Court says developer whose project was opposed by Prince Charles is entitled to damages

Court win for developer opposed by Prince Charles

LONDON — Prince Charles’ victory against modern architecture could be an expensive loss for a Qatari royal.

A judge ruled Friday that a developer was entitled to damages because the Qatari dropped a design by famed architect Richard Rogers’ company in the face of the prince’s opposition.

Judge Geoffrey Vos ruled that Qatari Diar Real Estate — headed by Qatar’s prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, a member of the Mideast emirate’s royal family — breached its contract with developer Christian Candy when it withdrew an application for planning permission for the development in London’s upscale Chelsea district.

Charles, a long-standing critic of modern architecture, had written to Hamad expressing opposition to the design by Rogers, whose buildings include the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Millennium Dome in London and Heathrow airport’s new Terminal 5.

The judge didn’t immediately award damages because the developer had not applied for them. Vos rejected Candy’s claim for 68.5 million pounds ($102 million) under one provision of the contract, and said that any damage award would be based on the difference between the developer’s current position and what it stands to make if the project had gone ahead.

“It would be commendable if the outcome of this judgment were that the parties, even at this late stage, started to work collaboratively together to achieve the best possible planning permission,” Vos said in an 98-page judgment.

Candy’s company, CPC Group Ltd., held a 20 percent stake in a joint venture with Qatari Diar to develop the 5.2-hectare (12.8-acre) site of Chelsea Barracks, which Britain’s Ministry of Defense had sold for 959 million pounds.

CPC subsequently sold its stake to the Qataris, securing the right to further deferred compensation up to 81 million pounds, depending on progress in gaining planning permission.

The planning application was for 638 apartments, a 108-bedroom hotel, restaurant, community hall, sports center, shops and park with a cafe.

Chelsea Barracks is a five-story Victorian structure extensively rebuilt in the 1960s, but it stands next to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, a classical building by Christopher Wren, the 17th-century architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In a letter to Sheik Hamad dated March 1, 2009, Charles said: “My heart sank when I saw the plans.”

“I hope you will forgive me writing, but I only do so because of a particular concern for the future of the capital city of this country,” Charles wrote.

“For the entire duration of my life we have had to witness the destruction of so many parts of London with one more “Brutalist” development after another.”

Vos said Charles had put the Qataris in a difficult position.

“His intervention was, no doubt, unexpected and unwelcome,” Vos said. “And the effects were, I suspect, exacerbated by the inevitable publicity which followed, and by the continuing economic malaise affecting the market for upscale developments like Chelsea Barracks.”

The Emir of Qatar, the nation’s ruler and Hamad’s cousin, met Charles in London in May 2009 to discuss the project, and on June 12 the planning application was withdrawn.

Charles has thwarted Rogers before — in 1987 when the architect was in contention to design the Paternoster Square development next to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and later when Rogers hoped win the rebuilding of the Royal Opera House.

“The prince does not debate, and in a democracy that is unacceptable and in fact is non-constitutional,” Rogers said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper last year.

“I think he pursues these topics because he is looking for a job, and in that sense I sympathize with him. He is actually an unemployed individual, which says something about the state of the royal family. I don’t think he is evil per se, he is just misled.”

Architecture is just one concern in a portfolio of princely enthusiasms, including alternative medicine, organic farming, back-to-basics education, traditional hedge laying and the Book of Common Prayer.