Developers in the Square Mile will have to place greater emphasis on the design of office schemes, following a decision by City planners to scrap a key development control policy – the use of plot ratios. Doug Morrison reports.
The City Corporation’s planning committee voted unanimously on Tuesday to abolish plot ratio guidelines and instead to strengthen the environmental policy as part of the forthcoming unitary development plan.
A corporation spokesman said: “The policy will encourage development which visually enhances the City and avoids harm to the landscape.”
He added that the committee vote is expected to be endorsed by the full court of common council on December 2, although there will be a six-week period for public consultation before the UDP comes into force next year.
Abolition of plot ratio controls – which have been the corporation’s principal means of assessing planning applications since the war – is the key modification to the draft UDP, which was debated at public inquiry last year.
Before the inquiry inspector’s report, the corporation had proposed increasing the ratio from 5:1 to 5.1:1.
“But it has proved to be too blunt an instrument to succeed in controlling the size and bulk of buildings,” said the corporation spokesman.
The City now believes that there have been too many developments that met the floorspace criteria but still ended up “too bulky and tall” because they included atria or were built over roads. Such measures would not figure in plot ratio calculations.
But David Reid, a partner with Montagu Evans, which acted for several property companies at the UDP inquiry, said: “The quantity of floorspace capable of being accommodated on any given site will now be the subject of more uncertainty as other policies, dealing with the physical and use aspects of the site, will be given more prominence.”
