67A-76 Dalston Lane - amended developmennt application to be decided

These are the images for the renewed planning application to re-develop 67A - 76 Dalston Lane - the site on the corner of Dalston Lane and Martel Place E8 by the mini-roundabout which leads to the Kingsland Shopping Centre/Matalan's rear car park. This is a major strategic development which requires the Greater London Authority's, as well as Hackney Council's, approval. Unusually the developer has itself, for some reason, undertaken no public consultation and few people locally seem to know about it.


Artist's impression seen from the bridge over the North London Overground line on Dalston Lane

The Dalston Area Action Plan (DAAP) identifies the site as suitable for 4-6 storeys but Council planners now apparently consider that the DAAP is "open to interpretation" and are rumoured to be recommending approval of a frontage bloc of 5 storeys rising to 7 and 10 storeys further back.

The developer proposes 121 flats of which 70% will be one and two bedrooms. The total 'affordable' flats in the amended scheme has been reduced from 44 to 24 flats - that is 18% by habitable rooms, although Council and GLA policies targets seek to achieve 50% 'affordable' flats in new developments. 

It is expected that the majority of flats will be bought by investors and that, as elsewhere, many will simply be left empty to await house price rises.

 
Artist's impression seen from the shopping centre car park 

The site is part of Dalston's "designated Priority Employment Area (PEA), where employment generating floorspace (B1) will be the preferred uses.” The developer claims that the 50 desk spaces proposed will result in a net employment gain but overlooks the total loss of all affordable studios used by some 60 or more artists who will be displaced  from the site and an overall reduction of at least 25% of the existing employment area.



Artists impression of the view from the listed German Hospital and Lutheran Church in Ritson Road, within the Graham Road and Mapledene Conservation Area on the east side of Dalston Lane.

The development will dominate the residential buildings of the Conservation Area opposite the site and, with other tall buildings, will contribute to the "cliff" effect lining the Eastern Curve pedestrian route overlooking the Kingsland Shopping Centre car park.

You can view the planning application documents on-line here. It is not too late to send your comments by email here

You can also sign an on-line petition here opposing the development which local residents will present to the Council in due course

TfL withdraw plans for private gated community in Dalston

TfL has withdrawn its plannning application to build a private gated community in Dalston town centre. TfL's plans would have resulted in the almost entire enclosure of public railway land, above the East London line extension from Dalston Junction to Highbury and Islington, know as the Western Curve sites. 90% of the residential development would have comprised flats for private sale and all available green and amenity space would have been within the development from which the public would have been excluded.

TfLs proposed 8-storey block on 3-4 storey Kingsland High street on the northern part of the Western Curve site

OPEN Dalston has been in discussion with TfL's development partners, Taylor Wimpey, since April 2012 urging them to make provision for public green spaces as part of the scheme but TfL responded  that there was no room on its sites for any small public green spaces.

OPEN Dalston has been invited to discuss the scheme with London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, on 11 February when TfL's Head of Property is expected to be present. Our proposals will be published here in advance of that meeting and will include plans for new pedestrian routes and green "stepping stones" through the town centre and using modern technology to capture wasted heat from the railway tunnels to warm greenhouses above them.

TfL's controversial scheme has attracted considerable publicity included articles in the Evening Standard, Hackney Citizen and this from our local Hackney Gazette  

Hackney Council is required to resolve planning applications within particular timescales set by central government. We requested that TfL agree to defer its application until after it's boss, London's Mayor Boris Johnson, had considered OPEN Dalston's proposals. Hackney is understood to also have serious concerns about the design of TfL's scheme. This week TfL has written to Hackney to request that its application be withrawn and this has now been formally recorded on Hackney website.

Dalston RIP? It's so not over!

"Dalston RIP" was the title of Alex Rayner's playful piece about Dalston in the Evening Standard Magazine last Friday. He picks up the story around 2009 with the arrival of the trending fashionistas when they, and later Italian Vogue, discovered Dalston. He describes the second wave - their followers and barflies. Finally he settles on Dalston's Gentrification. Has Dalston finally hit estate agents' G-Spot? "Are reports of Dalston's demise premature?" he asks teasingly. Have rising house prices "killed Dalston or just made it stronger?"

Gentrification, in the traditional sense, started in Dalston two and more decades ago. Colonisation by the aspiring middle class, restoration of its Victorian villas, the slow and incremental burnishing of its tarnished elegance and reputation. Occupation of Dalston's redundant factories and warehouses as cheap studio space by artists, designers and musicians had turned Dalston into a vibrant hub of creative industries.

