Matt Kelcher, Chair of Brent Planning Committee, announced that the planning application for the very large development between Dudden Hill and High Road, Willesden, would not be taken at tonight's meeting.
The reason given was that the developer had submitted 'significant' late changes to the application, presumably to address the reasons planning officers had given for, unusually in Brent, recommending refusal of the applciation LINK.
Sceptics on social media had already suggested that 'the developer will be back with a few changes and then the planners and committee will back it.'
It may come back as early a next month when officers have had a chance to assess it and committee members have had time to review revised documentation.
Let's wait and see if the sceptics are right.
UPDATE
Philip Grant sent the comment below which tells us much more:
I think that the answer to what the 'significant late changes' were for application 18/3498 is contained in the supplementary report to the Planning Committee meeting (main text "copy and pasted" below for information).
Instead of changing the affordable housing offer for their own scheme, the developers are offering to pay the Council £1.5m, to build affordable rented accommodation somewhere else in the borough!
The current shortfall on "affordable rent" in their scheme is 13 homes. Would £1.5m cover the cost of building that many new Council homes?
Following this 'significant change', will Planning Officers now recommend the application for approval? I wouldn't bet against it!
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT:-
'Revised Affordable Housing Offer:
At the time of writing the Officers Committee Report, the formal offer proposed by the applicant was for 66% affordable housing on a non-policy compliant split, weighted in favour of Shared Ownership homes. The Officers Report outlines that the proposed affordable housing offer is unacceptable as it over delivers Shared Ownership homes at the expense of 13 London Affordable Rented homes, which would meet the most acute needs of the borough.
Since the publication of the report, the applicant has proposed a payment of £1.5 million to be used toward the provision of off-site affordable housing to mitigate the under-provision of London Affordable Rented (LAR) homes. This would be in addition to the 66% affordable housing discussed in the main report.
Revised Retail Parking Arrangements:
The officers committee report also raises concerns with the quantum of retail parking without an appropriate parking price regime to encourage non car access and regarding the under-provision of residential blue-badge parking.
Since the publication of the agenda, the applicant has agreed “To enter into a retail car park management plan with the council and a space re-allocation plan allocating up to 10 retail parking spaces to disabled parking spaces”. This would allow for a strategy for parking management to be agreed with the applicant.
Application to be deferred:
Officers recommend that this application is deferred to allow the report to be updated to reflect and consider the revised offer and arrangements
4 comments:
I think that the answer to what the 'significant late changes' were for application 18/3498 is contained in the supplementary report to the Planning Committee meeting (main text "copy and pasted" below for information).
Instead of changing the affordable housing offer for their own scheme, the developers are offering to pay the Council £1.5m, to build affordable rented accommodation somewhere else in the borough!
The current shortfall on "affordable rent" in their scheme is 13 homes. Would £1.5m cover the cost of building that many new Council homes?
Following this 'significant change', will Planning Officers now recommend the application for approval? I wouldn't bet against it!
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT:-
'Revised Affordable Housing Offer:
At the time of writing the Officers Committee Report, the formal offer proposed by the applicant was for 66% affordable housing on a non-policy compliant split, weighted in favour of Shared Ownership homes. The Officers Report outlines that the proposed affordable housing offer is unacceptable as it over delivers Shared Ownership homes at the expense of 13 London Affordable Rented homes, which would meet the most acute needs of the borough.
Since the publication of the report, the applicant has proposed a payment of £1.5 million to be used toward the provision of off-site affordable housing to mitigate the under-provision of London Affordable Rented (LAR) homes. This would be in addition to the 66% affordable housing discussed in the main report.
Revised Retail Parking Arrangements:
The officers committee report also raises concerns with the quantum of retail parking without an appropriate parking price regime to encourage non car access and regarding the under-provision of residential blue-badge parking.
Since the publication of the agenda, the applicant has agreed “To enter into a retail car park management plan with the council and a space re-allocation plan allocating up to 10 retail parking spaces to disabled parking spaces”. This would allow for a strategy for parking management to be agreed with the applicant.
Application to be deferred:
Officers recommend that this application is deferred to allow the report to be updated to reflect and consider the revised offer and arrangements.'
Further to my earlier comment, which Martin has included in his "Update" above, I have looked again at the '66% affordable housing' details in the main Officers' Report.
If Brent accepts the £1.5m "sweetener" from the developer, and approves the revised application, the 65.3% (it looks like two-thirds if you round it up!) of affordable housing the scheme would provide is as follows:
London Affordable Rent: 47 units (14 x 1-bed, 9 x 2-bed, 22 x 3-bed, 2 x 4-bed).
Shared Ownership: 113 units (48 x 1-bed, 51 x 2-bed, 14 x 3-bed).
Brent's current policy for the percentage split of affordable housing to be provided in new developments, between Affordable Rent and Shared Ownership, is 70:30.
What the Council would be approving, if they accept the offer of the £1.5m "contribution" towards building its own affordable homes in return for allowing the developer's latest proposals for this site to go ahead, would be a 29.4:70.6 split.
Given the "emerging situation" over shared ownership (which must be a "material consideration" for planning purposes), and what remains a flagrant breach of Brent's adopted affordable housing planning policy, logic says that Planning Officers should still recommend refusal of the application, despite the 'significant late changes'.
We shall see!
[Note: any objector to this scheme is welcome to "copy and paste" my analysis above for their own purposes.]
I have been looking at the latest (December 2020) version of the London Plan, which is about to be published after various amendments directed by the Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick.
The London Plan policy H4, "Delivering Affordable Housing", includes the following:
'B Affordable housing should be provided on site. Affordable housing
must only be provided off-site or as a cash in lieu contribution in
exceptional circumstances.'
There appear to be no "exceptional circumstances" in the case of this application. It should clearly be refused.
It is unfortunate that affordable housing/homes in this country for me now means poor quality design and builds. There are already enough of these in this area or which have recently been approved. While developers might use the excuse of too many affordable units making developments unviable, they have point, especially when land is now very expensive in London, on top of the other expenses incurred by developers. They may make large profits, but they are taking the risk.
Council's tend to build very bland poor quality developments, which blight areas for decades. I don't want this development to be watered down in terms of quality in order to deliver more affordable units, which can also happen when initial applications are refused. Yes, there are issues with this appliaction (e.g. surrounding transport infrastructure), which need to be addressed, but lack of affordable housing should not be the reason this is rejected. Show me better quality builds with high number of affordable housing in London, and I will re-think my position.
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