Plans to build eight homes on a backstreet site are due to go before councillors next week.
Burlington Property Group already has planning permission to build eight townhouses and a bungalow at 15-26 Lincoln Cottages, Brighton, after winning an appeal.
In August last year, Brighton and Hove City Council’s Planning Committee refused the application for nine homes but a government planning inspector backed the scheme.
Now, councillors are advised to be “minded to grant” the latest application for eight three-storey homes, subject to agreeing terms for the site occupied by workshops and garages.
A landscaped area with trees and a pond would replace the previously planned bungalow.
Neighbours have sent 96 letters objecting to the proposals. A group of 62 residents have worked with a planning consultancy to set out their objections.
They are concerned about overdevelopment of the site, lost employment space, the design and appearance of the scheme and the effects on traffic and transport.
One anonymous objector, whose details were redacted by the council, said: “If the price for us to have a little communal garden is that there will be no payment by the developers to provide affordable housing for the least well-off in our society, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s not worth it.“
But I am hopeful that the (district valuer) will be able to persuade the developers that they will be able to afford a proper contribution to the affordable housing fund and still make a great profit.”
The draft terms suggest a financial contribution of £112,000 for affordable housing elsewhere in Brighton and Hove.
Another anonymous objector said: “Hanover is already short on parking spaces for residents who pay a lot of money to park within this area.
“There simply is not the availability for potentially 18 extra vehicles especially given that we do not see a traffic warden here after 6pm even though our permits run until 8pm.
“After 6pm we are inundated with cars that do not have permits but the owners know they are unlikely to be ticketed and hence take the risk.”
There were also seven letters in support of the application. One anonymous supporter said: “I believe that this latest amended plan represents a significant improvement on the original plan.
“In particular, the removal of the bungalow and its replacement with a community garden, the inclusion of access strips to recognise the historic access by residents to the back of their existing properties and the revision of the bin store arrangements are all welcome changes.”
Another anonymous supporter said: “This amended second application before us now offers the benefit of replacing the bungalow with a community garden which will be an enhancement to the area and be very much welcomed.
“We also welcome that the inclusion a strip of land around the site means that the continuing access that has been enjoyed historically by existing residents over their garden walls has been preserved.”
The Planning Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 2pm next Wednesday (4 December). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
So the choices are approve the plan, and get some money to spend on improving other parts of the area; or reject the plan, it goes ahead anyway, and don’t get some money to spend on improving other parts of the area?
That…does not sound like a tricky decision.
People are against building on green belt, agricultural farmland and now brownfield sites. Garages are largely redundant, where people have one integrally it’s likely to be used for storage or converted to housing use. We are against building on sites where people are reliant on cars as there’s no public transport. So where would new houses go? The answer generally seems to be NIMBY.
All the demolished buildings and materials for eight town houses have to transported down a 1.8m wide lane. (see photo) As trucks won’t fit all the stuff has to be shifted by forklifts etc from HGVs which reverse into Lincoln Cottages from Lincoln Street a narrow one way road.
Basically for 12 months the residents of Lincoln Cottages will live in a construction site. They’ll have to put parking restrictions in get access for the trucks.
Whenever there are new developments residents are affected but this seems well beyond reasonable. They get absolutely nothing for it except a community garden the size of a bungalow.