Doha: Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary Project Blue (Guernsey) Limited, has yesterday submitted to Westminster City Council in London, an outline planning application for its proposed development of the former Chelsea Barracks.
The 12.8 acre site was first occupied as a military barracks in the mid-19th century and has been closed to the public for more than 150 years. The masterplan which is the subject of the planning application will reconnect the site to the surrounding areas of Belgravia and Chelsea. It envisages an exemplary new integrated residential neighbourhood in a garden setting, combining houses and apartments with local convenience shops, a boutique hotel, a multi-purpose community centre, a public sports facility and a medical centre.
The masterplan creates a community with buildings having a diversity of scale and character, linked by some five acres of new public squares, streets and gardens, to provide a walkable, non-gated and sustainable environment which will become a distinctive part of London. The new public garden squares will be among the first to have been developed in Central London for more than a century. Over 100 new trees will be planted, public art will be a feature and the landscaped areas will include productive gardens.
This new planning application follows the appointment of the masterplanners, Squire and Partners, Dixon Jones and Kim Wilkie at the end of 2009 and the desire of the owners to take a fresh approach to the development, which responds to extensive public consultation.
More than a year of consultation has seen nearly 30 public events including no less than 8 public workshops, an Open Day (which attracted nearly 600 local people), and the circulation of a series of six newsletters to date to over 5,000 local residents, interest groups and individuals. regular meetings have been held of the Residents' Liaison Group, representing nearly 3,300 households in adjacent streets, and the Community Liaison Group, involving representatives of amenity groups, traders, local schools and the Metropolitan Police. The challenge has been to balance a diverse and sometimes conflicting range of views, in order to create a masterplan which is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
The themes which emerged from these consultations were incorporated first into a Concept Masterplan (April 2010) then, following further consultation, into a Draft Masterplan (June 2010), and now into the outline planning application itself.
Approximately one third of the residential units on site will qualify as Affordable Housing. The Developer had also proposed to create additional affordable housing within Moore House, which is currently under construction on the nearby Grosvenor Waterside Estate. Although this was favourably received initially, having listened to subsequent concerns expressed by local residents, the developer has now resolved to exclude Moore House from the planning application. Instead, it proposes to make a significant commuted sum payment to Westminster City Council to finance additional Affordable Housing within the Borough.
The masterplan further envisages the demolition of the existing 15 storey twin tower blocks, but the retention of the former Garrison Chapel, which will be adapted to create a multi-purpose community and cultural centre at the heart of the new neighbourhood.
© The Peninsula 2010
