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16-05-13, 16:50
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/specials/property/plan-big-apartments-londons-mayfair-rejected-20130516
Published May 16, 2013
Plan for big apartments in London's Mayfair rejected
Local council wants more homes built as the city faces housing shortage
[LONDON] London Mayor Boris Johnson blocked the development of 25 luxury apartments in the city's Mayfair district because the homes would be too big, signalling a luxury development boom in the city centre may face new limits.
The Westminster local government told the developer at a meeting on Tuesday to redesign the building after Mr Johnson's Greater London Authority wrote to argue the enormity of some of the apartments would result in fewer homes at a time when the city faces a housing shortage.
Westminster Council oversees the affluent Mayfair and St James's neighbourhoods, home to Europe's biggest concentration of hedge funds.
The proposal fails to comply with policy guidelines because it "results in a loss of housing due to the applicant choosing to include several exceptionally large units", the Greater London Authority said in the letter.
Mr Johnson's intervention could complicate a surge in luxury home building in central London as the city's reputation as a safe haven attracts increasing investment from overseas buyers. Half of London's new-home buyers are foreigners and they spent more than £3 billion (S$5.7 billion) on new homes in the UK capital last year, a 25 per cent increase from 2011, broker Jones Lang LaSalle said on May 10.
Real estate fund Brockton Capital had sought permission to build homes at 56 Curzon Street with an average size of more than 5,000 square feet to gain from surging prices. That's more than five times the size of the average new home in the whole of the UK, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
A 39 per cent rise in Westminster home prices helped fuel a jump of about 11 per cent in all of London for the year through March 13, researcher Acadametrics Ltd said on May 10.
The size of the apartments would only appeal to buyers who plan to live there for as little as three months of the year, councillors said during Tuesday's meeting.
Only one in seven foreign buyers of new London homes will live in the property and the remainder plan to rent them out, Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle said in its May 10 report, citing a survey of buyers.
Westminster Council has approved similar plans in the past. It allowed the redevelopment of a parking lot on Audley Square into luxury homes in 2008 where the residences would average 6,500 square feet. A comparable development at 20 Grosvenor Square won planning permission in 2011 for units averaging 4,500 square feet.
"We want to see two things: places being built and secondly we want to see more housing units," Edward Lister, chief of staff at the Greater London Authority, said in an interview.
London's annual housing targets could increase to 40,000 a year from 32,000 a year due to the review of city planning, Mr Lister said by telephone. - Bloomberg
Published May 16, 2013
Plan for big apartments in London's Mayfair rejected
Local council wants more homes built as the city faces housing shortage
[LONDON] London Mayor Boris Johnson blocked the development of 25 luxury apartments in the city's Mayfair district because the homes would be too big, signalling a luxury development boom in the city centre may face new limits.
The Westminster local government told the developer at a meeting on Tuesday to redesign the building after Mr Johnson's Greater London Authority wrote to argue the enormity of some of the apartments would result in fewer homes at a time when the city faces a housing shortage.
Westminster Council oversees the affluent Mayfair and St James's neighbourhoods, home to Europe's biggest concentration of hedge funds.
The proposal fails to comply with policy guidelines because it "results in a loss of housing due to the applicant choosing to include several exceptionally large units", the Greater London Authority said in the letter.
Mr Johnson's intervention could complicate a surge in luxury home building in central London as the city's reputation as a safe haven attracts increasing investment from overseas buyers. Half of London's new-home buyers are foreigners and they spent more than £3 billion (S$5.7 billion) on new homes in the UK capital last year, a 25 per cent increase from 2011, broker Jones Lang LaSalle said on May 10.
Real estate fund Brockton Capital had sought permission to build homes at 56 Curzon Street with an average size of more than 5,000 square feet to gain from surging prices. That's more than five times the size of the average new home in the whole of the UK, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
A 39 per cent rise in Westminster home prices helped fuel a jump of about 11 per cent in all of London for the year through March 13, researcher Acadametrics Ltd said on May 10.
The size of the apartments would only appeal to buyers who plan to live there for as little as three months of the year, councillors said during Tuesday's meeting.
Only one in seven foreign buyers of new London homes will live in the property and the remainder plan to rent them out, Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle said in its May 10 report, citing a survey of buyers.
Westminster Council has approved similar plans in the past. It allowed the redevelopment of a parking lot on Audley Square into luxury homes in 2008 where the residences would average 6,500 square feet. A comparable development at 20 Grosvenor Square won planning permission in 2011 for units averaging 4,500 square feet.
"We want to see two things: places being built and secondly we want to see more housing units," Edward Lister, chief of staff at the Greater London Authority, said in an interview.
London's annual housing targets could increase to 40,000 a year from 32,000 a year due to the review of city planning, Mr Lister said by telephone. - Bloomberg