But traditional gentrification is not what we have been witnessing in Dalston recently. It is the outcome of a newer formula for urban renewal."Regeneration". Top down, publically financed corportate solutions, monopoly "inward investment", boxes to be ticked, performance targets to be achieved, consultants to be paid, units to be built, 20% returns on investment to be made. Their vision from above, from afar, about "what's good for Dalston". Not forgetting what's good for them. Demolition and replacement rather than renewal and re-use. Monoculture. Loss of diversity. Mediated by politicians and the developers' PR companies who often employ them.

Dalston RIP? Despite "Regeneration" Dalston is very much alive. Just look at the vibrancy of our local economy in this age of austerity - Ridley Road market, social enterprises, Vortex Jazz, Cafe Oto, Eastern Curve Garden, Arcola Theatre, Passing Clouds, Rio Cinema, our art galleries,  our independent businesses,  retailers, cafes and coffee shops, to name but a few. These are examples of bottom up, sustainable micro-regeneration. The list keeps growing.

Dalston is not only alive, we're still kicking. We're fighting for a better deal for our community. A proper say in our and our children's future. More public green space, more affordable housing and more protection of our local heritage. We're fighting to keep our local character and identity.

London Mayor to meet Dalston campaigners over ‘gated community’ fears

Article reprinted from Hackney Citizen

Boris Johnson to address local concerns over eight storey ‘gated’ development proposals

Eoin O'Donnell
Wednesday 2 January 2013

Kingsland High Street Dalston. Photograph: Eoin O'Donnell

Mayor Boris Johnson has agreed to meet residents fighting a proposal for  eight-storey ‘gated community’ on Kingsland Road just north of Dalston Junction railway station.

The plans run contrary to council guidelines of four to six storeys for the site, which is owned by Transport for London (TfL) and located directly above Dalston Junction’s reinstated train tunnels.

Mayor Johnson committed to meet campaigners after local resident and Conservative London Assembly member, Andrew Boff, urged that previous “crazy schemes” in the area were not repeated.

“I don’t think TfL really care about Dalston,” he said. “The last time TfL got involved in Dalston we ended up demolishing heritage buildings to erect the windswept Dalston Square and building a bus stop that cost £63m where only one bus ever stops.”

As well as enclosing and reducing light to listed buildings to below British standards, the development will have minimal affordable housing and no public green space in an area of London that is in need of both, according to the campaign group OPEN Dalston.

The group’s founder, Bill Parry-Davies, has queried the benefit to the public of proposals in light of TfL’s status as a public body that acquired the sites at the public’s expense. He has also pointed out that TfL received a subsidy from Hackney Council for the development of over £1.3million.

Mr Parry-Davies said the proposal for a major gated community in Dalston is unprecedented and that “for TfL and Hackney to spend public money on a private development with so little public benefit is a slap in the face for Dalston”.

Read the full Hackney Citizen article here

 

Twelve Days of Christmas (in Dalston )

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.... Twelve legends dining


This image, by OPEN's Brian Cumming, shows some of the stars of popular entertainment who were associated with the now demolished 1886 Dalston Circus and Theatre buildings.You can learn about the demolition of old Dalston by watching the trailer to Winstan Whitter's short film "Save our Heritage" . Hackney Council demolished the historic buildings in 2007 and sold the land (for a peppercorn) to help fund New Dalston's unaffordable private towerblock flats, brand name shops and a bus station built on The Slab in Dalston for the 2012 Olympics .The Slab turned out to cost £63 million but is only to be used by one bus - the 488 extended route from Clapton. Although it was promoted as "essential transport infrastructure" for the 2012 Olympics no use was made of it for the Olympics at all. Possibly the most expensive bus stop in the world!


On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me.... Eleven pipers piping

Last year Hackney Mayor Pipe's Cabinet approved the grant of a lease of the new Dalston Square Library's cafe to a local business selling Starbucks coffee. The Council's report bemoaned the failure of its extensive marketing to attract a national cafe chain store as a direct lessee but recommended that some Starbucks franchise branding was better than nothing. It would, the report said, confer "a sense of place for the new Dalston Town Square... and will be beneficial for local economic development." Sadly it appears Starbucks' commitment to our economic development is not its primary concern 

Another of Hackney's investments may have come back to haunt it., It made a £1.3million investment in 2009/10 in strengthening TfL's Western Curve tunnels to enable their development. TfL now argues ,unless it can exceed Hackney's guidelines on building heights, the schemes are not "financially viable" so that  neither TfL nor Hackney will get their money back. Even then, it says, there can be no public green space, only 10 of 108 new flats can be affordable and the loss of sunlight and damage to local historic assets is unavoidable. .


