Azure Tower, E15. Stratford, London
Living on a Higher Level
Poor, unlucky Stratford is rather rapidly filling up with a lot of nasty-looking skyscrapers. It’s as if the area’s Olympic-themed makeover was read as some kind of tabula rasa hocus pocus (and we know how much developers love a tabula rasa), thus wiping the slate clean for an influx of desperately-needed investment-return-generating magic tricks. By which, of course, I mean apartments. Lots of new apartments.
This is Azure Tower, the smaller of Stratosphere’s two towers, both designed by Allies and Morrison for Telford Homes. The flats come standard with “integrated Smeg appliances and woodstrip laminate flooring.”
Even though the development isn’t scheduled for completion until 2018, its 307 apartments completely sold out in a matter of months. In 2014, the Evening Standard reported that of the 270 flats then already sold, only 100 had been to UK buyers. The rest were sold to overseas investors.
Telford’s CEO credited Stratosphere’s stratospheric sales success to the fact that the company is "building into the more-affordable part of the market.” Affordable in this case means starting at £400k.
Looking through the 2008 planning report, the original application proposed a whopping ZERO number of affordable units because affordable housing economic viability blah blah blah. Telford suggested a commuting payment to Newham Council of £810,000 towards an off-site provision of approximately 2-3% of the total private units. After negotiations, the amount was eventually agreed at c. £921,000 or £3,000 per unit.
So what this hoarding really ought to say is something like:
Living on a higher level, thanks to massive infrastructure investment in an area which has also seen significant cuts to housing grants, but where the private sector, although benefitting enormously from this public investment, is unwilling to abide by affordable-housing regulations and planning authorities are too hamstrung to effect any meaningful change.
But I suppose that’s really not as catchy.
Photo via skyscrapernews.
