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Letters and feedback from readers ref
planning permission for 2C-2D Belsize Park Gardens.

Response from Giles Downes - RIBA - Resident 13 BPG

Dear Robert

Thank you for sending me the open letter complete with photographs, from Stephen Hall, one of the applicants for planning permission for 2C-2D Belsize Park Gardens.

The letter raises the sort of points that I would expect to see under the circumstances, following the degree of local objections that there has been to this application. It forms a way to register a response to the objections, which the applicants can refer to at the committee hearing and I believe that it is important to respond to this letter.

A first comment I would make is that the writer gives the impression that he has lived in one of the houses on the site for 18 years, in which case it is very hard to imagine a real need after 18 years to suddenly increase his domestic floor area by as much as FIVE times.

Who is going to fill this space? To me it gives the impression that it may rather reflect a wish to sell on after 18 years, with the benefit of planning permission for a large house that will, of course, increase the value of the property many fold.

In response to the main points he raises, the view from standing on the rear of the roof of the existing house is immaterial - The effect on the surroundings and the conservation area should be considered mainly from public viewpoints i.e. from the street.

Whichever way it is put, the main issue is that the the site has always appeared as open garden space and was deliberately kept as such when the existing houses were given permission only if they could not be seen over the front boundary wall.

We know the quality and appearance of the existing houses because they were celebrated at the time as fine examples of modern architecture and were published in Architectural magazines. They were also recognised as being carefully designed to have minimal impact and to respect and preserve the Conservation Area.

The new proposed houses cannot be said to achieve the same aims, their design, rhythm, scale of detail and fenestration are all at odds with the Conservation Area. The external finish in this area is painted Stucco and brick and not Portland stone, which is more appropriate to Offices in the City. I believe that the proposed houses needed to be equally spaced between the existing houses to either side, in order to reduce as far as possible the issues of overlooking and daylight from the existing side windows of both of these houses. In fact the proposed new houses are not effectively smaller than the majority of houses in the street, but are shown as extending to the same eaves height and having similar width and bulk. The strange appearance of the set back roof would give a cut off effect to the finished houses, which would also be significantly different to the form of houses in this Conservation Area.

It is clear that this site is not a location for large family houses of five storeys but forms in contrast, a much valued, protected, open space in this Conservation Area.

Having set the limits for building on this site with the low existing houses, it would be wholly unacceptable for Camden to now change that ruling and to act against the interests and continuity of the Conservation Area.

I have copied this email to the planning officer.

Yours sincerely

Giles Downes

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Response from Uri Friedlander, owner of neighbouring property to No. 2C & 2D BPG

Reading the open letter of Mr Hall dated 15th March 2010 anyone might be excused for believing that the sole intention of Mr. Hall is to contribute positively to the local environment, as he claims in his open letter. As it obviously is not the case, I would like to refer to some specific points in Mr. Halls open letter.

Whether the houses indeed contribute positively to the local environment and conservation area policy is at the end of the day the planners decision. Personally I find it hard to understand how a modern style building in the midst of traditional Victorian dwellings can visually enhance one of the only well preserved streets in the area.

The planning application which was originally filed a year ago and withdrawn, has received considerable adverse reaction from wide parts of our community and the fact that only one or two people, as Mr. Hall claims, have asked him about it are more of evidence to Mr. Halls concern for the local community then the facts behind it.

“Elegantly detailed, Portland stone...in open space surrounded by trees”. There is not a single house in BPG which has Portland Stone on its facade and Mr. Hall fails to acknowledge that regardless how elegant the houses might be, there were never houses built on this ground. Houses generally are not erected for aesthetic purpose. The open space would remain open without the 5 storey house on it – not with it.

“We have kept the new houses to a modest size; they are not as big as any of the other villas in the road although this plot is substantially larger.”

The “modest size” of the proposed development is in fact as tall as No. 4 BPG, and much deeper. Above first floor level in its street elevation it is wider than No. 4 and 6 BPG and Avenue house - this is evident from the plan view.

Mr. Hall: “The new houses are spaced much farther apart than the others along the road to allow for good daylighting and have wide open spaces on each side to give views through to the trees behind.”

I am in some doubt whether the new five storey building will enhance the “good daylight” to adjoining properties and gardens. The currently large open space will be filled by more than 50% of its space with concrete and leave much less than the “wide open spaces” as claimed by Mr. Hall. By filling up a space you do not create open spaces – you rather eliminate it.
Mr. Hall: “All the trees at front and behind are to be kept; only a small one in the courtyard is lost”.

Anyone who read the application knows that this is not the case. All the trees on the back courtyard of the property are “trees identified for removal to facilitate development”.

The very large London Plane Tree identified in the tree survey as number 3, is in effect not 6 meter from the boundary wall - as claimed in the application, but 2 meters. This means that the root protection area is sectioned by the development of the two planned swimming pools in the basement of the property. This might have severe effect on the stability of the tree which is already now leaning towards east and thus relies heavily on the structural support of any roots which extend direction west – where the swimming pools will be built.

