Offshore-registered Curlew Alternatives Property has applied to modify the requirement that it provide 55 studios and 21 cluster flat bedspaces at “affordable” rents – 20% below market value – in the Harlequins “co-living” redevelopment scheme.
The city council first approved proposals to replace the shopping centre with a 116-bed hotel and a seven storey block containing 251 co-living bedspaces, of which 99 were in studios and 152 in cluster flats, four years ago.
The plans, which were intended to deliver the first homes under the council’s “Liveable Exeter” property development banner, prompted widespread opposition from conservation charities and local campaigners.
After the council granted formal consent for the plans six months later, the developer successfully applied to replace the hotel with a second co-living block so the scheme would provide a total of 383 co-living bedspaces along the length of the Paul Street site.
However eighteen months passed before the first of eight pre-commencement planning conditions was discharged in July and the developer is now applying to modify its planning consent agreement with the council.
Harlequins revised redevelopment scheme - illustrative elevation. Image: Corsorphine & Wright
The developer proposes to replace the agreement to provide on-site affordable housing for key workers with a financial contribution to the council, which would be split into four parts.
A first payment of £1 million would become due when all eight pre-commencement planning conditions have been discharged, which must take place before 24 January when planning permission would otherwise lapse.
A second payment of £1 million would become due following demolition, when construction works were begun, then a third sum would become payable after scheme completion and a fourth twelve months later.
Neither of these latter sums has been specified: the developer wants them to “reflect the financial performance of the development” but to be limited to the current value of the agreed on-site affordable housing provision.
The developer proposes that these two sums combined would amount to half of any profit achieved above a minimum return of £10.1 million or 13% of Gross Development Value, whichever is higher.
(These figures are based on a redevelopment viability review that has been jointly-commissioned by the developer and the city council, a summary of which has been published.)
The developer’s agent, JLL, says this arrangement might benefit the council.
It does not acknowledge the financial risks the council would undertake or explain why the value of the financial contribution should not increase with inflation over what might still be many years before construction is actually complete.
Public comments on the proposed modification to the Harlequins redevelopment scheme affordable housing requirement cannot be submitted as the council is not inviting them.
The council is expected to approve the changes in due course.
