Newts Way: “A beautiful building but it belongs elsewhere”
Two alternative designs for new housing in Hollington, one for a single three-storey house, the other for a terrace of four houses, have been rejected by majority decisions of the planning committee of Hastings Borough Council. Allegations of racial prejudice in the way that council officers approached the applications for planning permission were also dismissed at the hearing on 10 November by committee chairman Cllr Alan Roberts.
The site concerned is at the junction of Newts Way and Darwell Close. The owner, an architect Elsie Owuzu, presented her plans for “high quality” innovative dwellings on a redundant part of the Darwell Close estate. The designs include “work-from-home” spaces for their occupants with potentially zero carbon emissions. Under the four-house option, one parking space is allocated to each dwelling, while an extensive garden area, which cannot be built upon because there are drainage pipes under the ground there serving the rest of the estate, is to be shared between them.
The applications were supported by a petition and by other individual comments, many from eminent architects praising the designs but almost all showing London or other non-local addresses. By contrast, there was also an adverse petition and many other opposing comments lodged by residents on the existing estate objecting to the loss of green space, to the size of the proposed buildings and to their overlooking a children’s playground.
In reports recommending rejection of both applications, the council officers contrasted Ms Owuzu’s “modern design” with the “uniformity in terms of style, layout, form and grain of development” of the adjacent estate. Given the prominent location of the proposed single dwelling, the report relating to it concluded that “a development as proposed would be dominant and detract from the established appearance and character of this area”.
Further objections were made in respect of risks to mature trees around the boundary of the site, to the allocation of only one parking space per household if there were four units, and to the lay-out of the garden – “a big shared garden as proposed is not a character morphology of this area”, the report stated.
“Unconscious bias”
No clear explanation of the allegation of racial prejudice emerged from the hearing, though a letter from a planning and public law barrister Simon Bell instructed by Ms Owuzu was read out. It claimed that the HBC officer’s report showed “a concerning level of unconscious bias”; that there was “a minority of prejudiced objectors”; and that the report appeared to be “predicated on domestic architectural forms designed in respect of male-dominated, white nuclear families as the ideal family…This is no longer the case and no longer acceptable”.
Local ward councillor Karl Beaney told the committee that the suggestion that residents held prejudicial assumptions based on the ethnicity and cultural background of the applicant and of prospective residents in the new houses was “highly offensive, upsetting and completely unfounded”.
Ms Owuzu said that she put the allegations “in terms of institutionalised discrimination”. Committee chair Cllr Alan Roberts responded that they weren’t relevant to the application. “I don’t want to go further than that”, he told her.
Praise for designs
In a subsequent vigorous committee debate Cllrs Heather Bishop, Phil Scott, James Bacon and Nigel Sinden all spoke in praise of the designs. Cllr Scott referred to the need for changes in housing construction in the wake of COP26 – “when we get the opportunity to do something different, let’s grasp it – not just ‘same-old, same-old’”. Cllr Bacon agreed: “we’re always talking about buildings being more exciting, innovative, sustainable…We have these larger estates, we need to start thinking out of the box, and this is the way forward”.
Cllrs Sorrell Marlow-Eastwood and Ruby Cox also said they liked the designs but nevertheless supported the council officers in rejecting the applications. In respect of the single dwelling Cllr Cox said – “It’s a beautiful building and a lovely design, except I think it’s totally inappropriate in this location surrounded by much more modest dwellings. Although in Hastings we do need houses of every description, what we need are affordable homes. With the best will in the world, I can’t imagine that this house will be affordable to any of my residents in St Leonards…it belongs elsewhere”.
As to the alternative option of four houses, both councillors also weighed in against the sharing of the garden area. Ms Owuzu had spoken of the benefits to children of growing up together without separate garden plots being fenced off. Cllr Cox said – “I think it’s a lovely idea to have this big meadow and all these kids running around and having a lovely time interacting in an intergenerational way, but I’m not entirely sure that’s how things work out in real life…The potential for people falling out is large, and I think it spoils the application.”
In successive votes on the two applications, each was rejected by six votes to four. Cllrs Roberts, Marlow-Eastwood, Cox, Graeme Williams, Paul Foster and Mike Edwards formed the adverse majority; Cllrs Bacon, Bishop, Sinden and Scott the minority in favour.
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