On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...........Ten Lords a leaping



OPEN's Patron is Lord Low of Dalston. A non-party, cross bench, peer who speaks for the greater common good. He is the President of the European Blind Union amongst his many accomplishments. Last year the Low Commission, which Colin Low chaired, achieved substantial reversals of the government's proposed cuts to welfare benefits for disabled people. For many thousands it will "make a difference between existing and a life worth living".

In 2013 the Low Commission will be reporting on the effect of the abolition of huge areas of legal aid next April, and particularly those preventing appeals in cases of welfare benefit and housing injustice. Another area of government cuts is to the right of citizens to challenge unlawful decisions by public bodies. It seeks to prevent bad planning decisions being overturned by objectors. The government seems to think that letting developers do whatever they want is essential for the economy.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....nine sites for listing 

A leaked report has revelaled that the "intrinsic character, local distinctiveness and unique identity of Dalston " is at risk. Dalston town centre is facing a tsunami of property development proposals in 2013. The report comments that Dalston's historic town centre environment has "wholly inadequate heritage protection at present " and recommends nine historic buildings should be listed and the creation of the Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area to protect the character of the area from excessive property development..

On the eigth day of Christmas my true love gave to me........Eight days a week

The Eastern Curve Garden has been fitting eight days of activities into each seven day week. Dalston's only community managed public green space has been so successful that last year it won the national Landscape Institute President's Award. This year its Pineapple Hot House was built and it had a visit from HRH Camillla, the Duchess of Cornwall, as part of her tour of Chelsea Flower Show fringe gardens.  The events list at Eastern Curve Garden is never ending, but the Council says that Dalston's only public green space was always intended to be for temporary use only. Lets hope it never ends!

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me.....Seven members voting

This year, after a campaign led by OPEN Dalston, the Council's Planning Committee unanimously rejected a proposal by Rothas Ltd. for an 18-storey "dressed in green" private towerblock on the Peacocks site next to Dalston Kingsland station. We also said goodbye to Councillor Alan Laing who resigned his seat but continued to be employed by the developer's PR company Four Communications.

In 2013 Rothas Ltd. will re-apply for planning permission, this time for a 19-storey rotunda tower. Dalston also faces major development applications by TfL for the Western Curve plus a nine-storey development of the Eastern Curve plus  a plan to redevelop the Dalston Cross shopping centre with 15-storey residential towerblocks. 

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.......Six blackened buildings

In previous years they burned down old buildings on Dalston's development sites  or painted our surviving Georgian houses black - a somber reminder of the charred remains or a dark vision of more funeral pyres to come? The Council, after four fires, three demolitions and OPEN Dalston's long campaign,  bought the terraces back from the off-shore slum landlord to whom they sold them at auction (For double what it had sold them for in 2002 - Ed).

Now, in the age of austerity when money is scarce, the Council has secured a deal to redevelop the terrace for housing and ground floor shops.  It will not be the "conservation led" scheme originally promised and only, they say, the Georgian facades of the houses will be retained.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........Five Gold Rings






Gold Dust by Mike Wells on Vimeo.

Last year saw the publication of banned Hackney author Iain Sinclair's latest book "Ghost Milk" which explores issues concerning the 2012 Olympics including the excavation, stockpiling, and burial of 7,000 tonnes of radioactive waste on the site  without any prior  regulatory inspection or planning permission at all. What will the environmental legacy be for the future generations who will live on the 2012 site ? Consultants have advised that they shouldn't eat anything grown in their gardens. Iain Sinclair's  ban from speaking on Hackney Council premises has never been lifted but he was able to read and discuss his work at an OPEN event  at Dalston's  Cafe Oto.

The award winning writer and journalist Anna Minton was also a guest speaker at the event. Her book Ground Control is increasingly relevant to Dalston where a major gated community is plannned by TfL on its Western Curve sites...."this  is the architecture of extreme capitalism, which produces a divided landscape of privately owned, disconnected, high security, gated enclaves side by side with enclaves of poverty which remain untouched by the wealth around them. The stark segregation and highly visible differences create a climate of fear and growing mistrust between people which...erodes civil society." Anna Minton 'Ground Control'


On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........Four Aces Club

OPEN Dalston member Winstan's Whitter's documentary Legacy in the dust tells the story of Dalston's legendary reggae club, its relationship with the Council and the police and how it went on to become the rave venue Labyrinth.

