Agenda item

Granted planning permission subject to the Mayor of London (stage 2 referral) and the prior completion of a legal agreement to secure the planning obligations as set out in the Committee report and supplementary report subject to the inclusion of the following highways works within the planning obligations referred to in paragraph 12 of the Recommendation section of the report: the review of the location and design of the speed restrictions situated within Holmstall Avenue adjacent to the site and any required changes to those restrictions.

PROPOSAL

Demolition of No. 421 and 423 (Symal House) Edgware Road and erection of a building of up to 20 storeys (plus basement) to provide residential dwellings, with convenience food store and flexible commercial units at ground floor, together with associated car / cycle parking (basement and ground floor); vehicular access (Carlisle Road / Holmstall Avenue) and highways works (including provision of delivery bay to Carlisle Road / Holmstall Avenue); private amenity space; public realm and landscaping

RECOMMENDATION~:

That the Committee resolve to GRANT planning permission subject to application’s referral to the Mayor of London (stage 2 referral) and the prior completion of a legal agreement to secure the planning obligations as set out in the Committee report and any other planning obligation(s) considered necessary by the Head of Planning.

Nicola Blake, Principal Planning Officer, North Area Planning Team, introduced the report and set out the key issues. In introducing the report members were advised that the application site was approximately 0.5 hectares in size and fronted on to Holmstall Avenue, Edgware Road and Carlisle Road, it contained the three storey office building of Symal House on its northern side The site was located within the Burnt Oak and Colindale Growth Area, adjacent to a Locally Significant Industrial Site and close to the edge of Burnt Oak Town Centre. The application proposed the demolition of Symal House (a locally listed building) and 421 Edgware Road, the petrol station and tyre, exhaust and brake centre to allow for the redevelopment of the site to construct three new blocks ranging from 3 storeys to 20 storeys in height to provide a total of 252 residential flats and industrial workspace.

The Committee’s attention was drawn to the supplementary agenda that set out some additional objections received, however these objections raised no new concerns and had already been assessed within the Committee report.

As no Committee questions were raised at this point, the Chair invited Henry Courtier (agent), Pegasus Group, supported by Andrew Cooper,(applicant) Sheen Lane Developments and Shahmeer Khan, (architect) Base Associates to address the Committee (in person) in relation to the application, drawing the Committee’s attention to the following key points:

• The Committee were advised that the applicant, Sheen Lane Developments were a London based developer with a proven track record of housing delivery across Greater London and specifically within the borough of Brent, most notably in the delivery of 346 apartments and ground floor commercial space within their scheme at 1 Olympic Way in Wembley.
• With the site identified as part of the Burnt Oak and Colindale Growth Area, it was felt the development would make optimum and efficient use of brownfield land that would sit amongst a number of other new buildings on a stretch of the Edgware Road which was also undergoing transformation.
• The proposed development would provide 252 much needed homes, along with ground floor retail space and the associated employment opportunities to serve the local area.
• As well as providing a convenience food store, smaller independent commercial units and market housing, the scheme would deliver 51 affordable homes, equating to 24% when measured by habitable room. These units would all be provided as London Affordable Rent and included a mix of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom properties. This level of affordable housing had been agreed with the Council's viability consultant and the S106 agreement would be subject of both early and late stage reviews to capture any future uplift.
• The design of the scheme formed three distinct blocks of accommodation centred around a shared podium terrace, with the tallest block being 20 storeys in height. This element of the site was located within the Council's designated tall building zone where there were already a cluster of tall buildings. The height and building form had been rigorously assessed through Townscape Visual Impact analysis and deemed acceptable.
• A key benefit of the proposal was the opportunity to create an active frontage onto Edgware Road through the inclusion of the retail and employment units, which would generate pedestrian activity throughout the day and evening.
• The generous and increased pavement widths of the scheme allowed opportunities for public realm and landscaping enhancements, with over 100 trees to be planted across the site.
• Urban greening had been optimised and the scheme had been assessed as having a biodiversity net gain of over 300%.

Committee members raised a number of queries in response to the agent’s presentation, regarding tenure mix, employment opportunities, parking and affordable housing, with the following responses provided:

• Mr Courtier clarified that although Block C had been allocated as the block that would contain the affordable units of accommodation, the scheme was tenure blind, therefore would be built to the same specifications as Blocks A and B. All blocks regardless of tenure would have access to shared amenity space at podium level.
• It was confirmed that there were no specific figures on how many employment opportunities would be created yet as part of the scheme, however given the volume of retail space, smaller commercial units and job creation through the construction phase there would undoubtedly be increased opportunities for employment within the community. Further assurances regarding the training and employment offer to Brent residents as a result of the scheme were secured within the S106 agreement.
• In response to a Committee query regarding the impact of introducing a supermarket retail unit as part of the scheme whilst there was already a similar supermarket in close proximity, it was confirmed that officers had found this to be acceptable as retail competition in retail was seen positively in planning term as prices may decrease for customers.
• Following a Committee question regarding parking spaces, Mr Courtier confirmed that 32 parking spaces would be available on the ground floor for retail customers with a further 4 staff parking spaces in the basement. As the residential element of the scheme was “car free” the additional 16 residential disabled parking bays at basement level that accounted for 6% of total provision for the units exceeded London Plan minimum requirements of 3% of disabled parking.
• The Committee queried why the affordable housing offer appeared low at 24%, given that the Brent target is that 50% of new homes within a new scheme would be affordable. In response Mr Courtier explained that viability assessments had been completed and officers had agreed that 24% was the maximum viable amount of affordable housing that could be provided on this particular scheme.

