planting, PV panels. Some of the key facts in terms of energy sustainability. The scheme is performing very well in carbon emissions, 61% reduction. There's a £48,000 offset payment to fill the gap towards net zero, and a variety of other factors in relation to district heat network, renewables and so on. In terms of planning, planning balance, there are some impacts, some losses of social infrastructure. There are some very, very limited daily impacts, losses of the ball games court, and the less substantial harm to heritage assets. But in terms of the benefits offset these very minimal harms, is the fulfilment of a site allocation, a local plan, the retention of existing building structures and strong whole life carbon performance, a very much improved architecture to Orkney House, 50% of the students affordable housing, 23 of the units social rent, removal of a large portion of car parking, and the creation of improved pedestrian friendly and well-designed public realm, and improvements in public space, planting and landscaping. A number of key obligations which will be sought to be secured through a director's letter, including affordable housing, contributions towards Bingfield Park, carbon offset, travel plan, green performance plan, construction employment opportunities. The application is recommended for approval, subject to the provisions set out in the implementation related to conditions, and the director's letter. Thank you. Thank you. Have members of the committee got any questions at this stage to the officer? Councillor Hamdash. Great, thank you. There's a comment from the police regarding hit and miss brickwork. It would be good to understand that that's still in place on the development. Hit and miss brickwork is still in place as a means of screening between opposing frontages and habitable rooms. That's a tool, a device to prevent views from opposite property, and that's key to maintaining privacy in this respect. We note the police officer's commentary about that device as being something that might screen potential intruders or others who might cause criminal impact. Obviously, the police have made their comments. We do desire to maintain privacy and quality of accommodation. Obviously, when we seek to discharge conditions about secure by design, and also about design and materiality as well in a wider board sense. We'll be looking to reconcile both those kind of impacts, both the benefits and attributes of the scheme to ensure there's a healthy balance between those two key aims. Just a thought, because when I was looking at slide 32, it looked like hit and miss brickwork was on the ground floor. And so I wonder whether the issues of climbing that are raised by the police or potential for criminal burglary are enhanced by the design? Well, that design will be, sorry, basically, okay. So, in terms of that, those various aspects of the design, secure by design is a key part of designing the scheme, and the applicants have worked with Metropolitan Police to secure the accreditation in developing the scheme. They'll continue to do so, and we'll ensure that these aspects are designed out if they do give rise to aspects which are undesirable. I might have some follow-up questions to the developer themselves, but just some unrelated questions. So, I did read that there are going to be 27 car parking spaces left on the development, and I think about three or four spaces were described as being left for blue badge holders, so it'd be good to understand what the remainder car parking spaces are kind of planned for and used for. So, the car parking is provided on site because there are existing occupiers with permits. Over time, I understand that those permits will be expiring. I'm understanding it is that future residents won't be able to apply for permits, and therefore those spaces will be, I guess, regained to the other space for the landscape. Council North. Thank you, Chair. On the issue of the loss of the ball court, I think in the report it noted that it had been disused for a number of years, so we know exactly how long, and then it also attracts a contribution towards improvements at Bingfield Park and the loss of the ball court. Is that specifically for a replacement facility of that nature, or is it just sort of general enhancements to that location? On the Bingfield Park point, that is, the money has to go to our green space team, who have already got a project in line for Bingfield Park, which does include sports provision as part of it, so we don't have the final design of it, but it has to be ring-fenced to that area for a provision to replace that ball court. On that point, is it not correct that there is a ball park called ball court in Bingfield Park as well, so there wouldn't be scope to provide another one, would there, so it would be enhancements rather than a new court? I think that is your first question. I think that the ball game court has been unused for several, about five years, I think. It has been subject to various changes of ownership and management. Fifteen. Fifteen. Fifteen, yeah. Twelve, okay. Somewhere between. And do we know why it was taken or fell out of use? I am not sure of that detail, I think it is part of it. Question to the applicant, perhaps. Councillor Jeeves. I've got a question here regarding the advice from the fire brigade, which says that they should stay put in case of something. Well, is that, is that, have I misread something? Because if I was in a block and it was on fire, I wouldn't stay put, I'd get out. Have they changed their advice sources? Can anybody answer that, is that, or are we not questioning what the fire brigade say? The fire brigade actually express support for the scheme in their commentary to this. The HSC also have no objections to the scheme. The fire strategies that have been presented to support the scheme from the applicant refer to stay put strategies in them. I think something we have to consider here is