Cohousing Series: Navigating The Planning System – Fin Tech

One of our team members, Laura Moss, talks about her experiences
developing a small cohousing project in Cumbria. Here, she outlines
how her group navigated the planning system for their
development.

For the previous articles in the series, please see here:

Part 1: establishing a cohousing community.

Part 2: setting up a cohousing community: the early
days.

Part 3: communications, conflicts and developing an
effective governance framework.

Although I am a solicitor, the legalities of the planning system
were a relative mystery to me before I started developing my own
cohousing community. It was an incredibly steep learning curve,
working out the difference between outline planning permission,
full planning permission and reserved matters, not to mention how
on earth you go about launching a planning appeal. I would highly
recommend appointing a planning consultant if you are grappling
with issues like this, because they can really help guide you
through the process.

Outline planning permission vs reserved matters

In our case, we bought land which already had outline planning
consent. This is consent in principle, i.e. it sets out the bare
bones of what is permitted on a particular plot of land. In our
case, the outline planning consent permitted the development of
five detached dwellings. It leaves the finer details of a
development to what is known as ‘reserved matters’.
Reserved matters would typically include details of the appearance,
layout and design of the individual properties.

Outline planning consents generally have an expiry date. If a
development is not commenced within a certain period of time, the
consent expires. In our case, the planning consent expired not long
after we bought the land and we had to apply for fresh consent.

Obtaining planning permission

This process was convoluted, to say the least. Our land includes
an old farmhouse and several outbuildings, all of which are in a
poor condition and will need to be demolished. Some were
historically used for commercial and residential purposes and they
include a number of ‘chalets’, i.e. static caravans bolted
together to form rudimentary dwellings. However, the Covid-19
pandemic meant that we could not visit the site, so the buildings
fell into even more disrepair.

The planning officer who was assigned our case visited the site
and initially argued that the dwellings had been abandoned. As we
are classed as open countryside, this would have meant that we
would be unlikely to be granted planning consent for the new homes
we wished to build. After a very tense few days, he accepted our
argument that the site had not in fact been abandoned, meaning that
replacement dwellings could be constructed, based on what was
already there.

The planning officer then referred the decision to the planning
committee, made up of elected councillors. His report to the
planning committee recommended that the cumulative floor area of
our dwellings should be limited to the floor area of the dwellings
to be replaced. This would result in much smaller properties than
we had originally planned.

We attended the planning committee meeting to put forward our
views on the planning officers’ report. However, as is often
the case, the planning committee accepted the planning
officer’s proposals and granted consent, with the suggested cap
on the floor area. Unfortunately, this cap also applied to anything
which could be built under permitted development rights, i.e.
garages, sheds, greenhouses and any extensions.

Although smaller properties mean fewer resources are needed to
build, run and maintain them, we felt that the cap was too
restrictive, particular as most of us work from home, have lots of
outdoor equipment to store and intend to grow substantial amounts
of food, so greenhouses, and outbuildings are important. We
therefore decided to appeal this planning condition.

Applying to vary a planning condition

We were advised to apply to the planning authority to vary the
planning condition, rather than appeal the entire planning consent.
The risk with an outright appeal was that the validity of the
entire planning consent may be open to challenge, whereas if we
applied for a variation of the condition, and this was then
refused, we could appeal that refusal. This would mean that any
appeal was limited to only that condition, rather than the whole
consent itself.

Appealing a planning application

Predictably, the application to vary the condition was refused
(it is heard by the same planning authority who grants the
consent). We then put together an application to appeal this
refusal.

Happily, we achieved a partial win. We put forward various
conditions we would be happy to live with, and our hunch is that
the planning inspector chose one of these, as a way of striking a
balance between all the various arguments. Although we still have
the cap on floor area, this no longer includes structures which
would be permitted under permitted development rights.

Applying for reserved matters

Once this long-winded process was completed, it was then down to
the members of our cohousing community to submit their applications
for reserved matters consent.

In many other cohousing schemes, dwellings are all centrally
designed and built by the community as a whole. However, we operate
in a slightly different way. Each individual household is
responsible for the design and construction of their own property.
This means that there is much greater flexibility. Those members
who want to be more hands on and build the homes themselves, can
do, whereas those of us who think this sounds like a nightmare can
appoint a builder to do that instead.

We have now all had our reserved matters applications approved.

Applying for an exemption from the Community Infrastructure
Levy

The final piece of the puzzle was to each accept liability for
the Community Infrastructure Levy (‘CIL’) on our individual
plots, and then claim the self-build exemption for this. We have a
short article about this here.

This means that we can finally start demolishing the existing
buildings on the site, and building replacements. Planning consent
and the CIL exemption must be in place before any demolition could
take place, so very little changed in the appearance of our
development for a couple of years. However, over the last few
months, progress has been much more visibly apparent with buildings
coming down and remediation works starting. More updates about this
will follow in the future.”

The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.