Offices to flats plan approved for Wyse Byse building in heart of East Belfast

The rebuild, which includes adding another storey of apartments on top of a building that houses East Belfast institution Wyse Byse on Newtownards Road, won approval at a meeting of Belfast City Council’s Planning Committee.

The move will add 64 units of public housing to an area that’s desperately short of it – a shortage so bad, in fact, that the project has been passed even though it goes against policies that say some of those flats should be ring-fenced for low-cost buy or rental properties.

The Arches Centre building is currently home to several ground floor stores, as well as office units on its first and second floors.

Under the flats plans, those two floors of offices will be turned into 45 apartments, while a new storey that’s to be built on top of the existing building will add another 17 units – and the whole lot of them are to be two-bedroom social homes, 10 of which are to be wheelchair-accessible.

A representative for the developers told Tuesday night’s committee that the project would go a long way to alleviating a social home shortage of more than 250 units in the area, and won’t see any change to the ground floor retailers.

The scheme doesn’t include any car parking, however, something that developers state is meant to push people to use pedestrian links and public transport routes, including close bus and glider stops as well as two nearby greenways.

The Arches revamp was unanimously approved by the committee.