Marinas without residential planning permission

[Tiller Slave]

The interesting part is what precedent Huntingdon Council may set for other local authorities.

 

If they successfully evict unofficial live-aboard boaters, this will be viewed with interest by other councils.

 

OR if the give retrospective planning permission for what now happens, AND collect the resultant Council Tax and higher Business Rates form the Marina.

 

If the latter happens some councils will gain a lot more council tax income quickly, but being a live-aboard will become a lot more expensive as no doubt mooring prices for newly official/legal berths will also rise.

[Smelly]

EA don't have the same problem because they own very little land. What they have got they can regulate, otherwise you are moored on someone elses land and I presume the laws on trespass apply.

Sue

 

I'd not thought of it from a "land ownership" point of view. i always thought BW's right to move a boat was to facilitate maintenance... Interesting.

 

Does anyone know the statutory basis for EA's management of their rivers? Might it be that they've got the water/riverbed but the maintenance is the responsibility of individual landowners.

 

Drawing a contrast between them and BW could be interesting...

[Orca]

The interesting part is what precedent Huntingdon Council may set for other local authorities.

 

If they successfully evict unofficial live-aboard boaters, this will be viewed with interest by other councils.

 

OR if the give retrospective planning permission for what now happens, AND collect the resultant Council Tax and higher Business Rates form the Marina.

 

If the latter happens some councils will gain a lot more council tax income quickly, but being a live-aboard will become a lot more expensive as no doubt mooring prices for newly official/legal berths will also rise.

 

I don't see the latter point you make as being anything other than inevitable sooner rather than later; especially if the precedent is set (highly likely!) If eviction results, then I don't see it as being anything other than an act of totalitarianism...

[magpie patrick]

OR if the give retrospective planning permission for what now happens, AND collect the resultant Council Tax and higher Business Rates form the Marina.

 

That won't happen, and if it did it would almost certainly be called in under the current rules ("called in" means determined by the secretary of state rather than the local authority). Why?

 

well, take the location of most of these marinas, and convert the number of moorings to a number of dwellings. Tow bedroom houses, small apartments whatever. They wouldn't stand a proverbial snow ball in hells chance of getting through because they would need

 

1) Highway infratsructure for the anticipated traffic generation

2) Access to public transport (PPG 13)

3) contribution to local education and health provision

4) contribution to provision of public open space

 

and many local authorities go much farther than that. I recently represented a client who needed to fulfil 33 seperate contributions (public art, rail travel, control of on street parking... and on and on)

 

Until it is recognised that the residential mooring is a different animal to a land based residence, the answer is no. Hence my earlier post

[Orca]

Until it is recognised that the residential mooring is a different animal to a land based residence, the answer is no. Hence my earlier post

 

Absolutely, so why can't any future precedent lead to just that???????? You make it sound as if its a foregone conclusion that such a delineation will never be recognised.... (with the greatest respect)

[magpie patrick]

Absolutely, so why can't any future precedent lead to just that???????? You make it sound as if its a foregone conclusion that such a delineation will never be recognised.... (with the greatest respect)

 

it really needs to be recognised in legislation, with a change to the use class order. Case law may succeed, but it won't be through the planning inspectorate. Either a clever planning officer comes up with a condition that I haven't thought of, or a legal challenge to a planning decision gets a result off the law lords, and that's expensive and uncertain

[Smelly]

it really needs to be recognised in legislation, with a change to the use class order. Case law may succeed, but it won't be through the planning inspectorate. Either a clever planning officer comes up with a condition that I haven't thought of, or a legal challenge to a planning decision gets a result off the law lords, and that's expensive and uncertain

 

I've no knowledge of planning law, although I know a well known barrister who might have. how would you make the distinction?

[Smelly]

I'd not thought of it from a "land ownership" point of view. i always thought BW's right to move a boat was to facilitate maintenance... Interesting.

 

Does anyone know the statutory basis for EA's management of their rivers? Might it be that they've got the water/riverbed but the maintenance is the responsibility of individual landowners.

 

Drawing a contrast between them and BW could be interesting...

 

I'm going to expand on this so excuse me repeating myself. this links to posts in the K&A thread.

 

The advice to Council Tax Valuation tribunals is that boats on BW waters do not fit within he "hereditament" adopted as a "dwelling" for the purposes of the Council Tax Act, are thus not to be treated as "dwellings" and hence no liability for Council tax arises.

 

This is due to the aforementioned right of BW to move the boat at their will to a different mooring should the need arise. Can the EA do that? Are EA residents actually liable for Ctax?

 

Edit... There must be ome EA residents on her. Also, conscious of wasting precious bandwidth, a certain email's been sent Sue.

