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'Super-basement' will make £9m home nine times bigger
Mark Blunden and Ruth Bloomfield25 Feb 2011
One of London's biggest basement excavations is set to be approved next month despite residents' fears that it will create a major flooding risk.
The plans involve an almost nine-fold increase to the size of a £9.1 million home in Templewood Avenue, Hampstead, thought to be owned by hedge fund tycoon Trifon Natsis.
Neighbours say building the complex - which includes a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, wine store and "garden room" - will bring two years of disruption and ruin the character of one of London's most expensive streets.
The design was drawn up by Tony Fretton, the leading British architect who was used by artist Anish Kapoor on his Chelsea home.
The Hampstead property, a former residence of the Polish ambassador, already has a basement of 57 square metres, but the proposals will increase it to 495 square metres.
Its one-and-a-half storey-high basement will be constructed below the garden and substantial works are also planned for the house, built in the 1900s. The properties in Templewood Avenue, downhill from Hampstead Heath, are built on clay - which water cannot easily penetrate. During heavy rain the drains overflow.
Irving Yass, who has lived in the avenue for 30 years, said: "This is designated as an area of moderate flood risk. The drains already can't cope during storms.
"We are worried that by building a huge underground structure you will obstruct the flow of water underground and we will suffer more flooding."
Mr Yass, 75, a retired civil servant, is one of six neighbours who wrote to Camden council with concerns about the works. He said residents had been shown no hydrological report.
Emmanuel Harries, who has lived in the avenue for 25 years, said: "We received a letter saying they are going to drill underneath but apart from that we've heard nothing. There's huge concern about vibrations from the digging and fears that this project will ruin the character of the street."
The Redington/Frognal Conservation Area Advisory Committee claims the basement is "oversized" and the Heath and Hampstead Society says the design is out of character with the conservation area.
The society also raised concerns about the impact the basement may have on the local water table.
Camden council's planning committee had been due to decide on the proposals last night but discovered that some objectors had not been informed of the meeting. It is now expected to approve the plans at the next meeting in three weeks.
A council report said: "It is considered the proposed demolition and development are acceptable in design and scale and would preserve the character and appearance of the building, street scene and conservation area."
As well as the basement work, the main house will be remodelled to add a series of dormer windows studded into the roof and terraces at ground-floor and first-floor levels.
A side extension will be decorated with a terracotta balustrade and a white timber porch will be added to the front of the house.
Mr Natsis, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, was unavailable for comment.
Neighbours in a hole over extensions
London's basement conversion craze has left neighbours feuding in some of the city's richest streets.
* In 2009, Saudi royals embarked on a "superhome" project in Belgravia that included digging two storeys underground to create a pool, communications room, servants' bedrooms, limousine-sized garages and dumb waiter.
* Last year, Nigella Lawson and her husband Charles Saatchi objected to plans of their neighbour in Eaton Square to demolish interior walls and parts of the back wall to "form a new residential unit" across two adjoining terraces next to the couple's £10 million home.
* Chester Row in Belgravia was left looking like a "bomb site" at the end of last year after a skip containing soil from sub-basement excavations fell through the street into a storage vault. The work was being carried out
to almost double the size of the house to make room for a cinema and gym.
* England midfielder Frank Lampard wants a subterranean swimming pool, cinema and gym to create a £750,000 "bachelor pad" behind his Chelsea town house.
* One of London's most ambitions basement excavation projects was for the founder of Foxtons estate agents, Jon Hunt, who is thought to have a £660 million fortune. Plans for his Kensington Palace Gardens home included an 80ft deep and 180ft long basement excavation, including a space for his collection of Ferraris.
* In 2007 American hedge fund tycoon Chris Rokos submitted what was described as the biggest planning application ever to Kensington and Chelsea council. He wanted a huge underground swimming pool, rock climbing wall, garage and a motorised lift for two cars.
Reader views (7)
Yet another outrageous basement application in NW3. It baffles me that with the level of public objections to these developments that Camden continues to approve such developments.
Please join our campaign against an equally outrageous development in NW3.
Find us on Facebook basement objections or view kvisit.com/Sx5mgAQ
- tim, hampstead, london, 26/02/2011 13:25
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It's not making the house nine times bigger, it's making the basement nine times bigger. Silly journalists.
- Mary, London, 25/02/2011 22:48
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Mike Melbourne, with a property of that type, and works of that type, you'd be insane not to engage a cantractor that didn't have an all risks insurance, just for your own peace of mind, let alone that of your neighbours.
That aside, the Party Wall Act sets out how neighbours will be compensated for any loss or damage due to the work. It doesn't only apply to terraced neighbours. On that kind of development neighbours from 3 to 6 metres away would be covered.
The flood risk is a nonsense. If the drains are regularly over flowing that is, primarily, because they are not being cleaned and maintained as they once were.
- Johnny Drama, Five Towns, 25/02/2011 17:25
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Lets hope squatters get in ,they'll never get um out.
- Bazza, London, 25/02/2011 16:59
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Will it have its own tube connection?
- Stevie G, London SW,
Of course it will Steve; it will even have its own airport with a direct flight path to Australia without seeing day-light.
- mickinlondon., london, 25/02/2011 16:43
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Will it have its own tube connection?
- Stevie G, London SW, 25/02/2011 16:33
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With this type of development it would seem to me that as part of the planning permission an insurance should have to taken out to cover any risks to other properties that have "any" chance of being affected.
- Mike Melbourne, Bedford, 25/02/2011 16:18
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