Value of land if allocated for housing development

alanjbee

Hello All,

My local council have written to me to ask my view (in favour or against) re a proposed site allocation in their local plan, which would allocate about 400m2 of my rear garden for residential housing development.

I quite like my garden and would like to hang on to it... but obviously everything has a price!

Before I give my view to the council, can anyone help advise what the normal selling process is if the land is allocated for residential development? Can I then simply sell the land to a private developer with / without planning permission at market rates (maybe £3m per hectare with planning permission for my area)? Or can I be forced to sell at below market rates, as for motorway development etc.

Any advice or experience much appreciated!

Cheers

Alan

moneyistooshorttomention

Must admit my first reaction to any Council plan of such a nature would be "Bl**dy cheek for them to decide on what to do with MY garden....:mad:" and there would be a letter off to them top speed telling them to keep their **** planning minds off it.

Errrm...what would the neighbours think if you sold a bit of their neighbouring garden off for development?

de_g.

That's a hell of a problem to have! They're basically offering to give you in-principle approval to build 1-2 houses on part of your garden - it doesn't supplant planning permission, but a site allocation means that the presumption is in favour of development if it becomes available.

All Councils (in England anyway) are required to produce and review on a regular basis a strategic housing land availability assessment (SHLAA) - is the site included within that? They should have consulted you if it is, but you could Google the name of your local authority and SHLAA to see what it has to say.

The question you have to ask is whether you would want to oppose it or not. It seems you would have a couple of options:

1) If you're fundamentally against it, and would have no intention of selling it for development, then you could advise the officers of the fact and they would take that into account. Assuming it's like the ones I've seen they tend to give it a Red/Amber/Green for deliverability, so they'd just note your garden as Red and it would likely get left off the allocation.

2) If you want to keep your options open, then you could register a fairly soft objection, but not so much as to get it excluded from the plan.

3) You could support the allocation, knowing that it may add probably £50k to the value of your property overnight (depending on the cost of building plots). If you've got means to make access difficult then it could be worth a lot more - you effectively have a 'ransom strip' and can pretty much name your price.

I'd also give very strong consideration to the impact on your property of this allocation. If you're against it, you should be making representations to the Council about the whole of the proposed allocation in as strong terms as possible, and be prepared to challenge it right to the Examination in Public. Talk to neighbours, and think about getting some proper professional advice.

de_g.

Oh and in terms of selling - they can't just compulsorily purchase it if it is allocated. If you've got a ransom strip and it cannot otherwise be overcome they may be able to get a CPO, but it's very, very difficult and time consuming. Except for that, no-one can force you to sell and no-one can dictate who you sell to provided it is legal.

Basically, if it is allocated, you hold almost all the cards. Personally, I'd probably wait until it was allocated before selling, but your best bet is to get professional advice.

Fuzzyness

to the OP, when you say about 400 square metres of your garden. to me this implies that the piece of your garden is just one part of a wider allocation. if this is the case i wouldnt start rubbing your hands together just yet. do your neighbours support the draft allocation and have you spoken with any of the other land owners that are included within the wider allocation. if not, i would suggest you did as a starting point.

if you can gain consensus with the other landowners and are happy for all the land to be allocated you could promote it through your council's Core Strategy/local plan as an allocation. if you were to do this though you and your fellow landowners would shoulder all the assocaited costs. it may be that once you've all agreed to work together you tout the site around to the house builders and see what if any interest there is for then to take an option. a housebuilder may see the longer term value in the site and would be happy to be pay an option fee with the intention of getting it allocated and then to subsequently apply for planning permission to build houses on it. the more land owners the trickier this becomes in terms of what deal you can all agree but it is possible and the housebuilders are used to arrangements such as this.

the long and the short of it is you'll need some professional representation be that through a surveyor, planning consultant or solicitor if you want to make this opportunity work best for you.

alanjbee

Thanks everyone for all your advice. To Fuzzyness's comment - yes it is part of a much larger allocation with multiple land owners. On balance I think it's a case of wait and see. But reassuring to know that if anything does come of it I'll be fairly recompensed.

Alan