Plans for 11 apartments on stilts in a Bristol car park have begun to divide the local community.

The prefabricated “ZedPods” would sit on a raised steel platform over some of the parking bays in the Chalks Road car park next to St George’s Park.

The bays would, in theory, remain public as none of the inhabitants above would be allowed to own a car under their tenancy agreement.

But a number of residents in the area have flagged their concerns about this and other aspects of the development, since the plans were submitted to the city council last month.

The one and two-bedroom flats, billed as “high-quality, affordable, low-carbon homes”, would house up to 13 young people on lower incomes and is among a radical new series of projects aimed at solving Bristol’s housing crisis.

A block of 11 ZedPods are planned for the Chalks Road car park in St George

The plans reveal that the developers intend to get a local artist to decorate each end of the building, and to clad the flats in the colours typical of Bristol’s iconic terraced houses.

So far, 17 residents have objected to the plans, variously branding them “pointless”, “disgusting” and an “erosion of shared public space”.

Members of the St George Community Network Development Group have called for signage to make it clear that the occupiers of the flats cannot use the parking spaces underneath.

A number expressed their fears for the safety and wellbeing of the future occupiers, who they said would be living in a “noisy and fume-filled” spot that is “notorious for crime and vandalism”.

A block of 11 ZedPods are planned for the Chalks Road car park in St George

One raised concern that bins, rubbish and personal belongings outside the development would turn it into an “eyesore” and lead to “more graffiti, breakages, crime”.

However, four residents welcomed the application, with one saying the ZedPods look “fantastic” and that she “can’t wait” for them to be built.

Another said: “Not only will the pods provide high-quality and genuinely affordable housing to those most in need, I also believe the presence of people living in the vicinity of the park will help reduce anti-social behaviour.”

A block of 11 ZedPods are planned for the Chalks Road car park in St George

The application will be considered by a Bristol City Council planning committee on a date still to be decided.

If successful, it will be built and occupied before October, according to information on the website of the Bristol Housing Festival.

Bristol Housing Festival is a five-year programme of activities, spearheaded by the council, looking at new ways of providing homes to people who could not otherwise afford them.

It is one of the collaborators in the ZedPod project, along with the council, ZED Pods Ltd, a Bristol-based housing association, the YMCA, and Bristol and Bath Regional Capital.

ZedPods are "high-quality, rapid build, modular low energy homes" that can use air rights above existing land within city centres, such as car parks, according to information on the Bristol Housing Festival’s website.

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Jez Sweetland, project director of Bristol Housing Festival, said: “I am delighted that this scheme is sufficiently developed that we have been able to submit for planning.

“In the context of the housing needs of the city it is important that we find creative ways to use land to test new ideas that can be scaled up to contribute to meeting our city’s housing needs – we also need to show that this can be done quickly as the existing need creates a demand for urgency.”