Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
In this Discussion
Top Posters
- Arkady 5356
- miss annie 5139
- andy 4506
- Ali 3405
- krappyrubsnif 3208
- tosscat 2291
- David 2179
- ADGS 1875
- kreuzkav 1733
- Mirandola 1618
Finsbury Park demolitions
https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2017/04/26/finsbury-park-residents-plans-destroy-victorian-houses/
Not stroud green, but a dismaying project.
Not stroud green, but a dismaying project.
Comments
'The row of properties at 3-27 Wilberforce Road currently houses the Central Park Hotel, which remains open for now despite being sold off in a multimillion pound deal in 2015.'
However, if we do want them back to residential use, is this really what we want - bedsits for 'young professionals'?
'Developer Rainbow Properties hopes to submit a planning application in the coming weeks, but has already admitted it wants to level the entire string of houses to clear the way for rented rooms with shared kitchens and social spaces.'
I understand your point Grenners, but what's being proposed here doesn't sound like the kind of ideal development we should let people drop character buildings for.
You are invited to a public exhibition to view plans for new homes and residential accommodation
at the site of 3 to 27 Wilberforce Road. The new homes will mean a comprehensive
redevelopment of the site outlined in red.
The exhibition will take place at St John’s Church, Queen’s Drive, on Thursday 27th April from 4pm
- 8pm. You do not need to let us know if you are planning to attend, but if you have any questions,
please email jgreenshields@quatro-pr.co.uk.
THURS 27 APRIL: 4PM-8PM
ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, QUEEN'S DRIVE, LONDON N4 2LW
However your assertion that "In other countries people accept residential buildings have an economic life and will be replaced eventually" is highly questionable -the most beautiful and successful cities take pride in their urban heritage and seek to conserve it. There are plenty of brownfield sites in London where redevelopment can be focused without destroying the existing heritage stock. The entirety of Metroland, with its low-quality, low-density housing, ought to be redeveloped before we start destroying Victorian buildings.
The middle-ground, as in that recent planning application on Dagmar Road - is to preserve the Victorian facades while constructing a denser, taller building behind (ideally with set-backs on the new upper floors. Now *that's* a policy that *is* successfully used in other countries to retain heritage streetscapes while modernising buildings and providing more space. And it's what they should be doing on Wilberforce Rd in my personal view.
Working in property and having some knowledge of the planning process the public always have objections and the planners too. The established method now is sadly to submit a planning application for something more than you aim for so that you sit down and make compromises ending up where you want to be and the council are happy. Aim for what you want and you will be forced to compromise more than you wanted to.
Why do people insist on believing that tower blocks are the way forward?
@grenners - yep that's true, it's true of parts of America too - and that's why a lot of of those places are bland, sterile, and bloody boring. I hear that's not true of Hong Kong, but Singapore, say, or Atlanta - those cities are horrible because they have virtually no heritage. The Singaporeans now regret having demolished so much of their old city as it was a) very liveable and b) a massive tourist draw. The surviving bits are now more or less like Disneyland. We should keep our best heritage areas - there are plenty of shite areas that can be redeveloped first. Again I'd demolish all of metroland and replace it with mansion buildings - you'd boost employment in that part of the world too so that not everyone needed to commute to the centre.
John Betjeman and Metroland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cyyqw
Why the uproar over losing Victorian housing now and not a peep when the houses on Seven Sisters Road, also former hotels, were pulled down for some awful looking housing blocks?