Running Total #4

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Permalink Reply by John D on December 4, 2017 at 17:13

So you judge people by their accent Keith ? That says it all

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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on November 30, 2017 at 16:26

All three Crouch End Cllrs (Arthur, Doron and Elliot) were 'triggered' last night (a majority voted to deny them automatic selection as 'sitting' Cllrs). One party ex-official and loyal supporter has tweeted her torn up membership card as a result. NB I redacted her image slightly to preserve more of her privacy.

So there'll be a CE Cllr selection meeting on Sunday among all ten candidates who can now stand - statements here: bit.ly/ce18ward

I really hope this means a rowback on the Hornsey Town Hall bad deal too but fear it may be too late.  The Planning Cttee is chaired by deselected CE Cllr Doron. He is a vociferous supporter of the HTH decision maker ( deselect Cabinet member for Housing and Regen Cllr Strickland) in the teeth of widespread local opposition. He actively prevents local feeling getting through IMHO. As a local Cllr he cannot chair the Planning Cttee for this application so the very time we need someone with experience of Cllr-led planning cttee decisions we're disenfranchised. Any idea how to find out who will replace him as Chair of the Planning Cttee for the 11th Dec session?

What I don't know is, how do you get a planning application by a massive developer overturned? It's wrong in so many ways that there have been over 500 objections lodged by residents. I'm guessing that is pretty huge by any standards and should be enough (as should the petition raised against the plans, over 7,000 signatures) but the proHDV Cllrs are also pro-HTH-bad-deal so it seems that it'll go ahead willy-nilly.

Is it true that what happens is, if the Cttee looks as if they might have concerns, the Council's solicitor, who sits beside the chair throughout, interrupts the meeting and lectures them that if they refuse permission and the developer wins on appeal, the Council will be liable to pay a fortune in legal costs so behave!

Is that what usually happens?

Is it possible to find out in advance what the Planning Department are going to say at the meeting? What seems to happen is that they advise Ctee members that they should accept (or refuse) the application and the Cttee very very rarely ever disagree. Is that true?

It's very insulting that the plans see a seven-storey block in the big car park behind HTH that stuff 146 luxury flats. The developers have stated £22m profit. That will be offshored to the Caymans, where they're registered. 

Sorry about the questions - I don't have a clue, as usual :) 

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on December 4, 2017 at 19:20

Hello Chris.

My understanding is that until annual council in May the current incumbents retain their posts.  What has happened is the selection of new councillors to stand for election next year, not the replacement of current councillors.

Planning Committee is a quasi-judicial body in that it applies the law to decisions.  That being the case the Borough Planning Officer (which is a role enshrined in law) and the borough solicitor must give advice on whether in law or adopted policy there are grounds to refuse an application.  The planning system defaults in favour of the applicant and there is a presumption that an application will be agreed unless there are clear legal or policy issues the application may fall foul of.  Even if there is a refusal the applicant has the right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate and unless the decision to refuse was made within a clear legal or policy framework it is likely that the appeal will be approved and the decision to refuse overturned (and in some case substantial costs awarded both for the cost of making the appeal and any lost income from delaying the development)

On petitions, an objection can only be taken into account if it raises material issues, that the application in some way goes against planning law or national, regional or local policies.  Not liking something simply does not carry weight. 

A petition counts as one objection, no matter how many people sign it, because they are just adding their name to that one objection.   It therefore only has to be addressed in the Committee report, if it raising a material matter, once, and carries as much weight as a single objection from an individual.  It far better if 7,000 people all object individually as each objection has to be looked at and addressed separately.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 4, 2017 at 22:40

Thanks, Michael, extremely helpful, really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

The only way forward I can see in light of your response is to lobby the Planning Cttee Cllrs. I'm hoping that they have the power to react to community concerns.

I suppose the issue is, can Planning Cttee successfully overturn the Planners recommendation to grant permission and if so, on what grounds likely to be relevant to HTH? Has to be in a way that prevents the developer from suing, obviously.

If in fact, they cannot refuse to abide by the Planners recommendation, then what purpose do they serve? Has any Planning Cttee ever successfully overturned any vaguely similar enabling development?

Another option is for the Cllrs to somehow delay the procedure until the start of Purdah (March 2018?). At the May 2018 elections the number of anti-HDV (and thus hopefully anti all massive overseas developer fingers in our public asset pie) Cllrs will be so much larger that maybe they'll instruct the legal department to find a way to give CrouchEnders what they want?  