the requirement in the planning policy relating to fire safety is that they've had consideration of current requirements and what they might need to put in as the scheme. It's not the final exact requirement of what will happen. That's covered by different legislation which we're not able to cover in planning terms. But to answer your question, there is still some allowance for stay put emergency procedures, but that will be picked up as part of the building safety regulator process which happens after an application is approved if you choose to approve it tonight. So that is not necessarily the final design or approach to evacuation. Just on that point, the key part, the last part of that table in terms of the policy in that section of the report makes reference to the fact that as the scheme develops, the future of construction and post-construction and post-construction and post-construction and the landscape, fire strategies for the site also have to be updated to ensure that whatever is the current regime at that time is in place and it is up-to-date and is the most adequate, safe background for that type of building. Sorry, to follow on from that, presumably the key point here is if the strategy were to change, would any changes to the design of the building be required to incorporate a strategy that allows everybody to leave the building in the emergency rather than stay put? At this stage, we wouldn't know until it gets to Gameway 2 when the applicant is designing the scheme to submit to the building safety regulator. If it did require significant change, it would need to come back to this committee under the terms of reference for a decision if it was a different scheme than the one you are seeing tonight. Thank you. A couple of questions from me. The CGI's that you were showing, generally, I suspect they're probably not verified views, are they? They seem to, I've got one slide before that and the slide after that. That one has a very peculiar visual effect on the block and makes it look as though it's almost launching itself. That's just a sort of computerised image, not a verified view. Yeah, okay, thank you. And the other thing that I have, we did hear mentioned when we were discussing this in the pre-needs, is the possibility that there might be some, we don't know, but there might be GLA grant funding available to enhance the scheme, which might mean that possibly there could be more than 27 social rent units. When it's the case, I think there was a suggestion that we might possibly vary the wording of this to suggest that rather than discussing 27 units, at least 27 units. Is that, am I understanding that correctly? Yes, the GLA and the Mayor have recently produced a process note, which is a material planning consideration, which talks about accelerated housing delivery and part of that note details that the Mayor will be looking into. Funding made available to move, to switch shared ownership units into social rent, so exactly that, if members were to approve this scheme this evening, the current terms of reference seek the delivery of 27 affordable units, of which 23 are social rent, for a shared ownership, you could, should you wish to motion, and if it's seconded and passed, seek to put a minimum, so it would be a minimum of that amount of units, and that means that if in the future any funding becomes available and more units are converted, there would be no need for the applicant to come back to the committee to change the use of those units. Would the minimum apply to the social rent units or all the affordables? That's within your grasp. I would probably suggest, I would say a minimum of 50% affordable, which is what's proposed here. Okay, so that would build in some flexibility, regarding the split between social and shared ownership, should the opportunity arise? Yeah, that, as worded the current head of term is, on-site provision of 27 affordable homes, including 23 units for social rent, four units for shared ownership, and under the current suggestion it would be on-site provision of at least 27 affordable homes, including, and you'd keep the, including at the end, then it couldn't get any less in social rent terms, it could only go up. Okay, thank you, and we'll discuss that when we get to deliberation. Any further questions, committee? Council Kaye? Thank you. Going back to the car point, there's some mention from the Access and Inclusive Design Officer that there isn't quite enough accessible parking spaces. There's the idea that as people who have permits, but not blue badges, move away, those would then convert to blue badge spaces. And what efforts were made to try and minimise the number of parking spaces needed on the estate? And linked to that, the new public realm spaces, a lot of them are shared spaces, what consideration was given to some more car-free bits of the estate? The last one on that point is, there's some spaces for play, but there aren't proper playgrounds. Am I right to assume that's because there's good playground provision already in the area? In terms of the accessible parking provision, the policy is 10% of units have to be provided as wheelchair accessible, and then the expectation is each one is provided with a wheelchair accessible parking bay. Actually, the application of this we've seen from the GLA consistently is 3% of them should be provided with a wheelchair accessible parking bay. And then if somebody goes into one of those wheelchair accessible units and needs parking, they should apply. And then the process would be for the applicant to try and find them an appropriate space, because actually what we see is the take-up is not equal to the number of units. So it could be a potential question for the applicant in terms of what their longer-term plan is to provide for that. And then pass to you on the other questions. So just to clarify, the other questions were, what efforts were made to reduce further parking? What efforts were