News Type: Policy Update

Despite the government’s decision to abandon nationwide zero carbon policies as part of its efforts to ‘speed-up’ house-building, the GLA has pressed ahead and introduced new targets in London.

As of 1 October 2016, the London Plan requires all new housing schemes in the capital with more than 10 homes to meet ‘zero carbon’ standards. This means that all major residential developments will need to achieve at least a 35% reduction in C02 emissions (beyond Part L Building Regulations 2013) on site.

Under Policy 5.2 of the London Plan, major developments (both residential and commercial) have had to comply with challenging C02 targets over and above those of Building Regulations since 2010. The key difference now is that residential developers are expected to pay a cash in lieu contribution into a ‘carbon offset fund’ to offset any remaining carbon emissions, to 100 per cent.

Achieving such strict carbon emission targets on high density residential sites in London will be a significant challenge for most developers. Indeed, with the offset price set at £60 per tonne for a period of 30 years (although this price can vary between London Boroughs), the financial implications of having to offset any deficit could potentially be substantial, and may impact on the overall viability of a scheme.

With these new targets now in place across London, giving due consideration to their implications at an early stage in the planning and design process could potentially save considerable costs in long run. If you have any queries regarding the zero carbon standards for residential developments, or indeed the requirements for non-residential schemes, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.

Earlier this year, the Government reinstated rules exempting small sites from affordable housing obligations following the Court of Appeal decision in the case of West Berkshire District Council and Reading Borough Council v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

The reintroduction of the exception was welcome news for small scale developers, although questions were raised at the time over the weight which local authorities should attach to the restored guidance set out in national Planning Practice Guidance (PPG). It has transpired that most appeal decisions testing the policy have ruled in favour of the exemption, which excludes housing developments of 10 units or 1,000sqm or less from the need to provide, or contribute towards, affordable housing – with a lower threshold introduced in rural areas. However, in an appeal decision issued last week (22 September 2016), an Inspector has ruled that local plan policy should take precedence over the reinstated rules.

The appeal relates to South Cambridgeshire District Council’s decision to refuse planning permission for eight residential units in Oakington. South Cambridgeshire Council’s local plan policy requires at least 40 per cent of units on sites of two or more dwellings to be affordable. However, the proposed development did not make any provision for affordable housing on the basis that it would be exempt in line with the Government’s Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) which introduced the policy. The Inspector dismissed the appeal on grounds unrelated to affordable housing but, importantly, he concluded that ‘the WMS needs to be addressed alongside local policy’ and found it necessary for the proposed development to comply with local plan policy in respect of affordable housing.

This appeal decision clearly raises doubts over the status of policy guidance excepting small scale development sites from affordable housing contributions and will not make happy reading for the Government. It has been trying to establish the policy since the WMS was first published in November 2014.

If you have any queries about this decision or policies regarding the provision of affordable housing, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.

Westminster City Council has confirmed that from 31 July 2016 an Article 4 Direction will come into force to remove permitted development (PD) rights granted by Schedule 2, Part 1, Class A of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwellinghouse, by way of basement development, lightwells, or any other development below the dwellinghouse or its curtilage.

At present some limited types of basement extension benefit from PD rights meaning that they can be carried out without the need to apply for planning permission. This Article 4 Direction will remove these PD rights within Westminster, allowing the Council to consider the proposal in more detail through the formal planning application process which also requires a variety of supporting documents to be prepared.

Westminster’s decision to remove basement PD rights follows a similar Article 4 Direction imposed by RBKC which came into force on 28 April 2016. Both Councils have experienced a huge rise in the number of basement extensions over recent years and have taken the fairly unusual step of introducing a Borough-wide Article 4 Direction (which are more commonly limited to very specific areas within a local authority) as a means of ensuring all basement development is brought under the Council’s control.

If you have any queries regarding the implications of this Article 4 Direction, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.

Westminster City Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) took effect on 1 May 2016. The CIL is a charge on development to help fund infrastructure such as transport schemes and schools which the council, local community and neighbourhoods require to help accommodate new growth from development.  Westminster’s new CIL will be charged alongside the Mayor of London’s CIL which took effect on 1 April 2012 to help meet the cost of Crossrail.

The CIL will apply to planning applications, including planning appeals, which are granted permission on or after 1 May 2016 and will be chargeable on most development of buildings that include an increase of new build floorspace of 100 sqm or more of gross internal (GIA) floorspace.  For residential development CIL is triggered on any scheme that comprises a residential dwelling whether this is from new build or existing floorspace.  Some forms of development are exempt, or can be granted relief, from CIL such as domestic extensions.

