Advice & Information

35% Campaign update – Delancey’s subsidised profit

Posted by

0

Delancey’s subsidised profit

Jul 02, 2018 12:00 am

Courtesy of GLA

Just over a week before the shopping centre planning application goes before Southwark’s planning committee for the third time a slew of viability documents have been released. Given the size of the main document, the full financial viability assessment (FVA) it has not been possible for campaigners to present a complete response, but some interesting facts have come to light nonetheless.

As is usual developer Delancey claims its affordable housing offer is the most it can viably provide, but it falls some way short of what Southwark’s planning policy requires, as is also usual. Delancey has upped the number of social rented units from 33, first to 74 and then to 116, but this is still some way short of the circa 165 units needed for policy compliance. Delancey were helped along by a £11.25m grant from the Greater London Authority (GLA), which promptly found its way straight to Delancey’s bottom line, increasing its profit by exactly the same amount. We can see this be comparing two development appraisals of the scheme. The first, dated 13 June 2018, is for a scheme with 116 social rented units, but without grant funding, and has a profit of £137.1m. The second, dated 22 June 2018, is also for a scheme with 116 social rented units, but includes a £11.25m GLA grant, and, by a miracle of development finance, a profit of £148.4m. Delancey have responded to justified cries of ‘subsidise homes, not profit’ pretty much confirming that this is what has happened, but referring to the difference in the profit levels as a ‘viability gap’ and pleading that it ‘maintains’ the profit, not ‘enhances’ it. Most people will struggle to see the difference and would think the money better spent on the social housing Delancey claims it cannot afford to build.

The price of a unit

Another curiosity is the price of the social rented units. Delancey will not be building them for nothing and they will be sold to a registered provider of affordable housing or Southwark Council. The unit price given in both the June development appraisals is £229,864 (total £26.66m for 116 units). However an earlier development appraisal, dated 20 Feb 2018, for the first revised offer of 74 social rented units gives the unit price as £78,674, (total £5.82m). Clearly Delancey have more than one way of ‘maintaining’ profits; together with the GLA grant profit will have been ‘maintained’ by public money to the tune of £32m, all as a result of Delancey revising upwards its original affordable housing offer.

Delancey also cocks a snook at Southwark’s much trumpeted viability transparency policy, by keeping important information confidential. The Existing Use Value (EUV) of a development site is a critical figure in determining how viable a site is and, simply put, the higher the EUV is the less there will be for affordable housing. Delancey is claiming an EUV of £175,000,000 (Southwark’s independent advisor, GVA assumes a lower figure of £138,000,000). Delancey says there is supporting information to underpin its higher figure, but adds loftily ‘However, the reports contain information to the existing landowner and cannot be divulged’.

All this aside it is quite clear from the viability section in the officer’s report on the planning application that Delancey’s scheme can fund a fully compliant amount of affordable housing. However, Southwark are choosing to appease Delancey by accepting the lower amount on offer and proposing a viability review at a later date, and waiting to see if there can be any ‘uplift’. This is a mistake, because it shifts risk from Delancey to Southwark – if Delancey should make less money than estimated, it will mean less affordable housing, not less profit. The viability review would also be one of the legal s106 conditions on any planning approval, which Delancey has previously succeeded in changing to its own advantage at its ‘ELEPHANT ONE’ development, right next door to the shopping centre.

The decision on this application is in the balance. There will be a demonstration before the planning committee meeting Up the Elephant Tuesday 3rd July @ 5:30pm; Southwark Council Offices, 160 Tooley Street, London SE1 2QH (Planning Committee starts at 6:30pm)

More info can be found here

Kings College ‘Student Village’ Presentation 6.30pm Wednesday 27th June

Posted by

0

NOTICE OF MEETING 
Kings College ‘Student Village’ Presentation
6.30pm Wednesday 27th June
Globe House | Corner of Bermondsey Street & Crucifix Lane

KCL Student Village 

kcl

KCL are looking to develop a ‘Student Village’ on Talbot Yard (off Borough High Street)

KCL and their architects BDP show plans for Talbot Yard

King’s College and their lobbyists, Team London Bridge, have always aspired to, and collaborated with, high-rise plans for St Thomas St and the Guy’s/King’s Campus.

They have proposed presentation of their latest development plans for a new ‘student village’ to a Forum meeting, open to all.  These plans were hitherto unknown to the community – certainly to us.

Please join us for the presentation by KCL and planner-architects, BDP, of their plans for a major new development centred on Talbot Street.

Click here to see a copy of the introduction letter from BDP which gives nothing away as to the exact location, height or appearance of the proposal, stating only that “In addition to approximately 420 new bed spaces and ancillary student facilities, the Student Village will also provide new commercial spaces at ground floor level.”   On this basis it is unlikely to be a low-rise ‘village’.