made to incorporate more green space instead of parking, I tell you it was, and then the play space provision. Is that correct? In terms of trying to limit the amount of car parking space on the site, in large, there is an instant reduction in car parking space on the site, partially through the dimension of the garage block in the board games court. We lost the parking spaces underneath Cape Ness House extension. So there's been a substantial, substantial reduction in car parking. And that's in parallel to also a very substantial improvement to the, to the surface level treatment to the wide, the wider state, including a shared space for pedestrianization, side of soccer use, outdoor play, and pedestrian permeability. So we've, we've, that kind of has gone a substantial distance in terms, in terms of addressing existing permit holders, optimising removal of car parking where, where, where it's appropriate, and ensuring a, a, a mixed, mixed mode, public realm, landscape. And just on your final question on play space, there's 500 square metres provided, we just don't have the details of what it looks like yet. So condition 23 requires details to be submitted. So we'll know precisely what play equipment is provided at that time. Sorry, one more question of clarity from me. Unit A is the largest unit and has been, like, there's a suggestion of planning conditions to make sure it's used as social infrastructure to make up for the, the, the loss of social infrastructure. But just to understand what, what is included under social infrastructure, what could that be based on the planning condition? There's a variety of uses that come under social infrastructure in terms of education, in terms of childcare, in terms of medical, in terms of consulting medical, in terms of community meeting places, charitable actions, community volunteering. So it's, it's a, it's a very, very, very, very, very, very broad range. They would definitely provide a social community infrastructure, an impact assessment, which is, and it goes through, I mean, in great, great detail, the various types of, of use that could go in there that comes in that class and why it might not be appropriate, but it, it includes other words things, and more including, um, uh, depots for ambulances and fire brigade and so on. And it really is a very, very broad, very broad category. Presumably, um, the council being landlord of, of the, the unit, and it's in the council's gift to, um, um, decide what, what would actually be permitted. Exactly, it's a very, very, very flexible approach in terms of both the, um, use classes designated for each of those, each of those, each of those units, and, and, and, and the, and the policy as well. Thank you. Uh, Councillor Hayes. Thank you. Actually, my question was, was very similar to Councillor Hamdetters. Um, can I just be clear what, essentially it could be the case that there was no, kind of, resident orientated space, uh, in that social and community infrastructure provision? Is that right? That's correct, yeah. Any further questions from the committee? You're all done. Um, does anyone here wish to object to the application? Um, no, I'm interested in whether anybody's objecting at the moment, thank you. Um, okay, um, in which case, um, we go to the applicant, um, it's entirely up to what you wish to say, if anything at all, about the scheme. Um, if you do wish to speak. Hello. Hello, you've got a microphone there. Yes, hi. Um, my name is Michaela Oberhuber. I'm the planning consultant, uh, speaking on behalf of the Council's new build team. Today, thank you, um, for the opportunity to speak on the proposals. Um, I would like to begin quickly by highlighting the urgent need for housing, and we think that this proposal shows how local authorities can take a leading role in delivering new homes as part of a long-term solution by intensifying existing sites where appropriate. Um, the planning office's report, I think, highlighted very well the key benefits of the proposal already, so I won't repeat everything, but, um, there are a few things that, um, I would like to address that have come up in the discussion, um, so far. Um, I think one of the items or topics raised was the disabled, um, or blue-bridge car parking spaces. So there are, um, three blue-bridge parking spaces that are provided from the outset. And then, um, in terms of policy, as was mentioned, there's a requirement to provide 10% as, um, blue-bridge spaces. So that would be five blue-bridge spaces, um, in total. So there's, um, a condition that is, that will secure kind of the details of where the free spaces are provided from the outset and if two spaces can be provided, um, in addition to that. And if that is not possible, then, um, the condition, um, will kind of seek, um, a, uh, contribution, um, a financial contribution potentially to, um, accessible, if this accessible car parking is not possible to be added to the site for the additional two spaces. Um, and then the play space, um, question. So, um, I think it was also mentioned that we are, um, proposing, um, play space on the site. And the play space does include informal, uh, informal play space as well as formal play space. So that would include, um, equipment. But, yeah, as mentioned before that, the details of that are, um, or will be kind of, uh, brought forward within a condition, um, submission, once, um, the application is granted and will be developed. Uh, yes, uh, so I think it is, again, worth, um, highlighting that we are proposing 23, um, social rented units and that we have maximized really the, um, provision of a genuinely affordable, um, housing under development. Um, yeah. And I'm also joined today by my, um, colleagues from my team, um, the architects in, under proposal, if there are any, uh, further questions that you have. Thank you. Thank you for members of the committee to ask questions of the applicant or officers on the basis of what I've heard. Um, Councillor