Incidentally, how important are 500 objections?  There was a petition with 7000 signatures, but all the pro-HDV Cabinet, led by HTH decision maker Cllr Strickland, dismissed it out of hand. It seems from the 'grant' paper bit.ly/hth7pGrant that it's binary - the Planners can dismiss objections as not numerous enough. Would 5,000 objections be ten times more effective?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on December 5, 2017 at 8:05

Some years ago I worked on a protocol about councillors and their roles and responsibilities in relation to Planning applications.  There!s a link to the (rather long) document below.  Although it was written specifically for Camden the principles apply to any planning aithority in England.  Paragraph 44 is most relevant

https://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/download/asset/;jsessioni...

Comittees can and do refuse applications where the planner has recommended approval.  Policy can be interpreted in various ways but the test would be, is it reasonable to interpret the policy in such a way that it indicates the application should be refused   

On delaying a decision on an application, the applicant has the right to appeal to the Planning inspectorate against what they feel is any unreasonable delay.  Guidance used to be that most applications are to be decided within 8 weeks and large complex ones within 13 weeks of the valid applications being received.  I don’t think the number of weeks is quite as rigid now but it’s a rule of thumb.

Objections are a difficult issue.  A petition that says something like “We the undersigned object to X because it doesn’t benefit the local community” probably wouldn’t be material to the decision unless that particular site has an adopted policy that requires it to be used for community use.  The trick - and it is a trick - is to comb through relevant legislation and policies and state which of them the application does not address or is in breech of.  In that way the planner has to answer each of these objections and state how the decision does not put the development in breech of law or policy or, if it does, how and why it is reasonable to allow that,

Over the years, the third party role (that’s you, me and anyone who is not the applicant or the planning authority) in relation to planning decisions has been steadily eroded and we now have a system that firmly favours developers and development.  All London boroughs have examples of things that most people (including planners and politicians) did not and do not want but had little power to refuse because it ticks the right boxes.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 5, 2017 at 15:59

Thanks again Michael, it's really excellent to receive such professional advice.

I think this is the Local Plan to be added under the National and Regional ones - we have a Neighbourhood forum but it hasn't been fully established yet, so nothing from them.

1) The HTH Development Vehicle (FEC Crouch End Ltd) is a company founded by Cayman-Islands registered firm. That is not 'material' according to the Planners. There's no mechanism for it to be taken account of, right? Not even the most evil corporate in the world could be denied the profit opportunity? Surely there must be a way to conform to our MP's advice not to deal with companies in the top 30 of the EU's list of the most secretive Tax Havens?

2) The bidding was an EU procurement process based on the 2010 planning application (123 car park dwellings in three blocks, one seven stories high). Of the three main criteria for awarding preferred bidder status, one was that FEC's submission showed them building less. After having won preferment, FEC then drew up a plan to build a lot more (146 car park dwellings and HTH gutted into a 67-room 'ApartHotel'). I think the Planners said the bidders pre-selection plans were only indicative.

Can LBH be sued by the losing bidders for 'bait and switch'?   If so, can the Cttee refuse on those grounds?

3) The 2010 permission contained a clause that obliged that the HTH refurb was completed before any dwellings were built in the large rear car park. FEC's wheeze of an 'ApartHotel' inside the main HTH building means it can be built at the same time as the flats outside. The means the old constraint (I think applied by a previous Council Leader) has been escaped. English Heritage in their 2017 comments didn't seem too bothered, nobody else has mentioned it.

Can the app be refused because of the contravention of the 'refurb first' condition?

3) HTH is in the centre of the CE Conservation Area of largely three-story Victorian dwellings.  LBH refused Waterstones recent application to add a single story to an adjacent shop on the Broadway on conservation grounds. How come a seven-story anything is even allowed? Can the Cttee say it's unreasonable interpretation of planning policy or is it inevitable that everyone can build up to seven-stories anywhere there's space?

