Thread by @Starling3232

The all encompassing mega thread on the Posnett Street Clanmill Social housing develpment planned for a former car park just off botanic avenue and why I believe it should be refused planning permission. 🧵

Link to Application
https://t.co/VimHeqYaWc…nningregister.planningsystemni.gov.uk/application/67…

Brook St only manages to accommodate 15 cars in the footprint of the 18 terraces. The excess capacity and visitor capacity has to be made up by the spare spots outside the lower density bungalows which have driveways. so in reality the bungalows are a critical part of the terrace

Now we've found the bungalows to be a crucial part of the dynamic of this terrace street we need to include them in the density figures which of course makes things worse

taking the bungalows into account Brook st density drops from 65.45 to 51 compared with Kim steets 93.5

to make matters worse for Brookmount st the western side of Kimberley street is 2.5 storeys tall meaning that apartment conversions are extremely attractive further increasing unit density without impacting on parking as there is no defined parking or just provide larger homes

Bringing these findings back to Posnett St there are some important findings

Firstly Density

Brookmount street with 2 detached houses and nessessary parking still manages to get 51 units per hectare 3.5 more than Posnett Sts 47.45 whilst being 2x the distance from city hall

so even with modern parking requirements 2x the distance from central Belfast we have higher densities with worse transit access and longer walking times make it make sense and it only gets worse when we compare to traditional terraces

When Comparing the Density of Posnett Street to Kimberley Street things get a little grim.
At 93.5 units per Hectare giving 93.5 individual homes 38 of which are 2.5 storeys tall we get just under 2x the density of posnett streets 47.45 at 2x the distance from city hall MADNESS!

With Kimberley Street Delivery 2x the density at 2x the distance all with 38 3 bed single family homes amd 34 2 beds you got to ask yourself this.... during a housing crisis and impending climate catastrophe are we in the business of housing people or cars

So to conclude this sub section on non apart density we find that we are capable of building higher densities with or without cars at 2x the distance from the city hall than the posnett St yet for some reason clanmill thinks this is an acceptable density level for the City centre

That comparision took longer than expected so I will do a less detailed general overview of a few other locations and do a density comparision i will link in the entire excel doc later for so you can all have a look at my workings

Disclaimer 2 :
I am being harsh on low inner city and central densities as we historically used to be denser and could be so much more if we tried. However I'm aware that the suburbs and exurbs exist and yes they are truly terrible with low densities and massive car dependency

Small Selectionn of new terrace developments with low densities for location
Lavina Square -45 units per hectare -inner city
Craigmore way - 53 units per hectare - city centre
Ballynafoy Close - 57.3 per hectare - "outer" inner city
Ladas Park - 37.7 per hectare -"inner" suburbs

The Developments in the tweet above all pad out either total street width, door to door street width, have less site utilisation or have wider buildings or all of the above to generate densities required to meet parking requirements whilst maintaining "trad" aesthetics"

Taking Ladas Park as an example with a measly density of 37.7 units per hectare more space is occupied by access roads and parking than houses and gardens.

Parking and roads - 0.232 Hectares
Housing and gardens - 0.204 Hectares

Finally to wrap up this density comparision stuff traditional semi detached &detached houses with large gardens have horrific densities old or new. However the new stuff tends to be denser on average as they have smaller gardens and are being built as default housing not wealthy

NEW SECTION KINDA

This Next section I will still be talking about densities however I will start to reference some policy documents and cencus data. I will also try and demonstrate how our current built reality of mainly detached and semi detached alters how we approach density

The Tables Below show the type of housing ranging from NI , Belfast & Botanic wide . Belfast is unique in northern Ireland as the only place where detached and semi detached houses aren't the most common housing type.

Looking closer at belfasts cencus data its clear we have a shortage of terraces and apartments

36% of belfast live alone yet only 20% of our housing is apartment
30% have 2 people
82% of households are 3 people or less which should easily be served by apartments and terraces

So why in Posnett Street are we building semi detached houses when most people live alone or a 2 and don't need a semi and those that do need more space can be easily accommodated in denser 3-4 bed terraces or large floor plate apartments like Spain where 65% live in apartments

As my DIY diagram shows Belfast neither is tall or has high Avg building coverage due to roads,parking &gardens and this gets even worse into greater Belfast where terrace and apartment numbers plummet. so within these constraints we must built dense now before we run out of land

New Subsection !!!

we will now take a look at some policy documents from various public bodies and bully them for finding the correct solutions then just choosing to ignore them for the lols .

