Live in a playground for the super rich: plan for 'affordable' homes at controversial Chelsea Barracks development

A third of flats at the £3billion super-luxe development will be available at reduced prices, with 41 of the 440 homes for "social rent". 
£3bn scheme: Chelsea Barracks flats start from £5.25m to buy, but a portion will be for affordable rent
Ruth Bloomfield18 July 2018

A small band of incredibly fortunate members of Generation Rent will be offered a chance to live at the controversial Chelsea Barracks development at knockdown prices alongside some of the world’s wealthiest men and women, some of whom will be paying tens of millions of pounds for their homes.

The first details of the assistance Qatari Diar, developer of the £3 billion playground for the ultra-rich, intends to offer young Londoners being squeezed out of the city by rising rents, reveals that around a third of the homes on the site will be affordable.

These include 29 “intermediate units” aimed at “middle-income” Londoners – usually defined as those with a household income of less than £90,000 – who will be allocated their homes by a housing association.

People who already live or work in the area are likely to be given first dibs on the apartments, which will be set within a series of low-rise, pale brick buildings with bronze-coloured detailing, facing Ebury Bridge Road and close to Sloane Square.

Under normal circumstances “intermediate” flats are offered at a 20 to 30 per cent discount compared to average local rents.

But in this particularly rarefied neck of the woods one-bedroom flats can cost up to £3,000 per week on the open market, suggesting that a significantly bigger discount will be required.

Meanwhile, there will also be 41 flats for “social rent”, which will be assigned to some of the people currently on Westminster council’s 4,222-strong housing waiting list, plus 56 affordable flats for the elderly.

Qatari Diar will also provide space for an NHS medical centre and a 5,000-square metre sports centre with two swimming pools, a gym, and exercise studios, all part of the deal struck with Westminster council as a condition of being awarded planning permission for the development.

When complete there will be a total of some 440 homes on the 13-acre former Ministry of Defence site.

Chelsea Barracks has been the focus of huge interest and controversy since 2009 when Prince Charles wrote privately to the Qatari royal family, owners of Qatari Diar, beseeching them to ditch modern proposals for a series of copper, glass and concrete pavilions designed by Richard Rogers for a more old-school architectural approach.

His intervention led to Rogers’s plan being shelved, and a more traditional design based on classic garden squares being adopted, but sparked outrage at what some termed the prince’s abuse of his influence.

Work did not start until 2015 and has proceeded fitfully thanks to a series of technical hitches and the cooling of prime central London’s property market, although the first buildings are due to be finished next spring.

The first residents paid from £5.25 million for a two-bedroom flat. Prices for remaining homes are “on application” but range up to tens of millions of pounds for the largest properties.