Hamdash. Great. Thank you. Um, it'd be good to get into a bit more detail about the, um, shared ownership properties. So, um, it'd be good to understand what the target sale price is, the equity, and what you're imagining might, might be the mortgage and rent for that property if possible. Hi, good evening, um, uh, chair, councillors, uh, thank you for your opportunity. Um, Eleni Tuskounodil, development team leader and previous project manager. Um, so the, um, um, we've got four shared ownership units, one, one bed, uh, two person, and three, two bed, three persons, and they're kind of pepper posse. So, um, the affordability, uh, criteria, the GLA requires us at least 40%, maximum 40% of housing costs, uh, for, um, for, um, for the meeting, the criteria. And the finance, um, colleagues, uh, housing finance manager has actually carried out, uh, quite a detailed exploration of, um, how the variables work out. So, um, we, we looked at, um, does first of all a range, um, the, the unit, um, open market sales value, so the value of the units ranges between 460 and 675, uh, K and 75. Um, the, um, the modeling that we did, uh, takes into account a, um, mortgage repayment of, uh, term of 25 or 30 years. Uh, looks at, uh, the initial purchase. So, uh, scenarios of 25%, 30%, 40%. Um, it looks at, um, the, um, um, well, the interest rate was, at the time, 5%. At the time of the modeling, we didn't change that, but we believe it's now come down. So, more advantageous. And we've also looked at, um, as I said, um, the, the annual rent proportion, um, is, is modeled at 2.75% of the rent. So, for the worst case scenario, the 675,000 unit, um, that would mean that, um, the rent would be something like, so a mortgage repayment for, uh, uh, 30%, let's say, would be, um, over 25 years calculation, would be 1,000, that's the month, monthly income, um, outgoings. The rent is 1,083, 1,000, just over 1,000 per month, and the service charge would be 248. So, the total monthly housing cost would be 2,377 per month. Now, on, on, on the basis of the 25-year calculation, that means that, in order to meet the affordability criteria, um, the, um, income, the take-home household income would be, need to be, at least 71,297. Um, and that is already, um, as a gross household income is, is over the 90,000 GLA threshold. So, in this instance, we'd have to allow for 25%, the same calculations, and that brings it to the gross household income required would be 89,000, just under 90,000. However, if we took the 30-year example, um, the 30-year term, um, the 30-year term, then the, there's a slight reduction in the housing costs, slightly. Um, however, um, however, the, the affordability, um, increases because then the gross household income required would be 90, just over 90,000. So, um, however, it works on the 40%, and even better, there's an, there's a little bit of, um, you know, um, if, um, to the discrepancy of the council, whether you take into consideration the 45% affordability criteria, which is in the government guidance, and then we would fall well within, well within the affordability criteria, and that would also include allowing for other bills like council tax. Water, water, water, water, water, electricity, um, so, that was for the worst case scenario, under the 30-year, under 30-year term, 5% interest rate, and a 30% upfront, um, uh, sorry, purchase, and a 10% deposit. However, these variables can change, as we know, we, we can't predict exactly where we will be in three years' time, in terms of interest rates, and, whether, uh, whether the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the potential buyers, as a, as a, as a couple would be, it'd have to be a couple, I don't think it would be a single household, for the worst case scenario, for the single bed, um, one bed flat, uh, would be a lot easier, so, that would be affordable, under all, kind of, uh, under 40%, and, um, does that answer your question, sorry, I might have missed something there? That's helpful, um, I mean, just as a follow-up question, uh, at any point, did you look at those numbers, and consider not delivering shared ownership, and having, you know, instead of forced shared ownership, to market rent, to social rent? So, I'll answer that one, actually, if that's okay. Um, in terms of viability, we needed those shared ownership units, just to bump up that viability, uh, which, because they're more, um, um, in terms of the amount of supported borrowing, that we can generate, it's slightly higher, when we're using, having a, uh, an intermediate product, as opposed to a social rent. So, for this purpose, we wanted to keep the number of shared ownership as small as we could, but we needed to have some in the mix, and I think that picks up the point that you were talking about earlier, about whether there's an opportunity, at a later point, were grants to be available, so whether there's an opportunity to switch those over. So, we're putting in shared ownership for viability reasons, not because we think that that's the best solution, as an intermediate housing product, and hopefully, moving forward, we'll be looking at different types of intermediate, um, perhaps rented products in the future, rather than shared ownership. Thank you. Just one more question from me. Um, so, we're delivering 54 new houses, and five homes for wheelchair, um, uh, wheelchairs. Um, that's slightly less than that. Ten percent, ten percent. Um, it's nine point something. I'm, I'm conscious that, across London, very few authorities are actually delivering ten percent, and actually, a borough like us, you know, quite often delivers ten percent, so I wondered, at any point, did we look at trying to deliver an extra wheelchair house? Um, we would have done as part of that, uh, process of design, but actually, we're just limited in terms of the way that the building is configured. I mean, I know this isn't for this particular point, but actually, across the, across our