In the biggest shake up in planning rules the government will make it easier for commercial property owners to repurpose existing buildings without the requirement for full planning permission and residential property owners add up to two storeys to their homes via a fast track system. These are expected to take effect by September 2020.
This ruling will allow existing commercial and retail property to be demolished and rebuilt as housing without the requirement to make a full planning permission. It’s clearly in response to the governments housing targets not being close to be met, the post COVID-19 effect on retail and commercial property and an attempt to breathe life back into high streets throughout the country. It is hoped that this will also alleviate the pressure to build on Greenfield sites.
The thinking is based on the US Zonal system, which allocates specific areas for different types of development and then sets the technical policy of what can be built and the density. As a developer, if your scheme meets the technical criteria for the zone in question, then you get permission to build. This is a huge move away from making planning applications on a property by property basis.
The changes will see us lose Classes A1, A2, A3, B1, D1 and D2 all of which will be retired in favour of a new
Class E ‘Commercial Business and Service’.
This new class will cover a wide range of uses including: retail, financial and professional services, cafés and restaurants (currently A1-A3); offices, research and development and light industrial (currently B1); clinics, health centres and nurseries (currently D1) and indoor sport and recreation (currently D2).
Two other new use classes will be introduced: Class F.1 (Learning and non-residential institutions) which currently sit within use class D1, and F.2 (Local community) which currently sit within use class D2.
There have been some exclusions from Class E to protect uses with community value for example ‘cinemas and bingo halls’ (currently D2) and also to prevent unrestricted conversion to those uses with potential negative externalities, for example drinking establishments (currently A4) and ‘hot food takeaways’ (currently A5). These now fall within Sui Generis use and will need planning permission for change of use to or from.
In addition, on residential, leaseholders will now have the right to extend lease by 990 years (currently 50 years on a house and 90 years on a flat), commonhold should replace leasehold on flats, converting to commonhold wouldn’t need all parties agreement, shared ownership leases can be extended as well and landlords and freeholders can be taken to court if they ignore claims.
As with these radical changes, the devil is in the detail but if nothing else, it’s a step in the right direction.
Photo by Rafał Malinowski on Unsplash
