A developer has appealed after its plans for a five-storey block of flats and three storeys of business space in Hove were rejected.
Martin Homes wanted to demolish the existing buildings at Saxon Works, behind 303-305 Portland Road, Hove, and replace them with two new taller buildings.
But Brighton and Hove City Council turned down the scheme last March, prompting the company, owned by David Martin, 60, to lodge an appeal. The proposal includes 26 flats and 219 square metres of commercial space.
The council’s Planning Committee is due to meet next week and the council’s head of planning Nicola Hurley wants the authority to negotiate a deal in case the appeal succeeds.
A report to the committee said that the proposed talks should not be taken as the council assuming that permission would be granted on appeal.
The application was refused because the “scale, bulk, proximity to the site boundaries and location of balconies on the residential building would result in an overbearing impact, overlooking and loss of privacy to the Olive Road residential properties”.
The scheme was also considered “out of keeping” with the pattern and scale of the surrounding area and the number of homes an “overdevelopment” of the site.
Councillors also raised concerns about the lack of affordable housing being offered as part of the scheme.
In documents submitted for the appeal, Marin Homes said that the council’s Planning Committee had failed to recognise the benefit of 26 new homes in the area.
The council had also allocated the Portland Business Park area as the potential site for 113 new homes to meet local housing need.
The appeal statement said: “To date, the appeal site is the only part of this allocated area which is in the ownership of a housing developer and has come forward with a housing proposal.
“The local area consists of a wide variety of heights, footprint sizes, land uses and architectural styles immediately adjacent to each other and fully intermixed to which the proposed development positively creates greater coherence.
“Positioning a residential development adjacent to other existing housing is considered more sympathetic in terms of amenity impacts than the existing industrial use building to be demolished.”
The Planning Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 2pm on Wednesday 7 February. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Realistically, the main concern is affordability. Everything else is secondary.
Isn’t this the fantastic developer who buggers uo the old tax office which now has a half finished plywood extention on the roof?