Development of John Jones Site / Sketch House

andy · March 2014

<div>You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts.</div><div><br></div> - The council cut the trees down.<div> - The council's objection was to the whole development, because they wanted it for housing. </div><div> - The council had discretion not to cut the trees down.</div><div> - Instead, the council have decided to plant more trees across the borough.</div><div><br></div><div> - John Jones owned the land.</div><div> - John Jones consulted widely, formally and informally, about what they wanted to do with the land.</div><div> - John Jones put affordable housing on the site when no other developer would have.</div><div> - In light of objections by the Council, they appealed and won. </div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">If John Jones didn't care about what the community thought, then nothing they've done over the last five years makes any sense. You can redefine whether 'affordable housing' deserves the name, but that's no more JJ's responsibility than yours.</span></div><div><br></div><div>But it's all John Jones fault.</div>

kreuzkav · March 2014

<div><br></div><div>I think JJs are good people but they could have just redeveloped but they've made a song and dance of it. We're so into the community,............. But the trees are gone, the 'affordable housing' is not so affordable. I wish these developments stopped having this affordable housing lark built into them. Let's get back to real social housing not four-wheel drive jerks trying to get their projects done by adding on a bit of affordable housing. </div>

dion · March 2014

Man, I wish I had had shares in the company that owned that site. I certainly would not be putting in affordable housing or an arts building. I would be voting for an 28 storey mammoth tower block filled with luxury two bed flats (I would call them luxury but they wouldn't be, they would just have shtty balconies not big enough to stand on). I would relocate my whole company to somewhere crappy like the north east where wages are cheap and there are plenty of people needing jobs that don't pay very well. <div><br></div><div>I reckon I could have got 15/20 million quid for the site just for flats alone. Now, if I had been really greedy I would have got planning permission for the flats, and then got planning permission for a nice big supermarket underneath, then I reckon I could get 40/50 million for the site. Come on, busiest tube station outside zone two, a hugely diversified demographic, and transport links to kill for? The supermarkets would be slavering. </div>

kreuzkav · March 2014

Planning law doesn't allow that level of development on that site. We live in a civilized area and we want things done in a proper way.

andy · March 2014

And while we're at it, here's s<span style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt;">ome perspective from a carbon point of view. These are rough and ready calculations, but they make the point. </span><div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br><div style="font-weight: normal;">General rule of thumb: </div><div style="font-weight: normal;"> - One broadleaf tree, over a 100 year lifetime, fixes one tonne of carbon. So 10kg per year, per tree.</div><div> - One short haul european flight, <b>per passenger</b>, emits 100kg of CO2. There's nothing you do as an individual that burns more quicker.</div></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br></div><div><span style="font-weight: normal;">Assuming the 8 trees are replaced, then you've lost one year of those trees' ability to fix carbon. So 80kg. Or less than </span><b>just you, on your flight</b>.</div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-weight: normal;">So assuming cutting down trees is worse than murder, and that we scapegoat tree murderers, what does that make a weekend on Easyjet?</div></div>

kreuzkav · March 2014

Cranky,why is the new development a good thing for the area?

Mirandola · March 2014

Hold on. I thought the Council took on the felling of the trees because they wanted to make sure only the right trees were felled (by which I mean the trees for which there was planning permission to fell them). If I understand the situation, the decision to fell the trees was out of the Council's hands.

kreuzkav · March 2014

And while I'm at, I've been too quiet for too long, why do some of you go on about what John Jones could have? Cutting down trees, building ugly high rises for the rich to live in and shop in.

andy · March 2014

<div>@mirandola - you might be right there. I was taking that from <span style="font-size: 10pt;">p25: </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">"</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The council are removing these trees because they are our trees and we wish to ensure that the correct trees are removed." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But I agree it's ambiguous and I may be reading it wrong. The rolling together of the councils 'objection to the development' and 'the objection to the trees and the development' has been a little weasel-worded throughout.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I'm not sure the council has ever been to bat for the trees alone, except as a tool for stopping the development. Happy to be proven wrong, as that is an assumption on my part.</span></div>

[Deleted User] · March 2014

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andy · March 2014

<div>I thought it was about the trees.</div>

Brodiej · March 2014

I think this is a cast iron case of agree to disagree. Everyone has fairly strong views on whether this was acceptable or not, they're not going to be changed. <div><br></div><div>@Kreuzkav. Maybe you should take up painting and use the new facilities. I think you need to channel your frustration into canvas. Either that or move somewhere in Europe with lower living costs and a better quality of life. You're just going to get angrier and angrier in London.</div><div><br></div><div>@Misscara. Bad example, i would love it if they cut the tree down outside my house. It's beautiful, but it has also meant that my house is almost impossible to insure, and that if i ever get any subsidence, i'll be forking out a £2000 excess. With London clay, your houses floats for much of the year depending on rainfall...if you have a tree sucking out water from beneath your house you're in trouble. My house was here before the tree so it wins. Goodbye tree.</div><div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>

NorthNineteen · March 2014

It's amazing how decisive this has got! <div><br></div><div>In my view, JJ have acted entirely within the planning system - note this is a planning system that is one of the most restrictive and protective in the world. If Islington had actually worked with JJ I think a more amicable solution would have been found but the council didn't do that.</div><div><br></div><div>What is a shame is how personal this has got. Not sure name calling benefits anyone.</div>