In 2007 the authorities demolished the club's original home in the historic Dalston Theatre buildings at 14 Dalston Lane. They crushed it, ground it up and used it in the foundations for Barratt's New Dalston tower block development of 90% unaffordable flats.

Thus we lost our historic buildings in Dalston and the thirty year cultural legacy of our African-Carribean community. So now the authorities are calling the new tower blocks after the artists who performed in the club they demolished - Sledge Tower, Wonder House, Marley House etc. Patronising hypocrisy...or what? Did anyone ask Stevie Wonder if he wanted a Dalston tower block named after him?

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me......... three green oasis 

A TfL image illustrating its present proposals for "greening" Dalston which is limited to planting some street trees.

In one of the most populous wards, in one of the most populous boroughs in London, Dalston has virtually no public green space at all. OPEN Dalston, with backing from award winning Growing Communities, has identified three areas on TfL's Western Curve development sites which would be suitable for small managed public green spaces.TfL have so far rejected our proposals but the issue has been raised with TfL's boss, Boris, the Mayor of the Greater London Authority.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me........two subsidies

This year Barratt, who are building the Dalston Square towers, succeeded where Oliver Twist failed. Last year it got second helpings of the tasty tax- payers subsidy which it first had earlier in the year. This yeat it announced profits for shareholders. With house builders struggling, and banks asking for 25% deposits on new build properties, the government has set aside  further £millions to lend first time buyers towards their deposits on Barratt's and other flats.  Barratt loves it - it helps keep prices, and profit margins, high. With insufficient homes, and rents soaring, buy-to-let landlords think they have found a safe haven and taken 60% of the East London new build market.and Barratt has opened an office in Beijing
Barratt have also been pulling strings to support the recently announced "simplification" of planning rules - the "presumption in favour of development". Hello to the Big Business Society. Goodbye bio-diversity and local character and, if you can't pay the rent or the bank, then its goodbye to you too.



On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........a retail opportunity

In 2012 the Dalston Area Action Plan ( DAAP  - Hackney's blueprint for the "regeneration" of Dalston) - was examined in public by a government Planning Inspector. One of Hackney's big ideas is "creating the conditions for national high street stores to be attracted to the area" by creating a new "shopping circuits" linking Dalston Square with a re-developed Dalston Cross shoppping centre. Hackney hopes this will mean locals don't need to go shopping at Westfield, Stratford City or the Angel. How paying money into the off-shore bank accounts of national brand stores, rather than local independent businesses, will boost our local economy remains a mystery.

The Eastern Curve Garden - a managed green public space

Late amendments to the DAAP saw the Council's "vision" change from a Dalston Park, where the award winning Eastern Curve Garden presently is, into an overshadowed pedestrian thoroughfare lined with shops and nine-storey blocks of flats which they call a "shopping circuit". How will this fit with Hackney Mayor's recent announcement that  "What we do not need is retail space and housing that, using the government's affordability criteria, is well out of the reach of most Hackney people "

Hackney's vision of the Eastern Curve Garden transformed into a shopping circuit

"....Towers for people who need gifts and coffee Only available from brandname shops...."
From "Regeneration Blues" by Michael Rosen

Leaked report calls for Dalston's environmental protection

The "intrinsic character, local distinctiveness and unique identity of Dalston " is at risk of being damaged or lost, a leaked report has revealed.  Dalston town centre is facing a tsunami of property development proposals in 2013. The report comments that Dalston's historic town centre environment has "wholly inadequate heritage protection at present ".

The Railway Tavern and Peace Mural on Dalston Lane

The report was produced for Design for London which, like Transport for London (TfL),is an agency of Boris' Greater London Authority. It recommends a new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area, an extension of the Dalston Lane (West) Conservation Area and the listing of several of Dalston's notable buildings.

 

Presently unprotected, the former 1902 Shannon factory, now Sprinfield House, Tyssen Street, is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and inclusion within an extended Dalston Lane Conservation Area. A 9-xtorey blocks of flats is planned for the neighbouring Eastern Curve  site.