Quill ++ and St Thomas Street ‘Masterplan’

quill

Weston Street Elevation from the Quill++ Planning Application 18/AP/0900. 

We are also inviting the Chair of Team London Bridge, Professor Simon Howell, to the meeting to explain the position of his main employer (King’s College of course) not just on his own high-rise plans but on their role the ’emerging masterplan’ for St Thomas Street.

We know that developers Greystar, CIT (South Bank Tower) and Threadneedle, and architects KPF (and now apparently BDP), have been in secretive collaboration with the council on this private vision for over a year. With the ultra-high-rise application for the Quill++ now relying upon it directly in their planning statements it is long overdue that the Council and TLB to come clean and consult the community on their ’emerging’ St Thomas Street masterplan.

sthom

The ‘St Thomas Street East’ Masterplan is referred to in the Quill++ Planning Application.

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
EMAIL
WEBSITE

Additional Pop Up Dragon Cafes, 14th and 28th July.

Posted by

0

To: Pitt, Katherine
Cc: Linda Hill
Subject: Additional Pop Up Dragon Cafes

Dear Katherine,

Just to let you know we are holding two pop up Saturday events in July – to attract local Southwark residents – especially those on housing estates. The invitations can be widely circulated – it is free but numbers are limited due to space constraints so we are looking for RSVPs as confirmation for attendance,

Do let me know if there are any queries.

Thanks

Grace

Mental Fight Club
‘Our Business is to Create’

www.dragoncafe.co.uk

PGtD-summer[45297]

PGtD-summer[45297]2

 

MP4 Final Design Public Exhibition

Posted by

0

elephantmp4

MP4 Final Design Public Exhibition

Lendlease would like to invite you to a public exhibition for the final designs for the fourth phase of Elephant Park.  Masterplan Phase 4 (MP4) includes two development plots on Rodney Place, plots H11a and H11b (see above).

This event will be at Balfour Street Housing Project, 67 Balfour Street, London SE17 1PL on:

  •     11am – 3pm     Saturday 23 June
  •     3pm – 8pm    Tuesday 26 June

Outdoor cinema night in Elephant Park

Elephant Park will be hosting an outdoor cinema night on 12th July, and Lendlease want the local community to decide which classic movie will be shown! So whether you fancy yourself as the next John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and want to dance in the park to Grease, or whether you want to travel Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox, visit the Elephant Park website here to cast your vote on which film should be aired.

This will be just one of a number of events Lendlease have planned for Elephant Park this summer. Keep an eye on the website for further details as these events are announced.

Are tenants adequately involved in decisions that affect their homes?

Posted by

0

London Tenants Federation E-bulletin June 2018

www.londontenants.org  –  www.facebook.com/londontenants/  –  @londontenants

Are tenants adequately involved in decisions that affect their homes?

London Assembly Housing Committee Post-Grenfell Investigation

Email your comments or evidence to the committee by 29 June

Through discussion with the chair of the London Assembly Housing Committee, Sian Berry AM, it was agreed that LTF would support the committee’s investigation into social housing tenants’ involvement in decision-making about their homes, post-Grenfell, by facilitating a meeting of social housing tenant representatives with the committee.

Since the Grenfell tower fire, last year, LTF has argued that as part of efforts to prevent such a tragedy occurring again, there must be change in policy and practice around participation of tenants in decision-making about their homes – to ensure our voices are properly heard.

For some time, we have seen the gradual loss of democratic and accountable tenant participation processes, including removal of funding from an increasing number of council tenant federations or organisations that bring together elected tenant and resident representatives around borough-wide issues. Instead, consumerist models that were more common in the housing association sector are being gradually adopted across social landlords. Such models include a wide range of panels, forums and mystery shopping, through which tenants (sometimes selected) might engage, but without a remit to couch the views of others, or to feed back to them. Necessarily many tenants lack trust in these processes, resulting in disengagement and ultimately disempowerment.

LTF, alongside other groups that we have contacts with – including Camden Housing Association Tenants Forum, Genesis Residents, London Federation of Housing Co-operatives and Race on the Agenda, presented concerns to the meeting, which also facilitated an open mic session. Together we agreed a list of ‘asks’ of the London Mayor.

This link provides information about the investigation including the committee’s key topics and, towards the bottom of the page, a link to a full recording of the meeting, held on 24 May.

While the London Assembly doesn’t have policy-making powers, it has a role in scrutinising the Mayor. Its investigations can put pressure on the Mayor and ultimately contribute to policy changes.

There are opportunities for tenants and residents to submit written comments or evidence to the committee and we encourage you, your TRA, TMO, Co-operatives and / or wider networks to do so, by emailing housingcommittee@london.gov.uk by 29 June.

We have attached an document that highlights our key asks of the London Mayor and some of the issues that we discussed with the other groups that we worked with, in preparing for the London Assembly meeting.

