King Street Car Park, Maidstone

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King Street Car Park

Maidstone Borough Council

About the project

Maidstone Borough Council and Maidstone Property Holdings, has been working with ZED PODS to design an innovative, low-carbon, highly energy-efficient housing development aimed at creating a mixed tenure scheme comprising of market rent and affordable social rent in Maidstone town centre. The scheme seeks to utilise the ‘airspace’ over the existing King Street Car Park, whilst retaining the parking spaces beneath — thus delivering an excellent solution to making efficient use of land, retaining parking capacity for visitors to the town centre, contributing to the challenge of delivering sustainable development and contributing to meeting local housing need.

It is a pioneering environmental and socially focused development which will deliver much-needed living space for young professionals, keyworkers and vulnerable households in need of affordable housing.

Site Location

Project Team

Maidstone Property Holdings Ltd

Real Estate

ZED PODS Ltd

Architects

Key Principles:

Activating under-utilised land within a highly accessible town centre location.
Delivering sustainable and energy-efficient homes aimed at meeting the needs of local Maidstone residents.
16 new homes consisting of a mix of 1 and 2-bed apartments (of which 10 will be market rent and 6 will be offered as affordable social rent units).
All apartments will meet the Nationally Described Space Standard with most, having access to private amenity space.
All apartments are super-insulated, airtight homes with minimal energy demand to ensure the lowest possible running costs.
Solar power generation to provide low-energy water/heating — annual production will generate more energy than the development consumes.
Robust party wall construction performance to achieve fire ratings to comply with Building Regulations and a Fire Safety Plan.
The proposal will activate the site, improve the street scene and improvements to the boundary with planting.
The solar panels combined with the DER improvements should result in 100% offset of regulated carbon emission — creating a net-zero development.
The proposed design will enable parking underneath the apartments, with ample lighting.
Enabling upgrading of existing car parking services at no cost to the Council

Massing Options

We explored several different positions on site to situate the proposed massing. We have sought to develop a balance of providing more units whilst minimising the disruption on surrounding views, over-shading and overlooking concerns.

Option A — King Street Frontage

Citing the mass on the frontage of king street would continue the topology of the street however it would directly impede views from the lodge and present issues of overlooking with the office façades on the opposite side of the street.
1. Losing units (at least 3) and parking spaces.
2. Blocking Emergency vehicle access.
3. Unsafe Pedestrian access

Option B — Church Street Frontage

Developing in parallel with Church street would present significant challenges with providing an adequate amount of units as there would be overlooking within the scheme and a very high impact of overshadowing on the lodge.
1. Losing parking spaces
2. Unsafe pedestrian access
3. Require amending on existing car park entrance/exit from King street

Option C — King Street Setback

Setting the bulk of the mass back from king street maximises the distances from any existing buildings in the nearby context and by situating habitable rooms towards the front prevents any overlooking issues from occurring maintaining the open feel and nature of the current site. Also allowing space for HGVs and emergency services to operate effectively within the site.
1. Retaining maximum no of parking spaces.
2. Safe pedestrian access
3. Minimise impact on existing car park
4. Avoid over-looking / over-shading

Option A — King Street Frontage

Option B — Church Street Frontage

Option C — King Street Setback

Site Massing

The scheme comprises of 16 self-contained residential units of the following configuration:

6 x 1B 2P (1-storey)

10 x 2B 4P (1-storey)

Communal facilities include secure external bin store and cycle store, public and private green space

58 no. parking spaces including 4 disabled parking spaces, 2 EV charging bays and 2 motorcycle bays

The scheme also shows allowance for site-specific constraints and opportunities whilst respecting existing amenities.

Set Backs and Key Distances

The massing is set back from all surrounding buildings with 10m being the closest corner to corner distance and significant distances of more than 40m between overlooking windows. The building is also set back at least 5m from any road.