Policy information sourced from St Albans District Local Plan

70 Design and Layout of New Housing

The design of new housing development should have regard to its setting and the character of its surroundings and meet the objectives set out in 1. to 12. below:

1. Design and layout - massing and siting of buildings shall create safe, attractive spaces of human scale (1);

2. Dwelling mix - to cater for a range of needs and provide a variety of layout and appearance, a mix of housing types and sizes will be negotiated on large schemes. Large concentrations of small dwellings should be designed in a manner that avoids domination of public spaces by overbearing hard surfaces and vehicles, and by lack of privacy for ground floor flats;

3. Roads and footpaths - Policy 34 shall be complied with in a manner that minimises pedestrian/ vehicular conflict and is visually attractive;

4. parking and garaging - the parking/ garaging requirements set out in Policies 40 and 43 shall be met without allowing the motor car to dominate public areas (see second sentence of 2. above);

5. Landscape - proposals shall comply with Policy 74;

6. Privacy between dwellings - a tolerable level of visual privacy in habitable rooms and, to a lesser extent in private gardens, should be provided. This objective will normally be deemed to have been achieved if the following distances between facing windows to the rear of the dwellings have been achieved:

  • Window to window distance (2): 27 metres
  • Permanent rear boundary screen: 1.8 metres high

A reduced window to window distance of 18 metres may be permitted if the proposed dwelling has no overlooking rear windows on upper floors and will not be overlooked by neighbouring dwellings with such windows.

Alternative methods of achieving a tolerable level of visual privacy, through such factors as screening and the disposition of land uses, will normally be acceptable.

Suitably increased distances will be required where:

  • a feature of the character of the area is greater space between buildings;
  • dwellings contain living rooms rather than bedrooms at second storey or above (e.g. blocks of flats);
  • relative levels would increase the extent of overlooking.

Balconies and first floor conservatories shall not be permitted if privacy of existing adjoining dwellings and private gardens would be prejudiced.

Where dwellings are permitted, a condition removing permitted development rights for extensions or for the insertion of new windows will be imposed in locations where overlooking problems might occur;

7. Privacy between dwelling and rear boundary - so that further development of adjoining land is not compromised if the application site abuts existing residential land or land with potential for residential development, a minimum of half the above distances in 6. shall normally be attained. Account should be taken of 6., items a), b) and c) and the fact that there may be alternative methods of achieving privacy objectives;

8. Orientation - sunlight and daylight requirements as set out in the Building Research Establishment Report “Site Layout and Planning for Daylight and Sunlight, A Guide to Good Practice” shall normally be achieved;

9. Amenity space around dwellings - the size of a private garden should reflect the number of persons for which the dwelling has been designed, their likely range of activities and also local residential character. Gardens may be smaller where there is public open space nearby. In the case of flats, it will normally be appropriate to provide communally shared amenity space, although ground floor flats may benefit from private space adjacent to the dwelling.

Further guidance on amenity space around dwellings will be provided in Design Advice Leaflet No. 1 (see para. 9.21);

10. Defensible space - to provide a tolerable level of security and privacy, land adjacent to windows of habitable rooms at ground floor level shall normally be a minimum of 3 metres from areas to which the public has access (see also, second sentence of 2. above). Exceptions may be made where it is necessary to accord with local character (see Policy 85, Development in Conservation Areas). Defensible space is considered to contribute to useful private amenity space (see 9. above and proposed Design Advice Leaflet No. 1);

11. Open space - developments with more than 30 dwellings each with 2 or more bedrooms shall normally be provided with toddlers play areas (3) on the basis of 3 sq. metres for every 5 such dwellings. In addition, developments of more than 100 dwellings shall normally be provided with appropriate public open space including children’s playground(s) on the basis of 1.2 hectares (4) per 1,000 persons, e.g. 100 dwellings x 2.5 (average persons per dwellings) = 250 persons = 25% of 1.2 ha. = 0.3 ha. of public open space;

12. Materials - shall he durable and compatible with their location.

For more information please see the Local Plan