Developer has built 2bed mews houses not one bed studios as planned - Help?

usignuolo

There is an old house at the end of my road which a young couple bought around 5 years ago to convert into a family home. They applied for permission to add a long single storey extension in the garden to be a new kitchen diner but split up before starting. They sold the house to a developer, who applied for permission to convert it into 4 flats and to use the permission for the kitchen extension to build 3 studio flats. He went bust before starting and sold the site on to another developer who hired a team of Polish builders to work on it (this is relevant).

The four flat conversion of the house was finished last year and went on sale and the builders then turned their attention to the extension. The neighbours were very alarmed to see the roof line on the extension going up much higher than the original planning permission and complained to the council. But our council is reluctant to take any action while an illegal building is going up, it prefers to take and wait and see approach and make any retrospective decisions at the end of the day.

The flats in the garden extension were completed last month, and are now being marketed by the local estate agent. Meanwhile the developer has hired an architect to seek retrospective planning permission for the larger 3 "one bedroom coach houses" which he has actually built on the site, as these are larger than the original planning permission.

In the planning application the architect says the higher roofs are not her responsibility as she was not hired at that time but were built by the Polish building team (who have now left the site) due to a misunderstanding with the previous architect and developer about the required height to meet light and roof drainage requirements etc.

BUT this is the best bit, what they have actually built is 3 TWO bedroomed mews houses, which are being advertised as such on the local estate agents website. These final houses have large picture windows which look down on the neighbours gardens, which they were not supposed to do (they are much larger than the original design). They were also supposed to be studio homes so lower priced for people starting out - they are now being sold as news houses with two bedrooms and priced accordingly.

So instead of 3 studio flats, we find the developer has built 3 two bedroom mews houses, without planning permission and even now is only claiming retrospective permission for 3 one bedroom coach houses.

Naturally we have objected to the council, but do not hold out a good deal of hope of any action being taken, given the council's track record. Does anyone know of any further action we can take about this, particularly as the developer's retrospective application still does not reflect what has been built? Can we for example complain to the Local Government Ombudsman - the council have been informed by neighbours of what was happening on site, at every stage, but have chosen to waive it through to date.

becs

As far as I know the only people with the power to do anything will be your local planning department. As for them selling the houses, that's highly unlikely as I can't see any bank offering a mortage on a property that has not got planning permission. The council could very easily reject the permission and order the properties to be rebuilt as per original permission so I can't see any bank willing to risk that!
Most Council planning departments are very strict and working for a local authority myself although not in planning, I can tell you the single thing that is most likely to get their backs up is developers being arrogant and building what they want! Even more so when the developers treat the planners as if they're stupid by trying to get retrospective permission with sob stories like the one above!

03022242

becs wrote: »

...Even more so when the developers treat the planners as if they're stupid by trying to get retrospective permission with sob stories like the one above!

yes developers are idiots but are you trying to say that planning officers are not stupid????? there are very few who are actually helpful, those who are tend to be the ones who have more experience and are slightly older.. o and for the record i dont work in either professions, im a consultant...

with regards to the problem it depends if the planning authority can be asked to do anything about it/depending on how busy they are.... be prepared for a long drawn out process though

with regards to the selling/mortgage process i would be more concerned whether it has building regs approval rather then then planning permission

Fire_Fox

You need to find out what the council's plans for the area are, what grounds for objecting to planning permission are acceptable, and then get the entire street to submit individual complaints based on your findings. If possible I'd be tempted to get a friend to go see round one of the properties to confirm the estate agents particulars are correct. Submit this with your objection to retrospective planning.

mollymunchkin

Make your relevant objections to the retrospective pp. If it helps you could check out the planning policies on your council's website or in person if that's not available (may be called a LDP, Local Development Plan). Always helps to refer to specific policies that the pp doesn't comply with.

Then, if the retrospective pp is given you could look into making a complaint about the council. I think that it is the case that an ombudsman won't look into a complaint until you have taken your grievance through the council's procedure first.

Anyone else more knowledgeable will correct me, I'm sure.

HTH

usignuolo

Sadly I do not share the confidence in planners expressed here. Ours are almost totally on the side of the developers and held in general contempt in the town. We have tried voting out the councillors but the planners go on their merry way unabated. A local journalist told me that the general view on the local paper is that the planners run the council and not the other way round. The UDP is meaningless - if you apply for planning permission yes they expect you to conform to it but if you then build something only vaguely similar and maybe even quite different, there are very good odds you can apply for retrospective permission and get it recommended for approval anyway, the planners get very cross with the councillors when they reject their advice.

planning_officer

03022242 wrote: »

yes developers are idiots but are you trying to say that planning officers are not stupid????? there are very few who are actually helpful

What??!! If you can only offer rude and generalistic comments without any foundation, then probably best to keep them to yourself. I hope you may have noticed some of my other posts on these forums, along with several other LPA planners' posts - I hope I at least come across as being helpful.

