King’s Crescent Estate masterplan (opp Clissold Park)

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2012/0676 is an application from Hackney for outline planning permission to rennovate and extend (in all three dimensions) the King’s crescent estate which sits opposite Clissold Park along Green Lanes. Unfortunately online comments have closed today but the officers will take comment up until the point they make their decision. King's Crescent Masterplan proposed massing It creates a towering gateway out of what is admittedly a rather uninspiring mid-rise estate but one which currently benefits from a fair bit of space around it. It will loom large over the northwestern section of the park as the 11 and 10 storey blocks descend away to the west. It does rather seem we are getting into the habit of turning our green (and blue) spaces into commodities that hight rise developers can capitalise on to maximise prices for penthouses and apartments overlooking them. London has never been like New York. Our open spaces are more intimate and natural and this movement towards overlooking them is making me nervous. The same massing on this estate but flipped around would create less of a “Central Park” type enclosure around Clissold Park. The Design and Access Statement is the most pertinent ‘quick guide’ to what is planned. Take a look at the four ‘D4’ documents here. Nick”

7 Comments

  1. I’ve only had a quick glimpse at it, but I’m generally in favour of such developments.London has a housing shortage of vast proportions and anything that helps address this is a good thing in my view.Surely it’s the primary function of inner-city residential architecture to address contemporary housing need, not to maintain historic building heights?

  2. Looks less Central Park than Hyde Park to me, but there is an underlying point there. There’s a couple of towers up the road in Manor House and Finsbury Park which (will) overlook the reservoir and parks. If you dont want them there, though, where do you want them? Even Canary Wharf now has an anti high rise pressure group. A quarter of a million people move to London every year. Where are they expected to go?

  3. As I mention above, I’m not against the massing per se, but it’s design and orientation to create towers that loom over the open space. It’s perfectly possible to flip this around or even out the blocks to keep the same quantity of housing without comdifying the park.

  4. Personally, I don’t see a problem with flats enjoying a view over the park, but if the further side of the estate could be densified by increasing height as well then I’d be in favour of that too. Although, sadly, I think it would be politically harder to achieve taller building heights on the other side as they’d overlook existing low-rise.

  5. HI,There is a growing local petition against this development as the design elements agreed to in principle by the Kings Cresent Estate Steering Group (consisting of Councilors and residents) did not match the final design presented in this application.There were key elements of the architect’s final design which were either never agreed to or promised to the Group. These were issues such as to include  half-space parking per property, (The final design provides less than 1 to four properties) the ultimate number of floors on the central estate blocks, (agreed as 6 floors but raised to 10/11 floors) –  building on the outer amenity land (which was turned down by the Group and not mentioned in the report on the natural lighting effects)and the \rat run ” effect of roads opening up the estate to the night-time sex-workers.(In this final issue police officers and residents oppose this nonsensical design flaw.It seems to me that the current online application goes against the Steering Group’s wishes and was never agreed (minuted and signed off) that it needs to go back to the drawing board.The picture shown here is ( I believe) not the final proposal as presented in the Hackney Homes Kings Cresent Estate newsletter but as the Hackney Tall Buildings Policy and Central Government Objectives state that  they will be “Involving local communities in the shaping of their environment. ” I guess they have missed the point here.Sadly Vince Murrain the Steering Group and Tenant’s and Residents Association Chair passed away on Monday but spent his last week alive going door-to-door on the estate with his wife Jill gathering petitions to ask the architects and planning sub-committee to re-think the plan which hundreds of local residents are against.I understand that there will never be a plan to which all are agreed but if most here are opposed .. what next ?”

  6. Interesting. The pic I posted above is from the current application – it’s actuallly the only useful one in the entire 25cm pile of paperwork for this application. it’s from one of the D4 documents, I think. So it *should* reflect the proposal. The outline permission will establish massing so it should be pretty accurate. I should arrange to see the model.

  7. ELRNews are reporting that the Kings Cresent Estate regeneration plans have been approved;http://elrnews.com/2012/09/14/kings-crescent-regen-approved/“LB Hackney has approved plans for a regeneration of the Kings Crescent Estate and will now look for a developer partner.The plans will deliver 765 new and refurbished homes on the Finsbury Park estate in Queens Drive. 275 existing homes in seven blocks will be refurbished with 490 new homes built in additional blocks up to eleven storeys high together with retail and community space. 79 of the new homes are for social rent 117 for shared ownership an 294 for private sale.Consultation will start next month. The council will also be going ou to tender for a developer partner.””

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