They are turning Petit Port slip into a sunset strip

From Jonathan Renouf.

I AM a Jerseyman living in England who frequently returns to the Island and hopes to return and bring up my family here.

Today, I came back to the Island to attend a planning panel and object to two applications for redevelopment in the Green Zone at Petit Port. It was a very instructive experience. The overwhelming impression was that property developers have the Island by the throat – and they know it.

The demeanour of the architects and developers at the meeting varied from bored, to smug, to complacent. In one case, the developer submitted two visualisations of the finished building – one a model, one an enhanced photograph. It was pointed out that they had markedly different roof lines.

Which one was correct? Er, neither as it happened, since the architect then hastily referred the panel away from these visualisations and, instead, to some architect’s drawings. In response to a question about another application, the architect couldn’t even provide the panel with a figure for the proposed increase in floor area.

Were the panel curious about these issues? No, possibly because they had already made up their minds before the applications came up for discussion. This was revealed most strikingly in an unguarded comment from the chairman, when he referred to the conditions that would be attached to an application’s approval, before the discussion had taken place.

Instead the panel busied themselves with relatively trivial issues such as damage to the roadside grass verge, the type of landscaping in the garden behind a property, and the working hours of the contractors on site.

One panel member airily commented that in his view the most significant issue when deciding whether to permit development in the green zone was whether the footprint of the building had increased. No, planning policy states that total size is the issue – as you’d expect since the same footprint can hold a bungalow or a five-story block of flats.

Where was planning policy in the panel’s considerations? After all, for developments in the Green Zone the presumption is against development (policy C5). The panel members never once mentioned a specific planning policy, and when they referred to planning policy in general, it was to explain why it shouldn’t be followed.

One member of the panel commented that it was ‘any property owner’s right’ to put in a planning application of whatever size they saw fit – apparently oblivious to the countervailing right of the community to see planning policy enforced, and his own role in doing just that.

One of the most dispiriting aspects of the panel meeting was the role of the planning officers.

They strained every sinew to justify bypassing or ignoring the planning policy they are charged with enforcing. Indeed, it was striking that they preferred not to refer to planning policy at all, but instead resorted to subjective judgements about the quality of design.

So what was the outcome? The panel considered a proposal to demolish and replace a building in the Green Zone that had previously been rejected as too big – not surprising since the existing house is 111 square metres and the proposal was for 266 square metres. The developers responded by reducing its size to 258 square metres. Passed.

Two doors down an identical-sized plot had an application to demolish a house that had already been expanded to 210 square metres, and replace it with one of 350 square metres. Passed.

As a consequence, a process has begun that will eventually see a continuous urban strip of three-storey houses along the south side of Petit Port.

What a shame for the Island that there is so little restraint on the activities of over aggressive developers.

Perhaps the Royal Court will subject these applications to a more serious examination?