portfolio, across our program, as you say, where we can, we try and do ten percent, or a little bit more, um, but actually, in this particular instance, it was rounded down. Any other questions? Um, Councillor Kaye? Thank you. Um, can you talk us through what sustainability and energy measures you've considered implementing, and which ones you had to reject, I guess, based on viability grounds, and then, to just go back to the numbers that have been mentioned a bit before, um, so, at the moment, the viability assessment indicates that this scheme is in deficit. Can you outline that a little bit, and what are your, um, estimates for the per unit cost of everything that's being built, including all the work that's gone into putting together this application? Thanks. Okay, so I'll start with the second question first, about viability. Um, the... Actually, I can't remember what the question was. Um... No, probably. Um, so, the scheme is in deficit, according to the viability, the council, everyone. Um, if you could just lay that out, and, and then also talk about what your estimate is for the per unit cost, um, including all of the work that's gone in so far. Thanks. Uh, yes, no, we've, we've done in terms of our, sort of, viability modelling, we, as you, as you'll know, the construction costs have gone up recently, we've had lots of changes in regulation from the point at which this scheme was originally put together via safety issues, um, building safety issues, interest rates, um, the cost of borrowing, all of those things have gone up. So, in that, um, environment, and trying to meet all the things that, the, the policy position and deliver our 50%, it has left us with a funding gap. And that funding gap can be, um, filled through a subsidy, so the council has chosen by putting it in its approved programme to subsidise that shortfall. Um, um, and we do have an opportunity with the way that the funding that's available at the moment for our right to use some of our right to buy receipts potentially to plug that gap. So, in effect, there's a, there is a shortfall and that's, as the scheme is in the programme, we will find a way of subsidising that to fill that shortfall. Um, in terms of unit costs, this is, uh, a building that will be affected by the building safety regulator, so there are going to be additional costs that are, as a result of that, some of which are not unknown, so, uh, are not known. So, therefore, we've got certain, um, contingency and, um, from a finance view we call optimism bias an element in there to allow for that buffer, um, around what potentially might be additional costs and in particular around the delay because we don't know how long it's going to take for those approvals to, to happen. And we're working on the principle of around a 450,000, um, per unit cost. Obviously, this particular scheme has got commercial in it, it's got, um, some additional costs which, in some instances, when we try and compare ourselves and we benchmark with other local authorities, they've just looked at the build costs. Some have included the whole overall cost. So, that's where it's, it's just difficult in terms of the build cost. That's what we would be expecting for a residential unit. But obviously, the overall cost covers all of those other things as well. So, do you have those numbers? So, the 450,000 is how much you're assuming per residential unit. Do you have the numbers for the commercial space and the public improvements? Yes, but I don't know what those are. So, overall, that's, we will have a contract to deliver the whole of the project. We don't ask them to separate out the costs. We just have separate lines within the breakdown of that budget that show. And we know that, as I say, we're working to a rough ballpark of 450,000 a unit. Okay, and the deficit at the moment? So, the deficit from a viability, from a development viability, whilst it's saying in the report it's around a kind of 14 million, when we're working it on our current model, it's around 4.9 million, something like that. So, we still have a gap, but it's not as significant a gap as it was because as we get more and more information, as the design is refined, we get to a position of being able to be clear about what that overall cost is going to be. Any other questions? Okay, I'm sorry. Oh, I think you're following. Hi, could you repeat again the question? It was about what energy and sustainability measures you looked at and if there were ones you had to reject because of viability and what you feel you were able to... Unfortunately, our sustainability consultants are not here, but I think in terms of overall approach to this project, I think it is a highly sustainable approach that the building is actually refurbished, that economically the approach is that the street thing is repaired and there's opportunity wider than residential alone. So, overall, the scheme has a 71% reduction in carbon and that is split in residential and non-residential. Residential, a 78% reduction against Part L 2021. Non-residential, 15% against the Part L, so the target is 55%. So, renewables have been incorporated on the scheme. There's 118 PV panels. the scheme includes suds, so permeable paving, green roofs. There's a condition for water recycling details and the normal condition as well for water-saving targets. Standards need to be met on non-resist space with Brian Excellent. There's now a policy requirement for home quality mark that achieves four star. So, there's 77 new trees will be planted, another consideration, and the scheme exceeds urban green factor and biodiversity net gain targets. So, was there anything that you had to cut back when it came to those measures? It meets or exceeds all of the targets in terms of policy. Councillor Quake. Mine's partly a question, partly a request. Are you going to ensure that the children's play area is fully accessible for children with physical disabilities and that it will have equipment