[Deleted User] · March 2014

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ADGS · March 2014

'The council cut the trees down' is true, but as Mirandola notes, it's a very misleading way of putting the truth - as they said, they'd rather grudgingly do it themselves than have cowboys come along and cut down a bunch of further trees too. And it has never been quite clear why the trees needed to go anyway - bear in mind that tree removal can as often exacerbate as improve a subsidence problem, they're just a conveniently visible target for insurers to pick on. <div><br></div><div>Also, trees have a value beyond being carbon sponges - both to wildlife, and to the people who see them from their window, or pass them every day going to and from the station. Hence my talking about that rather than the wider environmental implications. But I've not taken a flight in, oooh, eight years? So I reckon I'm still OK to cast the first stone even if we are sticking to the carbon point. </div><div><br></div><div>Given we've still not heard a single detail about the supposed environmental provisions of the building, given the tree-felling was snuck through as a late amendment, the whole thing (like the 'affordable' housing) is increasingly coming across as cynical greenwashing. </div>

andy · March 2014

but they are planting more trees.

krappyrubsnif · March 2014

I think the conversation should now turn to how, where and when to put the damn trees back.

ChangN4N6 · March 2014

Bring back the maggots Chang

kreuzkav · March 2014

@ Brodieg, thank you for your concern about my frustration but maybe I'd prefer to channel it where I see fit. I think 2014 sees us more and more cogs in the wheel. I'm mid 40s now and to some of you folk still in your 30s you see this idealist take on life as something absurd. But I do believe in idealism, that developers shouldn't take over the city I was born in and have lived in most of my life. And that's it. Despite all the fluffy talk from John Johns and they're a good company they've been bought out by the developer in his jeep. <div><br></div><div>As I've said many times before this area was grand for decades and what was wrong with the John Johns site as it stood. What is this macho build high tin pot roof architecture. Hardly arty unless you consider Damien Hirst and his jewel scupltures a significant art piece. They are a reflection of London over the last decade. Crude money and without values. Is that the society you want to live in? </div><div><br></div><div>Give me 1990/2000s Stroud Green. A good mix of classes and race and everyone. But no bloody developers getting their grubby hands on sites and turning the place into Angel but on a bigger scale.</div>

Arkady · March 2014

@Kreuzkav - As I have stated before, I have no financial stake in John Jones I have no financial stake in anything, for that matter. Please public withdraw your accusation.<div><br></div><div>@krappyrubsnif - a very sensible suggestion. I was going to suggest that we lobby for any replacements on that stretch of pavement to be semi-mature, but it as recently suggested to me that these tend to grow more slowly and can be overtaken by younger saplings? This struck me as odd - can anyone confirm?</div>

kreuzkav · March 2014

So Ben Myring is arkady? Going all sensible now, no arky sign off.<div><br></div><div><br></div>

Papa · March 2014

Out of interest, roughly how old would our street trees be? Anyone who knows anything about trees know that?<br><br>So for example those ones that have just been nobbled, or the big ones lining Hanley Road, or many of the other roads round here?<br><br>Who made the streets tree-lined? Was it the Victorians? Or did someone do it later on?<br><br>Or if the Victorians did it first, was there an era when they replaced the Victorian trees?<br>

kreuzkav · March 2014

@ Arky, Ben...I've activated your request.

Arkady · March 2014

<font size="2">@kreuzkav - thank you. Please try not to libel people who just happen to take a different view.</font>

Sutent · March 2014

@kreuzkav. As the council election is coming up Arkady reverted to his public name. I have been very critical of JJ on here. However after a long discussion with Richard Watts (Islington Councillor) there is a huge economic benefit of JJ to SGR which is much needed. <div><br></div><div>I agree that Arkady has been very pro JJ, because he has bothered too see the clear benefits to the area. Many people are still very frosty to JJ and and the tree situation has not helped. Affordable housing is still an issue, but its not JJ responsibility to oversee that. Arkady/Ben a public apology from me. </div>

Arkady · March 2014

@Sutent – difficult to express quite how appreciated that apology is, thank you. Apologies if I have been overly terse with you in the past.

Sutent · March 2014

@Arkady - keep up the good work. We need genuine hard working people like you in public office

kreuzkav · March 2014

@ Sutent and Ben, Fair enough, as I said JJ are probably doing their best. My truck is with the developers and the way London is being over-developed. Sometimes Ben didn't take on board other peoples viewpoints and just seemed to be a development trainspotter. I think jobs are important but I don't want to see the aesthetic of the area going down the pan. Ben seemed to get on his high horse about sash windows but when it comes to a monstrous (i won't use the word carbuncle) in the area he seems to be very relaxed. I just don't like big developments like a lot of people here and would prefer if places were fixed up, private terraced housing was bought out by either government or housing groups. It could happen but the man in the jeep has taken over with his or her big money and a nod to a few affordable housing schemes.<div><br></div>

miss annie · March 2014

Why the fixation with Jeeps all of a sudden?

Arkady · March 2014

I, too, <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">am fascinated by the new jeep obsession.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It’s the new jumpers-over-shirts.</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi"><o:p></o:p></span></p>

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