I welcome u to the dreary land of endless PDFs

Okay lets finally take a look at the policy shit and its confusing as fuck as there are a billion plans flying around and all of them seem to carry some weight however the main on seems to be the belfast local development plan which Clanmills planning statment also references

Firstly the "silver bullet" of this thread (as long as this development plan does carry weight) is the density targets it sets for varying locations in Belfast and Clanmills weak retort to why their application shouldn't need to follow them

Posnett St is in the city centre so according to the BLDP policy HOU4 it should be reaching between 150-350 Units per hectare.Yet with its paltry density of 47.5 its less than a third of the expected density. Its so far off in fact it fits squarely in outer Belfast's density band

This HOU4 is even referened by Clanmill in their Planning statement document on the planning website. They seem to acknoledge the density bands as a piece of policy but use 2 weak excuses. Firstly they are follwing data from the NI housing executive & Nimby arguments on character

In the Tweets below I will be Picking apart their reasons why they deem wasting central land &all the benefits that entails on outer Belfast housing densities. All during a housing crisis whilst still following parking rules to the letter of the law in an area with 40% car access

First I'm going to tackle Clanmills claims that the number of units somehow matches the need in the area according to data provided by the Northern Ireland housing executive when it clearly does not. I will also be pre-emptively combatting potential retorts to my position.

to start lets look at the actual figures for people who are experiencing housing stress in the area and thankfully the information has been provided by Fiona McGrath from the Belfast Region Place Shaping Team as part of the application process response by the NIHE

If we look into these figures against the housing needed in the area and then remember how clanmill are also ignoring density advice from the BLDP you can see the issue. There are 80 applicants in housing stress yet only 28 houses are being provided.

to make matters worse if clanmill just scraped in at the bottom density bracket of the city centre at 150 units per hectare they would end up providing 88.5 solving housing stress in the local area a putting a dent in the figures. But no the areas character can't cope with that

Adding further to the madness it turns out there are more than double the number of non family applicants in housing stress yet both the NIHE and clanmill have constantly stated the need for more family homes going so far as to have semi detached homes make up 57% of the units

So looking at the stats it seems very plausible you could entirely wipe out the housing stress in the area simply by not building semidetached houses and instead building a mix of 3 bed terraces at least 24 it seems and then 56 apartments of various sizes and 7 elderly units.

Now the retort coming about how building apartments or at higher densities or heights > 2 floors isnt in keeping with the areas history. But I call bullshit as we can't pretend to be slaves to tradition whilst also ignoring our history and choosing low density semis over terraces

Taking Pakeham st for instance a "historical" street 100m away full of 2.5 storey terraces at a desnity of 85.97 per hectare with no🅿️ . Call me crazy but I fail to see how clanmill building car dependant semis and flats pretending to be semis at 47.45 PH is historically accurate

the next complaint by some will be over populating a certain area with people all in housing stress/ economic bracket which is fair enough. I would love to see Clanmill upping the density further an adding private apartments and terraces into the mix to bring economic"balance"

Furthermore on the topic of mixing economic brackets in a perfect world yes its the ideal, but in our current reality Id much rather see everyone with a home before solving wealth integration. Because if that were a reason for housing not to be built Helens bay wouldn't exist

To conclude by building at traditional car free densities whilst also allowing apartments to be over 2 storeys and cleverly laying out the buildings on the site you could easily manage to solve housing stress in the area and provide private homes whilst meeting density targets

Now to the biggest reason why we build low densities... PARKING! . Nimbyism comes in a close second but parking minimums are the single biggest reason why we love to build low density in this country as at high densities it becomes much more expensive to house our metal pets

now to start the Parking section off first I want to look at the language used in the planning documents around car usage and parking and see what they are saying before we have a look at what they are actually doing ...

First off lets look at the DRDs Parking Standards document which on page 13 Annex A1 which says u can technically have car free developments. we know its possible because the gallery apartments on dublin road have no parking and 60% of botanic c4 dont have cars... why no posnett

Next the Belfast local development plan on page 16 3.1.5 states they want to reduce the environmental impact of transport. Now i cant think of a better way to help the environmental impact of transport more than removing cars from the equation

Again the BLDP on page 41 sp7 5.7.3 goes off on one talking about increased density around public transport , walkible cities and changing travel patterns by improving the experience for non drivers. Now once again a car free development would sort this out nicely

Belfast local Development plan pg 47 6.1.2 then goes to tell us to use land efficently so people dont have to travel as far or as much. Now this sounds a lot like the definition of high density developments but we know that 47.5 units per hectare is definitively not high density

Belfast Local Development plan pg 50 6.2.6 then tells us to build densely in our city centres due to our low population compared to our European neighbours... I wonder how this will be possible with car parking minimums