that is usable rather than them having to just sit and watch other children enjoying it, which is the case for the majority of playgrounds? Yes, absolutely, and I think, well, there is already an SPD in place that we would be following in terms of how we would design that and those details are part of one of the conditions, aren't they, which will do. And a basket swing doesn't count as an accessible activity for the majority of children in wheelchairs. I know that question wasn't directed to officers, but just to reassure you, we've got a condition that is specifically that all details have to be provided to us, and we'll pass them all by our Intuitive Design Officer, so we'll absolutely check every one of those points. Any further questions? The Councillor Hamdash. Please. I want to pick up on just a comment about energy targets, so I'm conscious that it does meet targets in residential, but it doesn't for the commercial units, and just to understand what thought of work was done in that space. It meets the target in the commercial floor space. So in terms of the energy targets, I think it does say that we're not quite there in terms of the targets for commercial. Yes, it doesn't offset so we're paying we're paying the additional and I'm not not sure of it from an artificial point of view. Yeah, which is a normal approach that there is a financial payment name. Thank you. Just one final thing. So there is a comment about the security by design from the police officer about the hit and miss brickwork. There is hit and miss brickwork on the ground floor that could provide a climbing and access. to be good to understand if there are any other measures to prevent ingress and burgh of this. So those hit and miss brickwork is located at the ground floor of the Maisonettes and it's kind of bound, it's the wall that divides obviously the Mew Street from their amenity space. so it's meant to provide a bit of sunlight within that area. So that's the reason why we've located the hit and miss there. It has been designed and looked at to lower levels. It's kind of smaller and almost you don't see it and then when it gets to the upper levels it's when it gets bigger and allows light through. so that's the design intent. The microphone please. The community safety enhancements are linked to very basic things like a lot of active overlooking and active frontage. So the service road at the back of Orkney used to be a no man's land because there was garages and it was one of the areas where you've seen the images there. The view now is completely transformed. So that was the decision and improved enhanced lighting which will allow for that not just the actual enhanced surveillance but also the feeling of the fear of crime going down significantly. Presumably this will be finally resolved in terms of negotiating the places to get your secure by design accreditation. We leave that to the secure by design negotiation. Councilor Kaye. I realise the architect is here so I thought I'd ask something I'm interested about and I know you've been through design review panel but when you were considering the fenestration on the new buildings, this happens on almost all the new builds, they don't have as much in the way of windows as to when say Orkney house was built. Can you explain where that is? I know there's some energy considerations and other things. Yes, so in terms of sustainability and gains within like overheating, we're meant to kind of reduce the amount of glazing that we have within the homes. So that's why in terms of like amount of glazing that you see on Orkney house, it's different from what we have on a new north building. So I guess yeah, that's the main... Solar gain basically, isn't it, that you're trying to mitigate? Yes, yes. Yes, on and we have revisited Orkney house to kind of not reduce the glazing obviously because we can't but introduce solar shading to reduce the gains within the existing homes. So that has been something that we've looked at. Can you talk us through exactly what's happening at Orkney house? Because I know this will always be something that's quite contentious in terms of all the improvements to Orkney house. So main improvements are obviously introducing the solar shading as I said painting the metal work around replacing the spandrel panels and adding a layer of brick work on the eastern western facades that you see to the south on this elevation to match the brick that we have proposed for the new north building. So they can kind of tie together but it's still slightly different from the approach that we have on the new north building where we have punch openings and we have the recessed balconies on the corners. Yeah, that's it. Could I just clarify with officers are these improvements to Orkney house part of this application or not? Thank you. Can we please not have interventions from the floor? I would just like to be clear what we are considering under this planning application. As they've detailed on all the plans, the plans is ultimately what you would approve so they are part of it. Thank you. Any more questions from the committee? I should just explain to the lady who mentioned she wanted to speak in favour. We have a recommendation to approve the application here. So I think the view is generally that speeches in favour don't particularly add to our understanding of the application. So I'm afraid I'm going to decline to take your contribution. We move to deliberation now. I think we've done a pretty good job of cheering this over with the applicants and their advisors. And I think what we now have in front of us just seems to me a very appropriate and proportionate development in terms of space and height and mass and all of those points. I'm pleased that it sits comfortably with the adjoining building and struggling to approve something of excessive height in this instance. There is a bit of a wrinkle about the loss of the Volcorp which does sound like it's