Edited August 18, 2009 by Smelly

[magpie patrick]

Planning law and the planning system are very complex: that's why I had to do a four year degree and then two years practical experience before being allowed to call myself a chartered town planner. The planning system may at times seem designed to frustrate everyones aspirations but you only have to look at things like 1930's ribbon development and realise why, in 1948, the town and country planning act was passed. The basic philosphy of this act is the same as the present legislation, although the act was replaced in 1971 and again in 1990. The 1990 act is currently in force but various other acts (Planning and Compensation Act 1991, Planning Act 2004, 2008) have modified it, there are also various regulations and statutory instruments in force.

 

The gist of it is this. Policy is established at 3 levels. Central government, regional/county, and local planning authority. The central government guidance is very high level and covers conceptual issues, for example the location of employment sites, the density of housing etc, and also allocates quantities of development by region.

 

The regional level takes central government policy and interprets it for the region. The policy here is not usually site specific although on occassion it might be (the South West Regional Spatial Strategy identifies ports for protection, for example). This level interprets in general terms what should occut, for example, identifying some towns as "principal urban areas" and stating what sort of development is appropriate to an area.

 

The last level is the one the public have most dealings with: the local authority that determines planning applications. this local authority will have a development plan with site specific policies and other more general policies that apply across the area or across part of the area. Until recently this development plan has been either the local plan or the unitary development plan, but now these are increasingly being replaced with Local Development Frameworks. The point is though that a "development plan" is a legal term which encompasses all STATUTORY planning policy. At central government level, the Planning Policy Statements are statutory, at regional level, the regional spatial strategy is statutory, and at local level the local development framework (LDF) is statutory. Each level of policy MUST comply with the level above, so an LDF can't have a policy promoting the use opf private cars as this would conflict with regional and central policy.

 

Why does this matter? well, when the LDF is formed it is subject to an examination in public where objectors can be heard, but at the end of the day the inspector will go with policy, so if the LDF proposes a development of 600 houses in the middle of nowhere, then unless there is a damn good policy reason for it the inspector will rule that policy out. That doesn't mean the public don't get heard as there is often a choice between sites none of which are ideal, and an inspector may decide for example that landscape policy is more or less important than traffic policy, based on what the public and developers have stated

 

So, if you've read this far, what happens next

 

Application for a 300 berth marina in a rural area, access down unclassified roads, not particularly close to any settlement, limited facilities on site and perhaps a small village shop and school a mile and half away down country lanes. Local Authority will consider this on it's merits, landscape? okay for whatever reason. Traffic? well not much generation: a few dozen cars at a weekend. impact on local facilities. Not much, perhaps a bit of trade for the shop. Presumption os to grant permission unless there is good reason not to. The development plan hasn't allocated the site for anything else (this matters) so good chance of getting permission.

 

now make 100 of those berths residential. Suddenly we are not talking a leisure marina but 100 dwellings. the planning officer now has a problem. Plenty of land in the plan allocated for residential, but not this bit, so it's a departure from the plan (which is the main consideration under the 1991 act). Is there a justification? it's not agricultural dwellings, it isn't infil of vacant plots in a village. It doesn't even relate well to any existing urban area. Nearest shop is a mile and a half away, small village school, can it handle the kids from 100 "dwellings" How will these people get to work? There is no alternative transport so it's contrary to national policy as they are car dependent. And anyway, the local plan has an allocation of 6000 dwellings and they are all spoken for. It'll take a brave planning officer to recommend granting permission, s/he wouldn't grant permission for 100 houses would s/he? And if s/he does, the councillors may overturn it, or the government office for the region may start getting interested and call it in.

 

If it's called in, or if the applicant appeals against refusal, we're back in an inquiry with the planning inspectorate involved. And what do isnpectors do? They normally follow policy, and policy is screaming NO with loud hooters and flashing lights.

 

The final step is judicial review, but that can only consider whether the planning officers and the inspector took the right things into account, it can't consider the merits of the case.

 

But we all know that liveaboards don't have the same impact as brick-and-mortar dwellers. A liveaboard is more likely to cycle than use a car, or perhaps even takes the boat to the next town for the shopping, the number of car trips, kids in school, et al is lower for a liveaboard than a townie, they are often more self sufficient. We know that, but the planning system doesn't. That's why a new use class of "residential mooring" as opposed to "residential use" is needed

 

Okay end of planning lesson

 

edited to add. Just as plenty of people would like to live on boats in rural areas, plenty of people would like to live in houses in rural areas. It's thanks to the planning system that the countryside isn't littered with housing and our canal banks aren't one long riboon of desirable waterside residences

Edited August 19, 2009 by magpie patrick

[sueb]

I'm going to expand on this so excuse me repeating myself. this links to posts in the K&A thread.

