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The prospect of more high-rise buildings above eight storeys in St. Helier has moved a step forward this morning, with the island's politicians narrowly supporting what was described by the Environment Minister as a "very dangerous" change to the Bridging Island Plan.
In the original draft of the Plan, buildings over this height could only be considered in “exceptional” circumstances - but Members have now agreed to lower this threshold just to “appropriate” circumstances.
The semantic change – but one which potentially has far-reaching implications for the town skyline - was proposed by Senator Ian Gorst, who argued that it would provide “one small lever” in the Government’s ability to deal with the housing crisis.
He said: “Bearing in mind this crisis, should the default word [to developers proposing higher buildings] be ‘no’ or should we allow a little more flexibility in using the word ‘appropriate’?
“This moves the response from Planners from a default rejection followed by ‘and you now have to prove why your building is ‘exceptional’, to ‘we will consider it if you have all other issues, like design and amenity space, covered off.
“This is a very small incremental lever in dealing with challenges we face as a community.”
He added that policies in the BIP would “clearly restrict” buildings over eight storeys to the ‘St. Helier basin’ – the bowl beneath the high ground running from Westmount to Mont de la Ville.
Supporting the amendment, fellow minister Deputy Richard Renouf argued that the bar to building over eight storeys would remain high, as developers would still have to prove that the “overall benefit to the community has to demonstrably outweigh any adverse impacts” which is part of the tall-building policy in the BIP.
Environment Minister John Young opposed Senator Gorst’s proposal, arguing that it did not add a small amount of flexibility, but complete flexibility in pushing above the BIP’s primary policy of not supporting buildings over eight storeys.
“The use of ‘appropriate’ is very dangerous in planning terms,” said Deputy Young, a former planning officer himself.
But more Members were persuaded by Senator Gorst and the amendment was passed by 24 votes to 20.
Earlier, the Assembly had rejected an amendment from Senator Sarah Ferguson which called for tall buildings to be restricted to five storeys, instead of the high-storeys proposed in the BIP.
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