Hackney Council has approved a 35-storey co-living tower at Old Street, with 490 homes, affordable workspace and a community hub, in one of the biggest planning decisions the borough has taken this year.
The planning committee approved the Finsgate House scheme at 5-7 Cranbrook Street on Tuesday, 11 November, for developer HUB. Three councillors voted for the plans and four abstained.
The scheme comprises a 35-storey tower with 490 co-living units, alongside a smaller five-storey office building offering 4,000 square metres of affordable workspace for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as a community hub.
Each floor of the tower will typically contain 18 self-contained studios, with communal amenity spaces and terraces spread throughout the building.
Architects AHMM and HUB said the existing three 1980s buildings at the junction of Cranbrook Street and City Road offered poor quality office space, and that redevelopment would bring wider pavements, new planting and trees, improved lighting, seating and active frontages to the site.
The practice said in planning documents that between 95 and 98 per cent of demolished material — including bricks, concrete, steel and ceramics — could be reused for internal finishes, landscaping and for plant structure.
Hackney’s planning officers noted in their report that the borough preferred regular family housing on the site, for individuals, couples and families, but had accepted that delivering it “would likely be financially challenging and would, in reality, lead to a poor standard of accommodation”.
The report said the constraints of the site would make it difficult to include a variety of unit mixes, and that incorporating affordable housing within the same building would require separate cores for management, servicing and maintenance — reducing usable floor area, raising construction costs and increasing the overall massing.
The project is the latest in a series of AHMM-designed towers by Old Street roundabout, including the 17-storey building The Bower, a retrofit and extension office development, and the White Collar Factory, a campus of office buildings with a 16-storey tower.
Other towers planned for the Old Street area include Studio Kyson’s twice-consented plans for a 14-storey tower, and KPF’s approved 35-storey tower. Nearby buildings include Squire & Partners’ completed 23-storey hotel, while Make Architects’ 40-storey Atlas tower completed in 2019.
HUB managing director Damien Sharkey said the decision was a major step forward for the developer’s co-living strategy.
“This decision is a major step forward for our ultra-urban co-living strategy, and reinforces our conviction that this type of housing can be transformational for central London,” he said.
“Finsgate House presents a significant opportunity to transform an underperforming and prominent site into something of value to new and existing communities. It will deliver 490 co-living homes and tangible public benefits, in an area of the capital where the current housing offer is limited and demand is extremely high.”
A timeline for completion has yet to be set out.
The decision comes as councils across London weigh up large housing schemes on constrained sites. In Sutton, 359 homes and a music venue were approved at St Nicholas House, while in Camden a planning application for the Jazz Cafe site includes a hotel to safeguard the venue’s future.