 

The advice to Council Tax Valuation tribunals is that boats on BW waters do not fit within he "hereditament" adopted as a "dwelling" for the purposes of the Council Tax Act, are thus not to be treated as "dwellings" and hence no liability for Council tax arises.

 

This is due to the aforementioned right of BW to move the boat at their will to a different mooring should the need arise. Can the EA do that? Are EA residents actually liable for Ctax?

 

Edit... There must be ome EA residents on her. Also, conscious of wasting precious bandwidth, a certain email's been sent Sue.

The answer is I don't know. Ask Rboa that one. We never had the trouble with EA that we get with BW. There obviously are boats on the EA waters and some are officially houseboats presumably paying council tax but Rboa will be the experts on this. I suspect it has nothing to do with EA and we are back to original land owners.

Sue

[MikeV]

Read and understood the excellent lesson on planning from magpie patrick, but didn't understand what was meant by:

That's why a new use class of "residential mooring" as opposed to "residential use" is needed

Did I fall asleep somewhere? Or is there a post/thread I haven't seen?

[Smelly]

Okay end of planning lesson

 

that makes sense, thank you

 

our canal banks aren't one long riboon of desirable waterside residences

 

I thought they were, and that's why they're trying to persuade us all to live in marinas

 

So Primary legislation sets the C3 category, i.e. residential, which carries with it loads of bells and whistles as to what it might require and there's no local solution in which a back door might find, frinstance demanding that, being a non residential place, purpprtedly residential boats must move off for a month a year as they apparently do with caravan parks?

[magpie patrick]

So Primary legislation sets the C3 category, i.e. residential, which carries with it loads of bells and whistles as to what it might require and there's no local solution in which a back door might find, frinstance demanding that, being a non residential place, purpprtedly residential boats must move off for a month a year as they apparently do with caravan parks?

 

 

This is cut and pasted from an email I sent to to someone who was having trouble over accusations of living on board. Thus one forum member may recognise bits of it. I've done this because the car is being packed ready to go, so it's quicker for me but possibly not 100% clear!

 

Assuming you are in a leisure marina that already has planning permission for liesure mooring, unless there is any other condition you can spend as long as you like on your boat so long as it doesn’t constitute your permanent or primary residence. The reason you can’t “live” at these moorings is because planning law controls land use as well as the built form of a development, so while living on board a boat does not change the built form of the mooring, it does change the use of the mooring, and to change the use to residential, you need planning permission.

 

What constitutes “living”? Basically it’s a matter of fact and degree. If you occasionally spend a night on board, say, before cruising, or while maintaining the boat then this obviously isn’t living on the boat: if you will be spending most nights on board for the foreseeable future, but have your post sent to a relative in a nearby town, whom you nip round and see occasionally, you are living on board and using the boat as a primary residence. Where the line is between these is a big grey area, and will depend on a number of factors.

 

However, I would contend that anyone who had another address, to which correspondence was sent, and regularly spent the night at that address would not be living on their boat full time, even if they were at their boat more than half the time. It may be that they have “stuff” at home rather than on the boat, for example, they may only keep a limited supply of clothes on the boat, they may have a laptop but not a full home office, or frozen food may be kept at home. In other words, the correspondence address also has a practical function as a home: it could even be that their partner is at home but part of the time they themselves are not.

 

To determine residency, the planning authority will look at factors like this as well as the length of time spent on the boat

 

The planning authority can not add conditions to the existing planning permission, so they can’t later decide that no boat should be occupied for more than X weeks of the year. If an aplication was recieved to convert liesure moorings to residential they could apply conditions then, but it’s not at all clear that they could apply restrictions to the liesure moorings as part of approving the residential ones. This could be problematic if the residential boats just move over to leisure piers for a few weeks to get round restrictions. Remember, in planning terms it is the mooring that is residential, not the boat.

 

So, how do you place conditions on the effectively restrict residential use. If they were to attempt to put a planning condition on it is worth noting that any planning condition must be (1) related to the development for which is being granted planning consent (2) capable of enforcement and (3) reasonable

 

Capable of enforcement: It would be impractical for to monitor how many nights owners spent on board, to see whether an individual owner had exceeded some pre-set limit. So any condition that limits the number of nights, whether it is per week, per month, or per year, is unenforceable. They couldn’t keep count, and the presence of someone on a boat at night would not indicate breach of the condition as that person may not have used up their allowance.