been disused for a very long time. I'm not sure whether that was due just to a sort of management issue or whether it was not a particularly affrontatious location. I can't imagine it was particularly easy to manage with the carriages there. So I think that and that being one of a few sort of question marks in my mind I think this is a reasonably comfortable fit under circumstances. I don't know if any members of the committee have got any views. I think in this particular instance planning balance is very much in favour of the application. Obviously council homes are incredibly important especially in this day when it's so difficult to build council homes. But quite apart from that my view is that the public realm has improved. We do have a ball court but we've got a disused unsafe ball court which has been out of use for many years. we add new open space and new play space. I think the public realm has considerably improved. I would manage to open. Councilor Ward. Echo comments made by you chair as well as council ward. My only regret about this application is it does have a small number of shared ownership units in there but with your suggestion around amending the terms and the condition attached so it's a minimum of social rent units and the conversation we've had around officers seeking to use whatever means possible whether that's grant or other means to remove the shared ownership in favour of social rent then I'm happy to support it. Shall we just cover off that point in particular without to amend the wording so to say at least 27 units of affordable housing including a minimum of the 23 and 4 out in the papers are we happy to agree that amendment thank you any other further councillor Kay I think that the committee maybe I'm wrong but I think that the committee would prefer the conversion of the shared ownership to social rent rather than say the market rent to shared ownership do you think that we should say that again please what were you suggesting we would like to see shared ownership converted to social rent if grant or something else becomes available the other option with the phrasing that you've given could convert the private sale to shared ownership for example I don't I just don't want to leave that in there if it is an option apologies I know it's deliberation but if this helps obviously if an open market unit was to go to shared ownership we would technically get an increase in affordable dwellings so I wouldn't suggest doing that I would go with the minimum of social rent units so we definitely get the number of social rent and then the outside of planning that can do exactly what you're asking for and doesn't hamstring us in case there is a point in the future where we want to change some of the open market sales to an affordable product so we would maximize if we go with the suggestion of at least and a minimum of and then we let alternative legislation allow us of any sort than 50% I would be happy to get the exact wording to officers as long as the clear steer from canetti is that the only way is up as far as as as concerned you're saying something separate to what Martin is saying he would be happy if even we got more affordable product i.e. the conversion of private shared ownership I think Councillor North you were saying that indeed given what we've heard about the potential of grant funding available for converting shared ownership to social rent I would have thought that perhaps you could advise on this if there is a prospect of converting some of the private units into social housing units we would be maintaining our policy compliance 70-30 split we wouldn't just say add another four shared ownership units into the scheme and not increase the amount of social rent to maintain the split you wouldn't be able to control that for planning because it very much depends on the grant funding that is potentially available at any one time coming from the GLA they would dictate what it could be used for so you could end up as the GLA gave funding to convert open market to shared ownership and it went beyond 70% because it is outside of the planning control I would probably hasten to add though I don't want to speak on behalf of my college in housing but obviously the council's priority is social rent so wherever we can we would seek to deliver social rent and if the GLA were to put some other constraint on the situation then we would either have to accept that constraint or to right councillor handlet thank you I do want to commend the new build team for delivering a project in quite a difficult context and I think there's lots of things about this scheme to commend and I think the design is really interesting I do just want to make that point that I think the most expensive shared ownership property here doesn't feel like it should be defined as affordable and I think it quite really feels and shows the inadequacies of the London plan and the local plan and this is the kind of shared ownership property that we would look very disapprovingly if a private developer had come along as a suggestion we would work very hard to remove it from the scheme however I am reassured by the promises expensive one and rethink but I would be happy to support the development of this instance thank you at this point I think I don't know whether Councillor Hyde wanted to address the question that had been raised about the history of some of the facilities I don't know if that is permissible I just thought we do it before we need to vote I have my hand up for a while and the reason my hand was raised is because the resident who came to speak in favour has received an email from our colleagues saying that she is registered to speak this evening and if that isn't in fact the case could we at minimum please give the lady an apology for the time she is taking to come here tonight to take part in this democratic process perhaps there is an error somewhere along the way that is completely fine but I