Dalston Square was Phase 1 of TfLs redevelopment scheme many unprotected heritage buildings were lost. The redevelopment of TfL's Western Curve tunnels is Phase II. Major developments on other sites in the town centre are also planned, including towers of between 9 - 19 storeys locally.

Presently unprotected, the Reeves and Sons Printhouse and Colourworks in Ashwin St.is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and for inclusion within an extended  Dalston Lane Conservation Area. It is currently occupied by the  Bootstraps Company, Cafe Oto and Arcola Theatre.
(I was told that the vats in which Constable's paints were mixed are stored in the basement - Ed)

Local Council's have responsibility for creating local conservation areas but Hackney has invested over £1.3million in partnership with TfL to enable development of the Western Curve tunnels. A letter has been sent to English Heritage pointing out Hackney's conflicting interests and asking it to consider using its reserve powers to designate the new, and extended, Conservation Areas. You can read the letter here.

Cooke's Eels and Mash shop, currently Shanghai, is Grade II listed but the remainder in this 1902 group on the Western Curve are unprotected. They are recommended for inclusion in the new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area.   

Unless within a Conservation Area, unlisted  non-residential buildings can be demolished without any planning control at all. Even residential status doesn't prevent some owners disregarding planning controls over demolition. Conservation Area status also gives some protection to prevent damage to the settings  of notable buildings affected by new developments.

Shiloh 1881 Pentecostal Chapel, Ashwin Street is recommended for inclusion on Hackney's Local List and for inclusion within an extended Dalston Lane (West) Conservation Area

 Hackney Council  response to the report's recommendations presently remains unclear. However the importance of many of the buildings identified in the report was not drawn to the Government Inspector's attention by Hackney during his Dalston Area Action Plan Inquiry last summer.

74 -76 Kingsland High Street (Nat West Bank) next to Ridely Road market is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and for inclusion within the new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area. It is opposite Dalston Kingsland station where a revived application for a 18-storey tower, which was rejected last year, is to be proposed in 2013.  

The new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area would also include heritage buildings on Stoke Newington Road.    .

Princess May Primary School is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and for inclusion within the new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area.

House of Simpson's art deco clothing factory, at  92 - 100 Stoke Newington Road,  currently occupied by Beyond Retro, is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and for inclusion within the new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area.

St John's Court, former Magistataes Court, at 82  Stoke Newington Road,  is recommended for inclusion on the National Heritage List for England and for inclusion within the new Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area.

The former Savoy/ABC art deco cinema, currently EFES Snooker Club at 1-17 Stoke Newington Road is
recommended for inclusion on Hackney's Local List and for inclusion within an extended Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area

You can read the full DfL report here. 

Boris comments on "greening" Dalston.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of the Greater London Authority, has replied to a question concerning his agency, TfL's, profit led development proposals for Dalston's Western Curve. The question was asked by local resident Andrew Boff who is Leader of the GLA Conservative Group on the London Assembly and scourge of bureaucratic wastrels. Watch the video here:

TfL is an agency of the Greater London Authorty and has applied for planning permission to build a major gated community above the Western Curve railway tunnels which run north west from Dalston Junction and which will have no public green space at all..

Boris is nominal boss of TfL but may also have planning powers as the GLA's Mayor over the Western Curve scheme. He says, of TfLs proposal, "Nemo iudex in causa sua" . In Dalston we say "Audi alteram partem".

OPEN Dalston objects to the scheme as presently designed and you can read our analysis of the scheme here and here.

Since April we also have been asking TfL to provide green space on  its other sites in Dalston for which it has no plans presently. Boris hints that there could be "improvements" there.

The Council's public consultation on the scheme officially closes today has been extended. We advise you to submit comments by 23 January so they can be reported at the Planning Committee hearing expected (presently) on 6th February . You can send comments to Hackney here and we urge you to do so.

An image from TfL's plannning application documents illustrating its "greening" proposals for Dalston which is presently limited to planting some street trees

Despite the severe deficit of public green space in Dalston, TfL's development partners, Taylor Wimpey, have said that "the only viable opportunity for open green space will be that for use by the residents and guests of the proposed scheme". 

Despite the damage to local heritage which TfL have already inflicted on Dalston, with its Dalston Square scheme, the effect of TfL's new scheme will  also leave listed and heritage buildings locally without " acceptable sunlight access to the buildings"  and only 10 out of the 108 new flats in the proposed gated community will be for affordable social rent. (Will Boris waive the rules on heritage and affordable housing, like Ken did on Dalston Square? - Ed.)