Public buildings increasingly being recycled into seniors housing
LONDON: Public buildings are increasingly being recycled into seniors housing, care units and over 50s apartments.
A council has announced that a former town hall will be converted into new flats with its iconic clock tower offering ‘unparalleled views across London’ to the public for free.
Greenwich council has approved plans to convert its former town hall in Greenwich High Road into 80 flats. The project will also see a roof extension being added to the building to accommodate the new housing.
The building is Grade II listed and was built in 1939. The structure served as the council’s town hall until 1965 before later being used by the Greenwich School of Management. The school entered administration in 2019 and the building has remained vacant ever since.
The project, from the Riverview Group, was discussed at a planning board meeting for Greenwich council on Tuesday.
The plans had previously been brought to the board last October but were deferred to allow the developer to determine whether more affordable housing could be included.
The revised plans replaced part of the proposed ground floor retail space with housing, providing seven more flats to the scheme.
The price of the 15 “affordable” flats in the project has also been decreased, with prices ranging from 20 to 40 per cent discounts to market rent, when the previous discount was 15 per cent.
Councillors at the meeting criticised the developer for not providing a greater number of affordable flats in the renewed plans. Raffi Wechsler, speaking on behalf of Riverview, said the affordable housing provision could be reviewed in future assessments.
Mr Wechsler said: “This is the minimum that we’re committing to, but we’re now giving you deeper discounts on those rents to make sure that we address the concerns of having a truly affordable rent for certain people in these units there.”
The proposal will also see the clock tower observation deck in the building become available for the public to use free of charge at least four times a year.