think someone who has given up their time to come here at the very understanding between learning how this works and what the lady was told I think perhaps the best way to make a address would be to allow to speak for three minutes thank you I appreciate that thank you very much I'll try to keep this as short as possible I know you all want to get home so my name is Lauren Thomas I'm an economist and I'm a private renter here in Islington and I'm really excited to be here to speak in support of the application which I know is recommended and all of you hopefully voting in support of it so over the past several years I've lived at four different Islington addresses between landlords raising rent housemates making decisions to move in with their partners and move out of London I frequently found myself having a fight for a new home but I right now with the median house price in Islington at $650,000 which is nearly 13 times the median workplace income there are very few young people who can actually afford to do that so I'm really excited to see the council and the team put this forward as a way to get more social housing while operating under the significant financial constraints that you have to deal with I know with the rising costs solution a way to provide new social homes with as little public funding as possible while also providing new market homes to private renters or homeowners who would like to put down deeper roots in Islington there is research that shows that new homes of all types can help lower rent compared to what would have happened if no housing had been built that that's because people who move into new buildings are I won't go over all the research on this but London's GLA Jim Gleason wrote a great paper on this I'm here not just to talk about my experience but also those future residents so often we talk about housing we focus on the negatives but let's not forget the families in desperate need of social housing on Islington waiting list and it goes even further than that it will benefit not just the people in this development but also others further down the line there's a finished study that shows that new market rate supply led to lower income households moving to homes better suited for them and guess what this is even more true with new social housing so it's great there's so much opportunity Islington to do this sort of thing and I think you all can make a really amazing difference in the life of these future residents who will hopefully show up one day at these meetings in support of applications like these and I will certainly be here as long as I'm allowed to speak so thank you so much I really appreciate the chance thank you thank you thank thank you thank you we're back in deliberations yeah okay great could we talk about some conditions for the play space and the planting my experience on another new build scheme has shown to me the importance of there being as much clarity in the planning application as possible about what the plans are obviously some of those plans are still being worked on and there's more time now because you have to go to the building safety regulator but perhaps some conditions about coming back to you chair once the resident engagement has been done around the sort of play and location and type of planting that is required I don't know how you feel about that and then I guess that would also take into account what Councillor Craig was saying around the accessibility of the play equipment could you not just suggest an amendment to the play condition as it is to cover the points you covered yeah sure how would you 23 so I think we would add to that that the details will be shown to the chair and that I was rather hoping that you would suggest the ways in which you think it currently deficient it currently doesn't involve any of those checks I mean I can talk at length about my experiences on another new build scheme but I genuinely think it will cut a lot of officer time and worry if there are clear points where you submit your plans and someone signs off on them and then asks about the resident engagement that's happened and then those plans are published for all to see because at the moment obviously we do not if a resident was looking at this application online they would not know the detail of the play that is normal practice for banning applications for the condition to require submission to further details which is then approved by officers so that's I'm just suggesting that it goes to the chair because of resident involvement I would just like to close this point down unless anybody else in the committee wishes to second councillor Kay's suggestion that this goes back to the chair who wish to second do you formally chair I'd like to second councillor Kay's point please in which case I'm going to take a vote on that particular point Apologies if I've got it right councillor Kay you're after a level of resident engagement prior to the details being submitted and then that resident engagement being given to officers as part of the application process so if that was a motion and if it was seconded we could add wording to condition 23 23 if you delegate to officers and you could put in there that details shall include details of resident engagement and they should be submitted as part of this application if that's what you're seeking rather than that sounds like a good solution to me so do we have support for that yes thank you right so can we amend the condition assuming for the planting as well as the plan yes for the planting as well so we'll include a resident engagement to both of those conditions that's fine condition 10 landscaping landscaping design yeah so and those in favour of the application as amended please show that application is approved thank you very much everybody for attendance tonight you can put your hands out now there being no further business I declare the meeting closed thank you very much everyone for attendance