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Boardwalk :: Forum List The Phoenix Quarter General Discussion

<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 Next > End >> John Stockdale   Housing Density - 2006/04/27 12:06 Can I start a new thread as the Phoenix Action one seems to be getting a bit full? Charles Style has advised that housing density will be 118 units per hectare. If there are to be 800 units that should use up 6.8ha or 16 acres. I understood, from the exhibition, I think, that the whole site was 14 acres. I remember asking Charles on the first day of the exhibition last year if the 14 acres included the Pells Park and Pool and, offhand, he wasn't able to tell me. Maybe my maths is wrong or I am not aware of some adjustment formula in the regulations. I am sure Angel Property's consultants will have used the guidelines defined in PPG3 (Source: SERDP Toolbox for Councillors), viz: Net site density includes: access roads within the site private garden space car parking areas incidental open space and landscaping children’s play areas excludes: major distributor roads primary schools open spaces serving a wider area significant landscape buffer strips But it would be useful if Charles Style could confirm in particular, if the Pells Park and Pool is excluded from this calculation? Also the commercial area and the area of the Waterside office block? Is the wetland treated as a 'significant landscape buffer strip' and therefore also excluded? How have you treated the under-building car parking? Presumably that cannot be taken into account or it would involve double counting the same land.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. charles style   Re:Housing Density - 2006/04/27 13:28 We discussed with Lewes District Council how we should measure the site for the purpose of calculating density and based on their advice I can confirm that the area of land includes the masterplanned development area. It excludesthe main road, the river,and the wetland buffer strip adjoining the recreation ground. The advice we were given was to include the whole site for the purpose of calculating residential density. But to exclude the buffer zones as described.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. charles style   Re:Housing Density - 2006/04/27 13:35 in further response to John's question, we did not include the undercroft parking area twice, we only included the land shown as the masterplanned development area, this includes the land on which the Waterside Centre is located. The red line shown on the exhibition board included The Pells Pool area as well as the Recreation Ground, this was done in error and will be corrected when the red line is redrawn for our planning application.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. charles style   Re:Housing Density - 2006/04/27 13:43 In further, further response, sorry this should have all been done as one response. We did include the land on which we plan to build the commercial area. Some, though not all commercial uses are located at ground floor level, beneath the residential uses, as is often the case in mixed use schemes and is in fact preferred as it animates the street scape. Again this was included based on advice received from the planners.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. John Stockdale   Re:Housing Density - 2006/04/27 14:01 I can hardly complain if you have done what Lewes District Council asked you to do. Is PPG3 still the standard? I have taken the information from the SERDP document to which you referred me at the beginning of this marathon correspondence. This clearly states: "Net site density includes only those areas that will be developed FOR HOUSING and directly associated uses". If this still applies it would seem LDC are wrong to suggest you include the Waterside Centre and the Commercial Centre and the major distributor road in your calculation, as well as the Pells Pool and Recreation Ground. My guess is that the Pells Recreation Ground and Pool is approximately 40% of the total and excluding this, as you propose would push the density calculation in the direction of 200. If LDC are mistaken and the other areas should be left out as well, we are back in the region of 270 to which you took exception previously. You have argued that density per hectare is not the only measure -- and habitable rooms, bed spaces, potential child numbers and plot ratios offer other insights. I agree that these others might be more favourable to the PQ because the predominance of small units inflates the units per hectare figue. So, I hope you will publish these figures too when the basis for calculating the area has been fixed. However, I haven't seen any LDC or government guidelines about max or min requirements expressed in this way. Can you refer us to a source for these?   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum. charles style   Re:Housing Density - 2006/04/27 14:56 John , I thought I had made it absolutely clear, we have not included, the Pells Pool, recreation ground, buffer zone or the main road in the site area. We have included the commercial area and I am sure that Lewes District Council have a reason for suggesting we include this. It is a mixed use scheme and as such it will accomodate people for work and residential uses often on the same piece of land, so we included this use in the gross land take. At the end of the day when our planning application goes in Lewes District Council can double check all these measurements and the density that is proposed. My own feeling is that Dwellings per Hectare is not the only calculation that should be used and that habitable rooms per hectare is a more appropriate. If you compare the density calculations for dwellings and habitable rooms on the Urban Design Compendium for mainly flats as we have suggested we are going to build and for terraced houses you will see that in fact, if we were to build mainly terraced houses the habitable rooms would be similar and that the number of dwellings would be reduced, the over all density in habitable rooms however would remain the same or very similar. However the council will calculate the density in any way they think appropriate and advise accordingly. There is absolutely no way that the density would ever get any where near the 270 dwellings per hectare previously suggested by you. To satisfy your request clarification on this point i will ask our planning consultant to comment on what they feel is the appropriate density for the site and what is the correct method for measuring the site for density purposes. Density is also looked at in townscape terms.   | | You must login if you wish to contribute to this forum.

Boardwalk :: Forum List The Phoenix Quarter General Discussion

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