How Camden Goods Yard will look when its finished

YOU roll the dice, you take the risk!

That’s the message sent back to property developers who asked planners to let them reduce the amount of affordable housing in a major scheme in Chalk Farm.

Homebuilder Berkeley St George won planning permission to build a huge new housing, office and supermarket complex on land known as the Camden Goods Yard back in 2018.

But earlier this year the company asked Camden Council for permission to water down the obligation on affordable homes, claiming if they stuck to the 200 units in the original scheme then their profits would be so squeezed that they might have to stop work.

It is the latest negotiation in Camden where developers are sealing planning consent for schemes but later claiming changing circumstances have made the cheaper homes financially unviable.

Examples include a tower block plan in Avenue Road, Swiss Cottage, and the Wiblin Mews housing project in Kentish Town.

In the case of Camden Goods Yard, the council has ruled that Berkeley St George must stick to the original agreement.

In reply, the company said it will appeal to the planning inspectorate.

In a viability report by consultant firm Quod, it is claimed a mix of inflation, a stagnant housing market, increased safety measures for high rise buildings and net zero carbon contributions have eaten into profit margins.

They said the company “needs to find a way to mitigate the commercial risk and improve the viability of the project”.

The consultants said if the bid to reduce the social housing was refused, builders would down tools with the project incomplete.

Designs lodged at the Town Hall show Berkeley St George requesting to scrap 120 affordable homes and replace them with 113 private homes for sale.

They also asked to change the mix of homes available, reducing the family-sized housing element from 38 per cent across the site to just 15 per cent.

But in reply, Camden officers wrote: “The applicant is in essence relieving themselves of risk and placing it on the council and the general public.”

The Primrose Hill Conservation Area Advisory Committee said the application “profoundly undermined” the Town Hall and the GLA’s aims to use private development to create new social housing.

It added the council should face down the developer’s threat to halt work, adding: “If this threat is successful it would demonstrate that the reliance on private developers to provide affordable housing is a failure. It would undermine housing policy fulfilment in Camden, London, and the whole country.”

Camden Town ward Labour Councillor Pat Callaghan, the deputy leader of the council, added: “We have many waiting to be rehoused.

“Many are living in seriously overcrowded conditions. Many are living in difficult conditions with ever increasing rental payments. Families just can’t afford to live in Camden anymore.

“I remember attending meetings for three years with a group of people who were working towards providing the best advice to the developers in order for them to deliver a site of mixed tenure.

“I am very saddened that the developers are now trying to change what they promised, when we need more, not less affordable and social accommodation.”

Council officers said in their report “risk should not be passed  back to the Local Planning Authority by removing public benefits in order to make a development more viable.

“The applicant willingly took on the risk, including the potential for the market to change and costs to rise.”

Officers added it was not the Town Hall’s job to ringfence developers’ profits, adding: “The current economic conditions have not appeared overnight.”

A Berkeley St George spokesman said: “We are committed to bringing this complex regeneration project forward and to helping reverse the severe decline in private and affordable homebuilding in Camden and other parts of London.

“This sharp fall in housing delivery is driven by rising regulatory costs and constraints, high build cost inflation and a subdued housing market, all of which have directly impacted Camden Goods Yard. Unfortunately we were unable to reach agreement on design changes to mitigate these pressures, leaving a reduction in the number of affordable homes as the only way to keep the project going and to deliver its important local benefits, including new homes, a £31 million contribution to community infrastructure, over 1,000 permanent jobs, three acres of public space, a community centre and affordable workspace.”

They added: “We remain committed to unlocking this site and now will appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.”

The private homes at Wiblin Mews in Kentish Town

THE OLD PAYMENT IN LIEU REQUEST

DEVELOPERS who built a complex of luxury flats in Kentish Town have stopped work on the affordable housing element in the original plans.

Four Quarters say it is financially unviable to carry on with the work – leaving eight homes that are nearly finished empty.

The company has gone down a familiar route of offering Camden a ‘payment in lieu’ of £868,000 to escape the obligations set out in the agreed planning consent.

Its plan would then be to sell off the unfinished flats on the private market.

A New Journal investigation into the case was published on our Substack newsletter over the weekend.

It found that Camden Council has commissioned its own viability report which concluded the company could still finish the project – but it would be able to make around £4 million extra in profit if it was excused from providing the cheaper homes at the back of the development.

People have already moved into the modern, polished private homes – where family sized units cost nearly £2 million.

The site was once the long-demolished home of a social club for railway workers and is tucked away at the end of historic cobbled row Little Green Street.

Labour councillor James Slater, who represents Kentish Town North, said he was shocked at the contrasting claims by the developer and the viability report about what was possible.

He told NewJournal+: “I hope they [Four Quarters] go away and seriously look at the report and come up with proper plans that reflect the commitments they made.”

Four Quarters questioned whether the viability report should be made public when we called the company.

It declined all our attempts to get further comments and a decision now lies in the hands of Camden’s planning department.

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