03022242 wrote: »

with regards to the selling/mortgage process i would be more concerned whether it has building regs approval rather then then planning permission

I would be equally as concerned with both of these aspects.

planning_officer

The most valid planning objections to this retrospective development would seem to be the impact on neighbours. The number of residential units doesn't seem to have been increased (it is still 7 dwellings), instead it is the size of these units that is not in accordance with the permission. It may well be that building 2 bed mews-style houses instead of bedsits is not objectionable (purely just in terms of the size and mix of housing). Unless the Council has a specific policy requiring one bed dwellings, it is unlikely to refuse something just on the principle that it is a two bed dwelling.

The issues really are the knock-on effects, like the increase in roof height and whether this looks intrusive in the locality or from neighbouring properties/gardens. Also, any increase in parking requirements resulting from the dwellings being larger in size, and whether this could be accommodated within the site.

I must say, usignuolo, from reading your post and other posts in different threads, that your council sound like their enforcement dept is not particularly effective! If there are any genuine planning objections to this development which are already apparent, then they have a wide range of powers to rectify them. They should be investigating during the building work, not waiting until after, as they can serve a Stop Notice or even an Emergency Stop Notice to halt building works immediately. That's the approach my Council takes - there's nothing worse than developers thinking they can get away with something retrospectively if it's clearly unacceptable in planning terms.

However, whilst in many cases, they may not build in accordance with the approved plans, if the development is acceptable in planning terms, then a retrospective application will more than likely be approved. If there are planning objections, then whether it's built or not should not make any difference - it should be refused and enforcement action taken to either get it demolished or built in accordance with the approved plans. Unfortunately, it's not an offence to build something without planning permission (it only becomes an offence when an Enforcment Notice or Stop Notice is not complied with). Therefore, if the objection is purely that the developers have flouted their permission, whilst it's clearly regrettable, it's not a valid objection. There have to be solid planning objections for this to be refused - like the impact on the character of the area or impact on neighbours, parking provision or highway safety for example.

seven-day-weekend

Agree with planning officer (worked in Planning and Enforcement as a Technician for eight years up until 2004) that the Enforcement Section seem a bit slack.

However, as planning officer says, it is not an offence to not build in accordance with the plans and the new development may well be acceptable in planning terms.

Valid planning objections would be overlooking, overcrowsding and not enough off-street parking.

usignuolo

Thanks for the replies. The new development in fact fails on all the tests you propose. We have all lodged objections, as neighbours and are waiting to see what happens. The council has targets for replying to residents about planning issues but actual Enforcement seems to come a long way back partly because we have a lot of listed buildings in our town and also because they only employ one Enforcement Officer who is heavily overworked and under pressure only to tackle the most pressing and contentious issues.

But what is the point in having planning officers and approvals when this sort of thing happens, ie developer builds more and/or large dwellings or flats on an original foot print for which permission was granted for a lesser number? It seems there is very little control over the developers by the planners in our borough when this happens.

As I said before, in the last 20 years we have twice turfed out the council and replaced it with a different one, over rows on very controversial planning issues and it seems to make no difference at all to the way the planners operate, they seem outside the control of the councillors, they do deals with developers and generally keep everyone in the dark. Grrr

What seems to happen increasingly is that a developer gets permission to develop say a block of 12 flats or 6 houses, and then puts up a taller building with 16 flats or as in this case 2 bed flats instead of studio flats. Doing it this way, putting in for a smaller development and then building a larger one, enables them to put up a building which would generate more objections if they revealed at the start what they planned to build.

It is happening more and more often so that some of us are even starting to wonder if our town is being targeted by developers who know they can get away with it, or if our planners have a quiet word with the developers and indicate this will be the easiest way to proceed. (We know they talk to the developers because there have been a couple of cases where a major row has followed the developer revealing that he has been advised by the planners to proceed with a development on a basis the locals were unaware of and would have objected to had they known.)

seven-day-weekend

Sorry, by law planning has to be in the public domain and I do not believe that your planners tell developers to 'go ahead' and not go through the necessary stages of publicity (unless of course the development does not need either initial or further planning permission).

If you really think this is the case, write to the Local Authority Ombudsman.

Also, development is not refused SOLELY because people object. There have to be good planning reasons to refuse it. This is the law of the land, not just what some Planning Department has made up.