Cardiff Council is planning to redevelop the former Merthyr House site – a vacant site within Butetown. The site is located between James Street and Mount Stuart Primary School and has been derelict for many years.
We have identified a need for larger family homes that support people of all ages and backgrounds to live independent lives. To help address this housing need and reduce the current pressures being faced by many families who are over occupying/overcrowding in their existing homes, the Council is exploring the potential to develop a housing model that can help support larger families live together and is of mutual benefit to multiple generations. We call this form of housing multigenerational living.
The site is being considered as a mixed-use development for 47 affordable dwellings, arranged between two and six storeys plus 470m2 of ground floor commercial space on the groundfloor, providing a setting for a mutually supportive multi-generational community within the heart of Butetown.
It has been designed as a place where people of different ages and backgrounds can live together in high quality housing, gaining an increased sense of well-being, independence, with opportunities to share activities and socialise.
Much of the building has been designed using the Council’s Community Living housing model that is tailored for older persons ensuring accommodation is designed to be ‘more accessible’, improving the accessibility for residents with mobility and sensory needs and reducing the requirement for future adaptations. Whilst a proportion of the new units are carefully designed for multigenerational Living meaning more than one generation of the same household living comfortably under the same roof. This means homes designed to be flexible to anticipate different household compositions over time providing spaces for privacy, independence and social interactions.
A number of shared spaces are incorporated into the design of the building to accommodate different activities and support resident and community relationships – providing opportunities for social interaction between different generations living in the building via a resident garden, a resident lounge and rooftop terrace and a number of informal breakout spaces. Opportunities for community and commercial uses are also found on the ground floor -adding to the vibrant character of the area.
The project will progress four key stages (see below). We are currently at Stage 3:
Stage 1 Survey work and information gathering: This stage involves undertaking all the necessary survey work on the site, such as trees, ecology and site condition surveys. They tell us all we need to know about the site to help shape the design of the proposed development.
Stage 2 Concept design: This stage involves using the survey work to identify the site opportunities and constraints and coming up with some initial ideas and early designs for the proposed development. We will get feedback on these ideas from a range of technical experts and the community to be able to develop a preferred option for the design.
Stage 3 Preferred Option: this stage involves developing the preferred option in more detail, ready for a planning application. This stage will involve a Pre Application Consultation (PAC) with the community and other stakeholders.
Stage 4 Planning Application: In this stage we will submit a planning application for the proposed development. The community and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to comment further on the proposals at this stage.
Prior to submitting the planning application, we are undergoing a statutory Pre-Application Consultation exercise in respect of the application, in line with Welsh Government guidelines, in order to allow interested parties to comment.
Copies of all the plans, drawings and reports can be viewed online at Former Merthyr House, James Street, Butetown – LRM Planning
You can also contact us about the development at any time by sending your comments to: https://lrmplanning.com/enquiries/
As part of the engagement process, we are holding a public exhibition event on Wednesday 16th October, between 4pm and 7pm at the Butetown Youth Hub, Dumballs Road, Cardiff, CF10 5FE nearby the development site. All interested parties are welcome to attend.
Following a period of 28 days, the comments received will be reviewed, considered and responded to, in the form of a Pre-Application Consultation Report (PAC Report), rather than via individual responses. The PAC Report will then accompany the planning application, which will be submitted to Cardiff Council Planning department for consideration soon thereafter and will be made available in the public domain by the Local Authority.
A full planning application is to be submitted by the end of this year (2024).
Get in touch
If you have any questions or concerns about this project, please contact us.