Plans for three apartment blocks in the middle of Bedminster have been revealed, but there are questions over how many of the homes will be affordable.
Local developer Firmstone has submitted plans for 49 apartments on the site where Argos used to be.
But the company says it cannot make as many of them affordable as the city council expects, because that would “severely impact” profits.
The development, which would also contain a shop with living quarters and a business unit, would contain a mixture of one and two bedroom flats spread over three blocks.
The tallest block would replace the old Argos building on East Street and the warehouse to the rear.
It would be three storeys high on East Street, up to four and five storeys towards the rear, and contain the shop and business unit on the ground floor.
The other two blocks would reach four storeys and occupy the car park further back on Herbert Street.
These two blocks would contain most of the 28 two-bedroom apartments in the development and share a garden area.
Bristol City Council requires 30 per cent - or 15 - of the units to be affordable.
But a viability assessment found that "the inclusion of affordable housing would have a severe impact on the viability of the development", according to the application.
"The provision of policy compliant affordable housing is therefore not possible."
The proposed development has around 80 secure cycle parking spaces and space on the ground floor of each block for the storage of recycling and rubbish.
Only six car parking spaces are provided, and these are at ground level of the block on East Street which contains mostly one-bedroom apartments.
The planning application describes the location as being “highly walkable” and boasts that the limited number of car parking spaces will “limit the amount of journeys made by car”.
Solar panels will be installed on the roofs of all the blocks and the energy stored in batteries on site.
The proposals will create “desirable living and retail accommodation within a highly sustainable location”, the application states.
“The design has been developed with input from the local community, Bristol Urban Design Forum and Bristol City Council officers to fit in with the urban scale and character of this part of Bristol and make a positive contribution to the immediate area,” the application states.
The applicant is David Piell, a director of 66 East Street Limited, which was set up in 2016 to buy and develop the site.
66 East Street Limited is a holding company for Firmstone, the local family development firm that is already converting the former DSS office block above St Catherine’s Place shopping centre, on the other side of East Street.
That conversion, into ‘Catherine House’, a development of 52 flats, looks set to kick-start the much-vaunted and controversial regeneration of the area around St Catherine’s Place and Malago Road, with a series of different developments on a number of different sites either side of the main road.