Please also find links here to a briefing on TRAs (with a case study), on TMOs (with case study) and Co-operatives that we produced for the London Assembly Housing Committee members, a comment piece from LTF delegates published in Inside Housing and an article published in the Times which reported on the London Assembly Housing Committee meeting.

OBVNF Meeting, Wednesday 23rd May

Posted by

0

OLD BERMONDSEY
OBNF
NEIGHBOURHOOD FORUM

NOTICE OF MEETING 
More on Quill ++ & update on our Judicial Review
6.30pm Wednesday 23rd May
Globe House | Corner of Bermondsey Street & Crucifix Lane

Local Elections  

Quill ++

Tanner St. Heritage Assault

The colour of the Council since May 4th election

Voting postponed in our ward:

London Bridge and West Bermondsey

Now cast your vote on 14th June
The London Bridge and West Bermondsey ward election was postponed because of the sudden death of the Conservative candidate Toby Eckersley.

The final composition of the council will be determined by the delayed result in our ward. It is set to be closely contested between Labour and the Lib Dems. Labour have already increased their large majority from the 2014 election. Click here for details of the results as reported by SE1.

For the first time since 1965 Southwark Council has no Conservative councillors and the Lib Dems have lost their East Dulwich seats, giving Labour a clean sweep south of Elephant & Castle.  With such weak opposition the run-away gentrification, social-cleansing and heritage-insensitive planning policies of Labour leader Peter John are only going to be emboldened.  The only prospect of a modest improvement of the feeble opposition in our remaining poll is success for the Lib dem candidates.

If you are registered to vote in London Bridge and West Bermondsey ward and did not attend any of the hustings you can see what the main ward candidates and local party leaders have to say with some of the videos available online:

Southwark Leaders Hustings (click here)

Southwark Planning Network Hustings (click here)

OBNF Local Ward Hustings (click here)

Questions left unanswered by Labour
Following the Southwark party leaders hustings the Forum were invited to submit further questions to the panel. You can see our questions and the answers given by the Lib Dems, Greens and Conservatives in the links below.Labour’s Peter John did not answer the questions – despite, for example, the great disparity between his claims about on-site affordable housing and the reality on the ground.  We are inviting John and his local ward candidates to the meeting to answer the questions and state their position on planning and new development issues: on-site affordable housing, meaningful local consultation, heritage, and neighbourhood planning.

OBNF Supplementary Questions (click here)

Leaders Responses (click here and scroll down below the video)

We hope you will be able to attend this important meeting ahead of both the local ward vote and the close of consultation on the Quill++ application (details below).

Forum meetings are open. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to invite anyone along who you think might be interested. We always need help to challenge the Council’s entrenched resistance to local participation in the planning process

Meet your proposed new 517ft high neighbour: Quill ++

At over five hundred feet, if this tower fell over it would span from its St Thomas St. Capital House site to Snowsfields Primary School.

Comments can be made on the Quill++ Planning Application 18/AP/0900 until 27th May. Please click here for full details.

The below truncated images (to which we have added the cropped out bit) are taken from the “Townscape and Visual Built Heritage Assessment” section of the submitted documents. The application contains one hundred and thirty six files in total, sixty four of which constitute the Environmental Statement alone. The upcoming meeting will give an opportunity for a full discussion of the proposal, it’s potential impacts upon the area and how we can best mobilise to resist such anti-social development – and the domino effect of similar schemes that we know are being cooked up with the Council for St Thomas Street.

Major issues we can already highlight are: height and appearance, affordable housing, environmental impact:

Height and Appearance 

At 45 storeys and 157m high the tower represents a 50% increase in height over the site’s previous fantasy student scheme, the Quill Mk.1.  It ups the proposed student population of the building from 500 to over 1000.

The proposal affects the backdrop of St Pauls as seen from Parliament Hill (a supposedly key view in the ‘London Views Management Framework’) to a much greater extent than did the previous permission. This is clear to see from the image below. We are currently seeking clarity from the GLA over the advice they gave the applicant on this subject. Click here to see informal comments from an (as yet) unnamed officer which we recovered recently through an FOIA request.

“Hi (xxxx) – some brief obs below for this one… haven’t gone into any detail for the LVMFs, doesn’t look like there should be any major issues though.” …

“The proposed height is supported subject to further townscape views testing (both existing and cumulative) in terms of how it will contribute to the form of a future cluster around the Shard.”

In terms of local impact, the council’s official Pre-Application Advice Letter of 8th March stated that the proposal was “oppressive and overly dominant as a direct result of the excessive height” (full quote given below). This advice was ignored by the applicants who submitted their proposals just 12 days later with an increase (rather than any reduction) in height. We are yet to establish whether this was just window-dressing by the Council (who knew we would be calling for disclosure of the pre-application advice) with a wink to the applicants that they didn’t really mean it.

