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Tesco SGR: redevelopment plans.
I have just recieved thru' the door a consultation document - with a pre-paid reply-envelope - about a proposed redevelopment of our local Tesco store on the Stroud Green Rd. There is only a very short amount of time allowed for a response given the extended Bank Holiday. While I am broadly OK with the proposal, I have objected to the height of it, wanting the height to stay within the bounds of the Str.Gr.Rd's existing general roof line.
By the way, before Tesco built on the site, it used to be a depot and yard for the forner (post-war) United Dairies milk-delivery service (milk floats), i.e it was the 'new' dairy that took on and expanded the role of the still-standing Old Dairy at thefoot of Crouch Hill.
By the way, before Tesco built on the site, it used to be a depot and yard for the forner (post-war) United Dairies milk-delivery service (milk floats), i.e it was the 'new' dairy that took on and expanded the role of the still-standing Old Dairy at thefoot of Crouch Hill.
Comments
The northern part of the proposal looks good - much more respectful of the Victorian terrace than the existing monstrosity. I don't much like the massing on the southern bit - there's definitely room for more density than there is at present, but the top two stories ought to be set-back so that from the street it doesn't look so towering, and maintains the enclosure ratio. The southern block in particular is just too much.
The façade looks passable to me - a fair amount of detailing, and at least they're cladding in brick these days.
All in all a vast improvement on what's there already, but there are definitely things I'd do differently.
The developer hasn't helped themselves by not explaining the context - i.e. that the London Plan says there needs to be much more housing and directs each borough to build x number of new houses. The boroughs then have to allocate sites for redevelopment and at a particular density - this is one such site. In other words, if you want to blame someone, blame the democratically elected Council.
If there was already a Neighbourhood Plan then it could have been used to influence those allocations and densities, but for some reason there STILL isn't despite the Neighbourhood Forum being in existence for years.
Still, I find many of the complaints aren't to my taste. We live in the least-dense capital city in the developed world, and it shows. When you look at phenomenally successful urban environments like NYC, Rome, Paris, or Vienna, with their 7+ story streets, one's first reaction isn't normally 'oh dear think of all the overshadowing and overlooking'. That's just living in a city. This is a really obvious place for some densification, providing much-needed homes. What people should try and influence is the thing they CAN influence - the relative massing of the different blocks and the facades - to get as good-looking a development as possible. They won't though, they'll just be NIMBYs and achieve nothing. Just like with City North. Just like with John Jones.
Building a few flats on top of a new Tesco won't make anything more affordable for anyone who needs a home, it just means more flats for the developer to sell to "investors" and make money.
We desperately need to ban off-shore sales and second homes, to give people confidence that the usual rule that increasing supply reduces demand fully applies to housing.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/paris-may-07-2015-french-architecture-282169286
It's why the glorious but very dense streets of Paris and Manhattan still have lots of light: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/images/content/pages/zoning/glossary/zh_sky_exposure_plane.jpg
Islington is about 13k. But the highest density is mostly at the southern end. In Stroud Green it will be closer to the average.
Better not to focus on the density, and instead focus on whether it's a good design. We can influence the latter. The former is already determined by the Council's site allocation policies and is unlikely to be influenced at this stage in the planning process. There are a bunch of improvements that could be made that would reduce the visual impact.
My experience - slightly bitter at this point - is that people won't do that though, and instead will do the usual NIMBY thing and achieve nothing.
The only explanation I can see is by providing a pre-paid envelope and handful of simple questions, the developer is hoping local folks will take their concerns to them instead of where it might count for something (to the council etc).
This way, the developer can claim to care about local opinion but bin all the responses, do exactly what they want, and then the council waves it all through since they themselves won't have heard much...
Too cynical? Why is the developer not pointing people towards their official planning applications and so on?