 

The oft quoted parallel is caravan sites that do not allow residency for one month or six weeks. The effect isn’t the obvious one, that the site is empty, but that this is off-putting for many. It is unlikely that a family with three school age kids and both parent working full time would find this satisfactory. .

 

 

But Marina;s are not caravan sites and it could be argued that this is unreasonable if it is applied to the liesure moorings as well as the residential ones. The site is a marina and has planning permission as such: thus uses ancillary to its function as a marina are permitted unless specifically prohibited. It would be easy to make a case that the proper functioning of a marina has to permit overnight stays on boats within the marina. Owners will want to work on their boats, or take them out for a cruise, and either could be rendered impractical if the owner is not allowed to stay on the boat overnight. This might well mean that cars will come and go late at night or early in the morning: for example, someone arriving for a weekend on the boat may arrive after work: if they work 200 miles away that could be after 10pm easily. Equally they may wait until the Monday morning to return when an early start is necessary.

 

And which month? August is a non-starter, half the boats go out anyway then, and again the use of a boat in August could be fettered by a restriction. Caravan parks often have January or February, but in this case the boats might not be able to get out of the marina due to stoppages.

 

What is probably needed is to come up with some clever, legal and enforceable conditions. Agriculural occupancy conditions on farm dwellings state that the “occupier must work or last have worked in agriculture”. The Staff at marinas can live on board because the planing permission usually includes planning permission for residential moorings for marina staff (up to a pre-set limit). The limit needs to make it unattractive for those whose daily life is better served by houses (whatever they think!) to live at the location, unless of course, the residential moorings are in an area well served with schools, public transport and shops

 

So in other words, it's a minefield. No wonder most authorities just turn a blind eye

Edited August 20, 2009 by magpie patrick

[PaddingtonBear]

Unless there is some enforceable framework/guidance that reflects realities you will just get a situation many times worse than the "mobile homes" farago with clever dick and rapacious land owners digging holes, filling them with water and covering them with crudely constructed 'boats'/floating log cabins etc. I would much rather that the planning authority had the wherewithall to control this.

[Smelly]

Unless there is some enforceable framework/guidance that reflects realities you will just get a situation many times worse than the "mobile homes" farago with clever dick and rapacious land owners digging holes, filling them with water and covering them with crudely constructed 'boats'/floating log cabins etc.

 

BWML perchance???

[Tiny]

BWML perchance???

 

I actually suggested this as a solution to councillors on our local council (paid £12,000 a year min. pay plus expenses) to solve their non stop lament for affordable housing. A nice estate of boats would cost peanuts compared to building houses and could be tucked away in our countryside beside a steam to keep the water fresh. Needless to say they thought I was mad/joking as boats equals gypsies to these all mouth and take the money types while houses means maybe the odd directorship and job for their mates.

 

Incidentally there are loads of houses for sale or rent round here yet the local council and local regional government quango (come the revolution), tell us there are hundreds of houses needed for ? while no local (except certain landowners and housebuilders) agrees.

Edited September 7, 2009 by Tiny

[Lady Muck]

I actually suggested this as a solution to councillors on our local council (paid £12,000 a year min. pay plus expenses) to solve their non stop lament for affordable housing. A nice estate of boats would cost peanuts compared to building houses and could be tucked away in our countryside beside a steam to keep the water fresh. Needless to say they thought I was mad/joking as boats equals gypsies to these all mouth and take the money types while houses means maybe the odd directorship and job for their mates.

 

Incidentally there are loads of houses for sale or rent round here yet the local council and local regional government quango (come the revolution), tell us there are hundreds of houses needed for ? while no local (except certain landowners and housebuilders) agrees.

 

Well this is our society. It's all about money and status. Well don't want any part of it. I don't want to work myself to death paying a huge mortgage. I don't want to be an employee either. I want to enjoy my life, all of it, not just the weekends. I'm doing this.

 

I'm waiting for the 'fun police' to come and take me away, for crimes of 'getting away with it'.

[sueb]

Well this is our society. It's all about money and status. Well don't want any part of it. I don't want to work myself to death paying a huge mortgage. I don't want to be an employee either. I want to enjoy my life, all of it, not just the weekends. I'm doing this.

 

I'm waiting for the 'fun police' to come and take me away, for crimes of 'getting away with it'.

I looked on our mortgage as our pension fund. It worked nicely thank you. Much better than the insurance that was supposed to buy a house when we retired

Sue

[Smelly]

Incidentally there are loads of houses for sale or rent round here yet the local council and local regional government quango (come the revolution), tell us there are hundreds of houses needed for ? while no local (except certain landowners and housebuilders) agrees.

 

The hot question is where's "round here"?