4) The whole thing is about resisting the privatisation of public space in the heart of our neighbourhood and thus the Arts Centre so as to enhance it- an institution that defines the sort of place we have here. Can no planning condition be applied by the deciders to insist on a more secure future for the Arts Centre? FEC have appointed an 'Arts Operator' to replace the interim three-man band doing it now. This new one-man-band company will be running the ApartHotel business centre and booking a few 'Art's vents into the large venue that is the Assembly Hall, all presumably aimed at Hotel guests. The amount of space devoted to the Arts is to be considerably reduced from te 2010 plans and the rates charged will make it more of an upmarket 'venue' than what has been promised.  Nothing we can do about that?

5) I can see a way that HTH can be rescued, refurbed and run without the car park flats but what do I need for my plan to be deemed credible?  In 2003/4 a brilliant group of residents of mainly local Primary School parents did a massive effort to defeat the first round of plans - they crowdfunded a business plan that would have worked, but the Council dismissed it, as they had the Crouch End Festival Chorus's 1999 plan and others.  What would cause them to take any third-party plan seriously?

No need to reply but thanks verymuch again for looking at this.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on December 5, 2017 at 16:59

1.  The planning system doesn’t make moral judgements.  The application could be from the most heinous individual or company .  If they refused the application solely on this they would be laughed out of court.  It makes no difference

2. I can’t see a lot of mileage in this.  For major sites most initial applications are outline and the detail is completed after weeks or months of negotiation.  Even after the application is in, amendments can be made right up to the consultation phase (and even beyond if the changes are not considered significant)

3.  I would imagine that HTH, as such an important site, will have its own mention in the site allocations policies.  This may have exempted it from any prohibition placed on other sites in the conservation are.  However, planning guidance is just that, guidance.  It can be ignored if a compelling enough case is put forward.  However, it would be good to check to see if the site allocations policy says anything about what was envisaged for the site.

4.  Yes, conditions can be attached to any planning permission, especially if an arts element is mentioned in the site allocation.  The applicant can, post the permission being made, apply for a variation of any condition though and they often get it to by threatening to leave a site unused or stop work going ahead.  Councils back down again and again on conditions around affordable housing quotas for instance usually when the developer claims that the current economic climate would make the condition financially unviable.

5.  This is probably an old idea but has anyone gone down the Localism route as HTH is surely an asset of community value?  This has happened all over the country to prevent the loss of buildings like pubs where they are seen to be of significant local value.  It may be too late for this though.

Sorry for the gloomy response

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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 5, 2017 at 17:54

No problem - much prefer gloomy than pie in the sky:)

There are others working on this, hopefully way better than me. I hope that the anti-HDV feeling will spill over to the HTH permission decision 'osmotically'. Unless I have a concrete rationale likely to set the Cllrs on a successful course, I can't see a way I can lobby them or even encourage others to do so.

The LBH site allocations document (last updated in July), referring to the 2010 HTH Planning permission, states (Page 121): "The site is suitable for mixed use development incorporating a range of town centre uses which should include publicly accessible community type uses within the refurbished town hall building."

Is that binding? One of the Planning execs (now retired) stated that it'd have to be 'more than just a ping-pong table in the basement' but how much more? Does two years of interim Arts Centre use mean 'as much as has been going on 2015-17'?

FEC have severely curtailed the amount of arts space. The 2010 plan totalled the existing amount of arts space to be 1370 sq metres (across seven different areas inside HTH). FEC have got it down to 530 sq metres. If you consider that the 450 sq metre Assembly Hall is not Arts space most of the time (it's too big), then FEC have reduced 1370 to 330 sq metres - around one quarter of that expected. Is that unreasonable?

Do you know of any texts that make a compelling case for less tallness in a conservation area that I could find on Google?

HTH was declared as an ACV in Aug 2015 but it's too late to bid now, isn't it?

Thanks again!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on December 4, 2017 at 22:46

You don't want an answer from me, Billy - you just want a chance to fill these pages with more rants that are a minority view here. What's wrong with Haringey Momentum, Billy? Here's a photo of some of them campaigning outside HTH: 

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Permalink Reply by maggie on December 4, 2017 at 23:29

They look soooooooo scary, or so many people and newspapers would have you believe.

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Permalink Reply by 2eapisg6lxq2e on December 4, 2017 at 23:54

the last thing you want in charge of scrutiny is a yes man, that would reduce the word scrutiny to a joke, pretty much as the word affordable has become Orwellian as used by Alan Strickland 

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on December 5, 2017 at 18:16

Billy, the Scrutiny committee doesn't have a veto. You're being silly.

Murky? How so?

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