The BLDP pg 34 5.0.7 then tells us that we should be building our new houses next to bike lanes and public transport to reduce car dependency which is 100% true if we actually build it but sadly fails to mention this could also simply be accomplished by just not adding the cars

Belfast local development plan pg 53 6.2.1.5&6 starts just casually dropping bombs about how trams our class and cars are kinda shit by causing congestion , making alternatives to driving unsafe and therefore undesirable and just casually poising us ... but hey ho what can u do

BLDP pg 53 6.2.17&8 now this should have been mentioned earlier but here we are. Just our planning policies recommending we build higher densities around train stations to maximise their usefulness.But its only beside 1 train station&5 mins from the largest station in the country

Green Growth Document just casually states that transport emissions have just happened to increase 13% while in a ballsy move using a bus as transports icon. Now i cannot be bothered to get the figures but car usage has exploded since the 1990s just put 2 and 2 together

In the DRD effectiveness of public transport in NI pg 45-46 basically states that the presence of car parking is enough to make people own a car yet our current strategy for car reduction amounts to building infinite parking and roads and then encourage you not to use them

Just another nugget from a document with a name so long I cant be bothered to retype it but instead will type more words than the title length complaining about the length of the title..... But to summarise it tells us to build dense next to transit or in walkable areas

Finally the Belfast local development plan pg 217 begrudgingly blames congestion and car dependency on u guessed it cars and parking but with a billions clauses

So After looking at the Past 10 tweets from our own policy documents stating parking generates traffic in commercial spaces, creates car owners in residential areas & how we should be reducing car dependency & fixing our climate issues you'd think wed have radical parking polices

But nope the pinnacle of parking restraint from our council in Policy Tran 9 is 1 parking space per house . Now that may seem conservative but 1 for 1 parking is insane for its location and goes against actual words in their own planning polices and I will explain why below

To show the Insanity of one for one parking in the city centre the place where we should be building at high densities I will be employing 2 apartment buildings as examples. The Gallery apartments on the dublin road and Divis tower on falls road.

Firstly I will talk about The Gallery Apartments. This is a 10 Storey Mixed use apartment building, on a 0.05 hectare site with 9 floors of apartments totaling 58 units , a shared office space on the ground floor, bike parking and most importantly ZERO parking.

Now this building fits pretty well into the Dublin road landscape with my only gripe being the overly large rental unit on the ground floors should've been subdivided. However this drastically changes if we add 1 for 1 parking minimums.

By Adding one for one parking to the Gallery u run into a serious issue 58 spaces takes up roughly 0.122 hectares of land. This is 2.44x the footprint of the building itself and would require you knock down every building in the entire block to accommodate it which nobody wants

If you don't want to knock down the entire street for parking u can choose one of the other shitty choices. For instance u can build an ultra expensive underground car park and skyrocket your construction costs making ur newbuild apartments even more expensive to buy.

Alternatively you can build the parking internally in the first few floors of the building. However this reduces the amount of apartments that can be built and either reduces the size of commercial area or completely removes commercial ground floor activities. its also UGLY

The Last Option is to Just screw the density build less apartments have smaller or no commercial units , build on less of the site and use the remainder of the land for the small amount of surface parking needed for the remaining housing. Sadly this is what all to often happens

All of the options above not only cost more to provide either in Land values or construction cost & create the conditions for lock in car dependency. 1. makes pedestrianisation harder 2. generates traffic 3. displaces amenities increasing travel times 4. encourages car ownership

Oh Before I move onto Divis Tower how could I forget the other way to meet the parking minimums on the cheap. You could do what Clanmill has done & build at outer Belfast suburban densities providing so little housing that you can easily fit the cars at the expense of more homes

So Next we look at Divis Tower a 61 meter , 20 storey building with 96 apartment units , on 0.32 hectares of land resulting in 300 units per hectare , with 0.178 hectares of shared garden with a total of 16 parking spaces which is 80 less that modern policy dictates

Basically Since Divis tower is tall its got a very small site footprint which makes car dependacy easier as it frees up land for surface parking whilst having high densities. However divis bucks the trend using over half the site for residents gardens instead of a sea of tarmac

So technically Divis tower is in breach of modern parking requirements but I'd Say if u asked Divis towers residents if they would like their tower to comply with modern parking regs and add the needed 80 parking spaces by tarmacking over their gardens they wouldn't be impressed

The funniest thing about the divis tower site is that the tower itself uses up the least area on the entire site. The gardens take up the most land followed by the service yard , then the car park and finally the tower itself

whilst not expanding the parking and putting a tower either side of the site and making more efficient service yards ...u could feasibility double the density to 600 units per hectare whilst still retaining a large shared garden which would not be feasible following parking regs

So to conclude the parking section 1for1 🅿️makes projects more expensive to deliver , can remove commercial units killing streets, lowers densities providing less housing in housing crisis , incentivises car usage and ownership in a climate crisis and trades amenity space for 🅿️

Okay before I move onto the next section talking about transport and infrastructure in the the area around Posnett street I want to add in a few things on density I forgot to add ealier in the thread.

