The City Centre has a strong residential presence based on long-established residential communities located in Cowcaddens (West), Garnethill, Ladywell/High Street, Glasgow Cross, Townhead (South) and Anderston (high rise blocks). These settled and stable communities contain a high proportion of family households with a significant number of elderly households in Anderston, Cowcaddens, Ladywell and Glasgow Cross. The general amenity of these Primary Residential Areas should be protected and improved (see policy CC/DEV1: Development Guidelines for the City Centre). New housing developments will also be promoted in these areas where opportunities occur, subject to achieving an acceptable amenity commensurate with a Primary Residential Area.

Over the last twenty years, former commercial areas (Mixed Development Areas) - notably the Merchant City and parts of the St Enoch Area, have become the focus for urban renewal, based mainly (although not exclusively) on housing investment. This sustained investment has facilitated the construction of a significant number of residential units and an increasing City Centre population. The emergence of these Establishing Residential Areas has in turn created a continuing and strong desire to live in the City Centre. This aspiration for City Centre living is based on convenient access to strategic business, shopping, and cultural facilities and a rich and varied high quality-environment. However, the level of amenity obtainable in the Primary Residential Areas is not wholly appropriate in Mixed Development Areas, where the convenience of living close to a range of City Centre facilities must outweigh a certain level of disturbance. Nonetheless, substantial residential investment has occurred in these areas, and there is a continuing desire to attract further residential development. These factors dictate that the amenity of these areas needs to be addressed when considering new forms of residential and non-residential development (see policy CC/DEV1).

Within the remaining commercial parts of the City Centre - the non-residential areas, specifically Anderston, the Victorian Business Centre, Blythswood Hill, M8 Western Fringe, Broomielaw (all in the Principal Office Area) and the Sauchiehall Street corridor, there may be individual opportunities either for housing conversion of commercial upper floors or new housing developments. However, given the range and complexity of uses in these areas and the concentration of traffic volumes, the level of environmental protection which can be provided is even more limited than in the Primary and Establishing Residential Areas.

Residential amenity in the non-residential areas will be quite varied and developers and occupiers must appreciate these circumstances either in relation to development or purchase within such housing schemes. To ensure that residential amenity is taken into account, particularly where activities already exist that generate, or have the potential to generate noise, the Council will require developers to carry out a full acoustic survey as part of the development submission and to take any appropriate measures to sound proof the proposed development.

Upper floors of former tenemental buildings and commercial buildings offer a distinctive opportunity for conversion to housing. If residential uses are established on upper floors, however, commercial uses should not encroach onto these upper floors unless designed as part of an integrated mixed use scheme. In the past, the encroachment of office and commercial uses into upper floors of former residential tenements has had the tendency to sterilise housing use on the remaining floors.

1. PRIMARY RESIDENTIAL AREAS (PRA)

Housing will continue as the primary use in the established, primary residential areas of Cowcaddens (West), Garnethill, Ladywell/High Street, Glasgow Cross, Townhead (South) and Anderston (high rise blocks). In terms of residential amenity, they shall be accorded the highest level of protection within the City Centre and any residential and non-residential development in these areas will be subject to close scrutiny to ensure that the amenity is not adversely affected. New housing development will continue to be appropriate within these areas. Any new housing will be guided by the standards outlined in policy CC/RES 2: Residential Development and Design.

2. ESTABLISHING RESIDENTIAL AREAS

In the Establishing Residential Areas, (e.g. the Merchant City and St Enoch), the impact of any non-residential development on existing residential character and amenity will be taken into account. New residential developments will continue to be encouraged within the Establishing Residential Areas subject to meeting the criteria set out in policy CC/RES 2: Residential Development and Design.

3. RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT ELSEWHERE IN THE CITY CENTRE 

Elsewhere in the City Centre, residential development may be acceptable subject to the provisions of the policies of the Plan and the achievement of an acceptable standard of residential amenity. The following criteria will apply:

(i) The re-use of upper floors for housing (whether vacant or partially vacant) may be acceptable in the City Centre subject to, urban design and built heritage policies and amenity considerations.

(ii) The Council will resist the change of use from residential to commercial where upper floors are wholly devoted to residential use. Commercial uses may be acceptable as part of an integrated housing and commercial mixed development scheme.

(iii) To ensure that alternative uses can be introduced to vacant upper floors, and that they are not blighted, effective access must be maintained. Where proposals would prejudice access to upper floors or in any way isolate upper floors from effective use, these will be refused.

(iv) Where housing is already established on upper floors and there are no pre-existing public houses on the ground floor, proposals for new public houses will be refused permission (see policy CC/SC 3). The use of vacant upper floors for housing over an existing public house may be acceptable provided the development can provide satisfactory sound insulation, for instance, through the use of an effective buffer zone.

(v) The Council will require the submission of a full acoustic survey in locations where there already exists an activity(s) that generates, or has the potential to generate, noise disturbance, in particular below, adjoining and/or adjacent to the property proposed to be developed (see (iv) above). The developer must identify the extent and intensity of the problem and indicate the measures necessary to overcome or substantially mitigate the noise levels caused by the activity(s), to the full satisfaction of the Planning Authority.

(vi) The Council will resist developments that would give rise to the introduction of noise generating activities in close proximity to existing housing unless satisfactory mitigating measures enable the retention of the current level of residential amenity and provided the proposal is acceptable in other respects.

City Centre Housing Areas