As members had no further questions the Chair invited members to ask officers any questions or points of clarification they may have in relation to the application. The Committee raised a number of queries in relation to the Tall Building Zone (TBZ), transport considerations, bio diversity and urban greening, daylight/sunlight assessments, and a healthy street assessment. In response to the issues raised the following responses were provided:

• The Committee required clarity regarding which parts of the development fell within a TBZ. Officers confirmed that Block A was not located within the TBZ, however it was situated between the TBZ and a designated town centre where the policy stipulated that the general height of buildings can be up to 15m high. Blocks B and C were located within the TBZ  and in line with the Local Plan Policy for building height to step down towards the edge of a TBZ, Block B would go down to 10 storeys to bridge the gap between the town centre and TBZ, this ensured the scheme was policy compliant.
• In response to a number of queries regarding transport considerations, officers confirmed that the site had a PTAL rating between 3 and 4 and was wells served by local bus routes.
• Officers advised that there would be 504 cycle spaces provided for the site as a whole at both ground floor and basement level. In terms of car parking, in line with the residential part of the development being car free with the exception of the 16 disabled bays it was deemed that the amount of residential parking proposed was acceptable as the site had good access to public transport and was within a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ). There were nearby streets that were not covered by a CPZ, however as they were not residential roads, overspill parking from the proposed development was unlikely to cause an issue. Additionally officers confirmed that through the S106 agreement the right for residents of the new development to be entitled to parking permits that would cover existing and any future CPZ’s operating within the locality would be removed in order to minimise the impact of overspill parking.
• It was confirmed that 20% of the residential parking spaces would have active electric vehicle charging points, with the remaining spaces having passive provision.
• Officers confirmed that in line with the Mayor’s Healthy Streets approach, outlined by London Plan Policy T2 the proposed public realm enhancements as part of the scheme included wider footways, planting, seating and short stay cycle parking. Officers went on to advise that following a Healthy Streets Assessment that found damaged footway and tactile paving, a new footway was proposed along the entire site frontage, as well as a new pedestrian crossing secured via S278 works.
• The Committee queried whether there would be adequate room for vehicles to turn left out of Lidl on to Holmstall Avenue through to the width restriction and whether consideration had been given to measures to mitigate hold ups created from vehicles needing to complete multiple manoeuvres to get through the restriction, such as a no left turn restriction being put in place. In response officers advised that this would be explored further in the S278 works and would include a review of the location and design of the speed restrictions situated within Holmstall Avenue adjacent to the site and to remedy any identified issues.
• Officers advised that although the Urban Greening Factor (UGF) achieved a score of 0.38, which was marginally below the London Plan requirement of 0.4, officers felt that the level of urban greening had been optimised as much as possible given the constrained nature of the site, however further exploration would be undertaken to see if there were further options to improve the UGF through the use of permeable paving, landscaping and air source heat pumps. The Committee noted that despite the low UGF rating, the scheme achieved a bio diversity net gain of +307.1% through a number of measures that included the provision of two bat boxes, species rich flowering lawn and deciduous and evergreen trees.
• It was confirmed that as part of the redevelopment of the site six trees in total would need to be removed, however the replacement tree planting scheme would see 109 new trees being planted, which was recognised as a significant uplift on the current situation.
• Officers confirmed that the scheme had been assessed as air quality positive therefore no further mitigations were needed to manage the air quality of the scheme.
• In response to a Committee query regarding the maximum number of affordable housing that could be achieved through the scheme, officers advised that the applicant had submitted their financial viability assessment that indicated the figure of 24% affordable housing, this was reviewed independently by the Council and BNP Paribas whose conclusions were in line with the applicant’s, the Committee noted that through the early and late stage review mechanism any potential uplift in affordable housing could be identified and secured within the Section 106 agreement.
• Following a Committee query regarding the impact of the height of the buildings in terms of daylight/sunlight it was confirmed that given the scale of the development and the number of windows affected, it was considered that the impacts on existing windows were acceptable with the high density urban context of the scheme. On balance it was considered that the planning benefits of the scheme outweighed the limited amount of harm to neighbouring amenities.
• In response to a Committee concern that 66 out of the 156 rooms tested in Block C would fall short of BRE recommendations, it was clarified that of these 66 rooms, 29 were living/kitchen/dining rooms and as such they were larger than average and would be fitted with artificial task lighting. It was therefore considered that a more appropriate target for these type of rooms would be 150 lux rather than 200 lux, when applying the 150 lux target a further seven rooms would meet the BRE guidelines.
• Officers acknowledged that there were some shortfalls in the new homes achieving full BRE compliance however the shortfalls were considered acceptable in the urban context with the scheme providing good quality accommodation in line with policy D6 of London Plan and policy DMP1 of Brent’s Local Plan.

As there were no further issues raised and having established that all members had followed the discussions the Chair asked members to vote on the recommendations.

DECISION: Granted planning permission subject to the Mayor of London (stage 2 referral) and the prior completion of a legal agreement to secure the planning obligations as set out in the Committee report and supplementary report subject to the inclusion of the following highways works within the planning obligations referred to in paragraph 12 of the Recommendation section of the report: the review of the location and design of the speed restrictions situated within Holmstall Avenue adjacent to the site and any required changes to those restrictions.

(Voting on the recommendation was unanimous)