“The proposed height at 153.03m cannot be supported as it would have a significant and harmful impact on views from within the Bermondsey Street Conservation Area and protected views from within the Tower of London. Furthermore, it is considered that the height of the building would be excessive, particularly in views westwards along St Thomas’s Street whereby the building would be oppressive and overly dominant as a direct result of the excessive height. Officers have expressed these concerns from the outset and consider that the height of the building should be significantly reduced.”

Affordable Housing

“Officers accept that in this instance that providing affordable housing off-site would be a suitable alternative”

In the same letter the council waived through the proposal to provide 0% affordable housing on site. This is contrary to policy 4.4 of the Local Plan and Policy 3.12 of the London Plan and indeed in direct contrast to the passionate claims and pledges made by the recently re-elected leader of Southwark Council, Peter John, during the local elections.

In doing so the council planners were passively swallowing an extremely questionable argument put forward by the developer (and their architects), hinging on the idea that the proper functioning of the proposed Migration Museum at ground floor level would make it impossible to provide an entrance to anything but one thousand and twenty eight student rooms above.

This argument is summarised in the Planning Statement (please click here pages 35-40) however the pre-app advice letter from the council referred to some recently submitted “further detail”… typically this does not appear to be included in the application, however we found it to comprise (also recovered through FOIA) a study by KPF Architects and an accompanying letter from planning consultants DP9. We can discuss this at the upcoming meeting however anyone interested can click here and have a quick look at pages 123-157 inclusive.

This key study by the architects was not available when we requested to see it at the developer’s “consultation” exhibition in January – even though on-site affordable housing was already well off the table. Please click here for the page on Greystar’s website where you can view the exhibition boards. If you search for “affordable housing” you will find it appears once, towards the bottom, preceded by the word “off-site” and followed, almost unbelievably by the phrase “for local people”.  Everyone knows, most of all Peter John, that they can’t make the kind of money out of the desecration of the historic environment in London Bridge that the developers want in order to offer a good share of the booty to the Council.

Greystar, DP9 et. seem to have disregarded the Council’s request at pre-app that a “full Viability Assessment and a separate Executive Summary is submitted in accordance with the Councils Development Viability SPD”. The Executive Summary included in the application – which points to a “circa £14m towards affordable housing” – appears at a quick tally to have a £30m hole in it.

Environmental Impact Assessment

The council are still out for consultation (and refusing to comment) on the EIA Scoping Report that was submitted by Greystar before the planning application was made. Please click here to view this report which (in a table on page 43) asserts that the proposal could have either a moderate adverse “—” or moderate beneficial “++”  affect on the Wind Microclimate! Fortunately they are clearer on Daylight and Sunlight Etc which gets a simple moderate adverse label. In socio economic terms, despite the wonderful migration museum, a “net loss of employment floor space can be expected” (page 34) – so much for local jobs and businesses in the ‘Central Activities Zone’

To report to the meeting any avid reader with an appetite for scrutiny of the Environmental Statement documents and its (invariably specious) justifications would be greatly appreciated. The images below are extracted from Appendices 16.1 Daylight and Sunlight Drawings.

Greedy suffocation of outstanding Victorian Warehouse

47- 49 Tanner Street  

Consultation Closing Thursday 17th May      

The imposing Victorian warehouse on 47-49 Tanner Street has been under threat for years.  We called upon Historic England to list it a couple of years back but they are now under strict orders from central government to moderate their expectations as to what should be preserved; it would have met the criteria when governments valued heritage more a decade or two ago but it doesn’t now.

Please look at and comment on the current application, 18/AP/0896. Brunel Planning (sic) on behalf of Jersey-registerd Cetza Trustees are proposing to demolish the historic fabric including the whole of the characteristic floor structure of the building, retaining only the main facade and building up to 7 storeys behind, over and around it. The overwhelming new-build element will create an architectural nonsense: A caricature of the prevailing Council attitude to heritage announcing that they can’t quite get away with total demolition but very much wish they could.

The Jersey-based owners usually means they are looking to avoid capital gains tax when, having got planning to jack up the site value, they sell it on unbuilt. A subsequent buyer will then be able to go to the Council with the argument that the original facade alone is a comic token retention that is incongruous and historically meaningless now robbed of its context and interior.  The planners will agree and the next proposal will complete the total demolition of the original.

Click here for full details of the application. The Design and Access Statement, from which the above images have been extracted, also presents the existing building in a poor and vacant state. This is of course nothing to do with the viability of an honest restoration of the building – which is unquestionable.  It is calculated to enable the Council to tick one of their heritage destruction criteria boxes.

Click here to see the existing building as it is presently being used by short-term tenants, Ugly Duck.

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
EMAIL
WEBSITE
OBNF meetings are open to all  – All welcome
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.