Planning

College Road is the first co-living planning application approved by the GLA and Croydon. The building represents the end result of a research and development programme by the HTA planning team in collaboration with the developer Tide and, subsequently, the operator Outpost. Throughout the application and delivery process, we worked closely with the GLA and Croydon to ensure that the finished building fulfilled the London Plan Policy requirements while also being optimized for future residents.

There was a great deal of debate with officers about the design. From the outset HTA felt that the co-living community offered a way to address growing isolation in urban residents while increasing the supply of homes across London. Our research of nearly 200 international examples led to a final design with shared co-living concentrating the day-to-day shared uses around the entrance to capture activity as residents entered and left their homes each day, with a complimentary set of ‘destination’ shared event spaces were created at the top of the tower culminating in a full roof terrace with spectacular views from 50 storeys.