A ‘GRAND Designs-style’ home will be built on the site of a landmark property in St Ouen’s Bay after the Planning Committee yesterday approved an application to demolish the existing building a replace it with a five-bedroom home complete with basement parking, swimming pool and beachside hot tub.
Cutty Sark, which sits between Sands and Kempt Tower and close to St Ouen’s Pond, was a restaurant and then guest house in the heyday of the tourism industry.
Its name is still used to identify the surf break to its west.
The property sits within the Coastal National Park and Protected Coastal Area, which is afforded the highest levels of protection from development in planning law.
The committee – a group of politicians who determine larger and more controversial planning applications – unanimously backed the scheme, which they said was a significant improvement on what was there now.
The five-bedroom property, which also includes a one-bed flat, has been a private home for at least two decades.
The proposals, put forward by MS Planning Ltd on behalf of the current owner, include plans to demolish the building and replace it with a two-storey home complete with dining terrace, open-plan kitchen / living / dining area, and ‘dunescape’ canopies leading down to the Five Mile Road.
Plans include a car lift which will descend to a four-space basement garage featuring a turning circle and bike store.
The mismatched pitched roofs of the current property will be replaced with a flat-roof design, which will include solar panels and dunes. The project proposes using two main building materials: Jersey granite and vertical cedar cladding.
The rebuilt property – with work anticipated to begin this year – will become the home of its Jersey-born and -educated owner.
Its footprint will be 25% smaller than the existing property.
The application was recommended for approval by the Planning Department, which concluded that the development was “carefully and sympathetically planned and designed to take into account the sensitive and unique location in which it sits.”
Various conditions attached to the approval include various plans, including landscape maintenance and lighting, have been authorised.
A total of 57 public comments on the application were in support and 12 against.