This is page 53 6.2.17 & 8 This section of the BLDP literally tells developers to try and maximise their densities around rail stations especially larger ones. Now i'd say being 30 meters from a train station and a 10 min walk from GVS would afford higher densities than semi Ds

BCC Residential Densities April 2017 pg 19 E So the conclusion of the density research document which created the density bands for the Belfast local development plan has a whole conclusion extolling the benefits of high density developments yet its ignored

Belfast Residential Densities 2017 pg 5 So we are told higher densities are appropriate in redevelopment of brownfield , close to transit and regional centres .... but somehow posnett street ticks all these boxes but sits at suburban densities ?

A case study from the belfast residential density report on pg7. Ormeau Bakery just casually being 5.53 times denser than Posnett Street whilst more than 2x further away for central belfast. It also manages to provide retail units and residents parking.

Another case study From the belfast residential densities document showing Templemore avenue housing providing •More than twice the density of PosnettStreet whilst more than 2x the distance from central Belfast with no trains or infinite bus access

Belfast Residential Densities 2017 page 12 just really goes to show how shit Posnett Street is compared to what is being built elsewhere and what already exists here.

Now heres on Pg 4 of BRD doc we see how although the document is pro density and shows many examples of densities higher than 75 units per hectare. They can't seem to grasp every single housing type but especially the towers density is being held back by surface parking

NEW SECTION !!! Below I will be Covering Transport and more specifically Clanmills Travel Plan which try's to persuade us that everything is fine and promoting cycling and walking will do the job

Okay to wrap this shit up quick I'm just going to quickly speed run through Transport at a regional scale as this thread is getting unwieldly af.

Basically if we want to not cook the planet and still be able to get around we need denser cities so you can get around them by tram , bus , bike and walking without being required to travel out 4 miles from the centre to reach the only Argos that is still open past 6pm

Other than Density & city wide level the only thing that will truly enable long distance travel in high numbers whilst not cooking the planet is trains trains TRAINS. Trains going to dense lively towns and cities that don't require u to shop in car parks is the only real solution

If u want to find out more about Trains locally I'd highly recommend @FundTheNINE @CircleLineBT @IntoTheWestRail ... for extra content none NI specific @GarethDennis @RM_Transit are great places to learn more and learn about the benefits of rail

Now Onto Clan mills residential travel Plan and their transport assessment forms and see what they have to say about the development and how they think people will travel

So we will start with the hilarious Travel plan for the Posnett Street development. Its goal is to research alternatives to driving and persuade residents to drive less by giving them a travel pack detailing alternative forms of travel

Just to give u a quick flavour of the document it uses the word "ENCOURAGE" 11 times in relation to using sustainable transport , it "Promotes" non car transport options 10 times and states a whooping 19 times who we should "reduce" car dependency and usage ...

However with all the encouragement in the world by our government since 2016 has done basically nothing to curtail the cars dominance which pans out in the figures showing cars dominating all the travel metrics

Other than just promoting using alternative transport it then starts listing loads of reasons why you shouldn't need to own a car in this area of Belfast which make me wonder why they need to include 1 for 1 parking especially when 60% of people in the area don't have a car

The travel plan then goes onto does a weird thing where it mentions that the site is close to Belfast bike network routes that may or may not be built in the next 25 years which isn't all that helpful to the current residents

Next the document tries to tell us Shaftsbury square is a great place for pedestrians. Although I'm all for the sentiment of this document reducing car usage I'm also aware simply willing less cars into existence doesn't work. you need to remove space for them be it road or 🅿️

For instance the travel document doesn't bring up the brilliant work done by @ForwardSouthPB on Open Botanic and the very real reductions in car usage and quality of life improvements a pedestrianised botanic avenue would bring. Instead it just encourages

The conclusion of this document basically reads like an argument to just not bother with parking at all as they themselves have just told us there are so many other alternatives you shouldn't need a car and in the off chance u do there is car rentals

So to Conclude the Thread I think that this planning application should be blocked until its amended to provide more homes at higher densities to make the most of its valuable central location and reduce or eliminate car parking requirements to make this possible.

@UnrollHelper