The CIL charging rates (per sqm) are shown below, and a map showing the different charging zones can be viewed here.

If you would like any advice on the new charge, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.

The Greater London Authority has this week published a new supplementary planning guidance document (SPG) on the increasingly momentous subject of housing. The document follows a twelve week public consultation period for a draft interim version of the guidance document which took place in summer 2015.

The SPG replaces the previous 2012 Housing SPG in order to reflect the changes imposed through the application of ‘Further Alterations to the London Plan’ (FALP) and ‘Minor Alterations to the London Plan’ (MALP) in March 2015 and March 2016 respectively.

The new SPG guidance covers a range of topics with the overarching aim of increasing London’s supply of high quality, affordable homes. This includes new guidance for the introduction of covenanted build to rent developments which are residential schemes secured for private rent for a fixed period of typically 15 years where, due to affordable housing requirements, the development would otherwise be considered unviable.

However, the SPG has been published in the background of the Housing and Planning Bill which is currently progressing through parliament. The bill proposes significant reforms for affordable housing, particularly in the form of the government’s starter homes initiative, and as such the affordable housing chapter is still in draft and has not been included within the SPG at this stage.

The Housing SPG can be found here.  If you have any queries regarding the new SPG, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.

 

In his speech to the Conservative Party Conference last week, the Prime Minister outlined a change to planning regulations to include ‘Starter Homes’ for first-time buyers in the affordable housing definition.

In Mr Cameron’s own words, this ‘dramatic shift in housing policy’ will effectively remove the requirement for developers to provide low-cost rented homes as part of new housing schemes.  Instead, for the first time, developers will be able to provide low-cost homes for sale as part of the ‘Starter Homes’ scheme.

What is the Starter Homes Scheme?

The Conservatives believe this scheme will provide 200,000 new homes by 2020, helping to turn ‘Generation Rent to Generation Buy’.  But what is the ‘Starter Homes’ scheme?  The scheme requires properties to be offered for sale at a discount of 20% below market rates. Purchasers must be first time buyers aged under 40 and – here’s the catch – may not sell or rent out the property for the following five years.   The discount will apply to homes worth up to £450,000 in London, and £250,000 outside the capital.

With Starter Homes potentially costing close to an eye-watering half a million pounds, the announcement has inevitability been criticised as not actually being ‘affordable’ at all to the majority of aspiring first time buyers. The scheme will, however, enable those buyers with a large enough deposit to get onto the property ladder with the benefit of a generous subsidy.

What does the announcement mean for developers?

The Government hopes that the announcement will not only appeal to first-time buyers, but will also be a means of increasing the overall supply of housing by making certain sites more attractive and viable for developers.

Allowing developers to build affordable homes, which they can sell rather than rent, certainly adds a new level of flexibility to s106 negotiations and will no doubt be an appealing option in many cases – particularly as it will remove the need to design a scheme around the specific mix of housing requested by a housing association.  It may not, however, be as straightforward as the Conservatives think.  For example, the new Starter Homes may take longer for developers to sell than existing forms of affordable housing. Having heavily subsidised homes for sale on the same site as market priced housing may also have an impact on the attractiveness of the latter.

The proposals are likely to be included in the housing bill, expected next month and we will keep you up to date on this.  In the meantime,please feel free to contact any of the Firstplan team if you would like to discuss the potential impact of this policy change on an existing or potential development.

In a bid to provide stronger protection for the green belt, and to reduce expensive and time consuming enforcement action, the government has announced a change to planning policy to make ‘intentional unauthorised development’ a material consideration in the determination of all new planning applications and appeals received after 31 August 2015.

The government’s chief planner, Steve Quartermain, has written to local authorities detailing the new policy, which is designed to make it harder to secure retrospective planning permission.  The policy statement also confirms that personal circumstances and unmet need are unlikely to outweigh harm to the green belt or establish the ‘very special circumstances’ required by the National Planning Policy Framework before any green belt development is considered.

The new policy is intended to protect land in the green belt from intentional unauthorised development.  It does, however, immediately raise the practical question of how easy will it be for enforcement officers to prove that an unauthorised development was undertaken ‘intentionally’.  If proving intent proves to be too onerous a task, it will obviously undermine the usefulness of the policy.

The government has confirmed that the Planning Inspectorate will monitor all appeal decisions involving unauthorised development in the Green Belt to enable it to assess the implementation of the policy.  In addition consideration will be given to the recovery of a proportion of relevant appeals in the green belt for the Secretary of State’s decision ‘to enable him to illustrate how he would like his policy to apply in practice’. This will all be reviewed after six months, so we will keep you updated.