Mr. Hall: “When people comment on the design of the existing buildings I am intrigued as to how they know what the houses are like. They are invisible from the street and there is no access. I have met residents of the area who didn’t know that the buildings existed and others who thought they were garages.”

Our architectural heritage has to be protected regardless whether it is seen or not. This in effect is the essence of building conservation regulation. Listings of buildings apply to the interior of buildings regardless whether the public is invited to view them or not. Mr. Hall fails to mention the point that the current houses would have been seen and enjoyed by passing pedestrians, if he and his current co applicant would have not erected the high electric gate which screens the buildings from view completely.

Mr. Hall: “Privacy is a major problem with the (current) design, but only from above; the buildings have glass walls and roofs and are overlooked on all sides by four story blocks.”

This should have been a problem obvious to Mr. Hall at the point when he purchased the property. Regardless, I fail to understand why privacy in a five story tall building is easier to maintain than in a single story building.
The view as photographed by Mr. Hall is not in effect from neighbouring property as he wrongly claims, but from the corner of his own property disclosing the ugly satellite dish which he erected as a positive contribution to local environment.

The view from our property is seen in this picture which highlights all the 7 trees which will be removed in the back yard.

The row of four trees to the front of the proposed building are bare of leaves for approx 6 months each year and thus allow the residents of west side BLG a wide view into the garden square which is beyond the proposed property. This view of nature will be replaced with an elegant pile of beautifully detailed Portland stones.

Party wall to Avenue House
Party wall to No. 4 BPG
Mr. Hall claims that the interiors have been completely redesigned and bear little resemblance to the original. Mr. Hall fails however to acknowledge that the buildings ingenuity is in the wide span structural elements which allow the repositioning of internal walls without effecting the overall structure of the building, as pointed out by Spence & Webster, the original architects.

Mr. Hall: “The new houses are designed to have a minimal environmental impact – we are proposing to get near to zero carbon emissions”.

Personally I fail to understand how the excavation of two swimming pools, the removal of trees, the erection of five story building where there was none before – can have minimal environmental impact. Interestingly, the lower ground floor which houses the two swimming pools and lounging area is only disclosed in a cross section of the latest planning application.

A floor plan of the lower ground level is missing from the new application altogether. It was there in the original application – one year ago. Any idea where it has gone?

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Response from writer Tim Salmon of Belsize Lane

Dear Rob,

I do not buy Mr Hall’s arguments in support of his planning application. Self-serving is how I would describe them.

Whether or not the glass walls of these buildings are made of patio doors seems to me neither here nor there, although his mention of the fact is clearly designed to undermine any argument that the buildings are of architectural interest. And they are. There are very few modernist residential buildings in London – indeed, in the country as a whole, as far as I know. In our neck of the woods there are one or two in the Frognal area and one, rather similar to Belsize Park Gdns, on Downshire Hill. We have not been very bold or ambitious in our domestic architecture in this country. To lose what little there is seems a shame to me. The fact that these buildings may not have been built to the highest technical specification is irrelevant; they represent something bold and new for their time and, in my view, retain their interest. That cool, airy, Japanese effect is quite as attractive today as ever.

That the owner should have been involved in the debate about whether they should be listed strikes me as highly suspect in view of his decision to try and redevelop the site: clearly an extremely lucrative ploy. The claim that the proposed new houses will make a ‘positive contribution’ to the surroundings is at best tendentious. “Elegantly detailed Portland stone,” he says. Well, that is estate-agent-speak, usually accompanied by the claim that the building is “luxury” or “executive.” What it really means is that it is intended to look suitably expensive while remaining sufficiently bland not to discourage anyone’s taste, whereas choosing to live in the existing buildings would require some character, some particular bias: not everyone wants to live in a glass house, you can hear the disparagers claiming.

As to the view of the roof from above: which one of us – and there are many on Belsize Lane and the adjoining streets and mews – looks good from above, with our mix of flat roofs made of shiny silver asphalt, felt and weather-stained zinc? And how come it has taken Mr Hall eighteen years to get sensitive about the view he offers to his neighbours? He could clean his roof, remove the clumps of moss and twigs and other muck for a start.

He wonders too how any of us know what his house looks like. I, for one, can see over the wall. Second, a former wife rented office space there twenty-five years ago. Third, the gate used to be left open much more than it is now. And I notice that the whole place looks very uncared for by comparison with former times. Is this deliberate or merely economising in the confident belief that the jackpot is at hand?

It may well be energy-inefficient. How many of the nation’s listed buildings – churches, castles, Jacobean mansions, Georgian and Victorian country houses – are not? How many of the houses on Belsize Park Gardens are energy-efficient in any meaningful sense?

Mr Hall says that the interior of these houses has been much altered from the original arrangements. Of how many historically important buildings, eventually lovingly and expensively restored, has this not been true?

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