"Kitewood has completed the purchase of a 3.5 acre site in Sydenham in London. Planning consent has been granted for 27 four and five bedroom houses, and 19 affordable apartments. The exclusive gated development, Lawrie Park Place, will be a prestigious collection of luxury homes with an estimated gross development value in excess of €47 million (£40 million). Situated within the highly regarded Lawrie Park Triangle, Sydenham and Penge West Overground stations are only a short walk and provide direct access to London Bridge in around 20 minutes. Construction will commence this summer and Pedder has been appointed as sales and marketing agents. Prices are expected to start at around €945,418 (£800,000) to €1.8 million (£1.5 million) and the first phase will be released in spring 2017." https://www.property-magazine.eu/kitewo ... 38110.html
Notwithstanding other objections to this development - GATED because we want to benefit from the community but keep our neighbours out. Appalled at this selfish anti-social attitude.
Wowsers.
Where is this? Just looking at the overhead of the Lawrie Pk Triangel (Lawrie Pk Cres etc) and I can't see how they would squeeze such a beast of a development in...
Notwithstanding other objections to this development - GATED because we want to benefit from the community but keep our neighbours out. Appalled at this selfish anti-social attitude.
* I don't consider it selfish if you want to protect your house or car from thieves.
Why is it any different to having a front gate to your garden? Doesn't that stop the neighbours walking/ parking in your garden? Seems fine to me. Wish I could afford it.
Worth a read (it's about gated developments).
They also come with huge service charges (which may be one reason for it being gated). They are really more secure either apparently:
I'm not really sure I understand what was meant by "GATED because we want to benefit from the community but keep our neighbours out. Appalled at this selfish anti-social attitude." I would have reservations about the idea of a gated off community if it had it's own shops and services that weren't available to the rest of the community, but I don't think that is what is proposed here. If hypothetically a development like that was proposed in Lewisham then I think the benefits to the wider community from increased council tax would probably offset my reservations.
For what it's worth I welcome developments like this as I would expect it to increase the number of people with disposable income using Sydenham high street shops, pubs and restaurants and therefore improve the offering over time. The counter to this is that local public services tend to be slower to react to changes in population than high streets and less able to cope with the population increase, but people able to purchase £1m houses tend to place less of a strain on these services.
The article Lee posted is interesting, but even if gated communities don't provide better security for their inhabitants I don't have an in principle problem with the residents paying for a possibly useless gate. The housing estate doesn't look like it would have a through road anyway so it doesn't really affect anyone else
