Prop-arazzi

After the Budget yesterday here is a run down of the Government’s forthcoming announcements. Does anything here impact on you, your business, your outlook, if so please make sure you get in contact with us at Weber Shandwick Property - the leading property communications team in the UK and Ireland.

Coming Up:

Sale and rent-back market
The Office of Fair Trading will lead a study of the market this year, focusing on consumers’ experience of these arrangements, and consider options to strengthen consumer protections

Regional strategy
The government will shortly consult on bringing together the Regional Economic Strategy (RES) and Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) into a single strategy setting out housing plans alongside wider economic, social and environmental objectives

Brownfield land
The government is introducing measures to reform the tax incentives for developing brownfield land to make them more environmentally sustainable. The government will consult on draft legislation in the summer (Red book, Chapter 5, pg 86, 5.40).

Zero carbon buildings
The government sets out an ambition for all new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019. The government will consult this year on the timeline for this ambition and its feasibility, and review progress in 2013. (Red book, chapter 1, pg 7, 1.17) and

Green Homes Forum
In order to support effective delivery and to harness the enthusiasm and expertise of community groups and other interested parties, the government will convene a Green Homes Forum in the autumn. The government is also interested in exploring what more can be done to raise awareness amongst the public of the ways and benefits of improving domestic energy efficiency.

Zero-carbon homes
The government will set out the definition for a zero-carbon home for the purposes of the 2016 ambition by the end of 2008, following a consultation in summer

Building allowances
Legislation will be introduced in Finance Bill 2008 to give effect to changes relating to industrial building allowances, enterprise zone allowances and agricultural buildings allowances 

Relief for zero-carbon flats
Legislation will be introduced to extend SDLT relief to cover new zero carbon flats

Notification and rate thresholds
Legislation will be introduced to change the rules for persons notifying HMRC about land transactions. The “£600 rule” will also be changed and, from later this year, agents will be allowed to sign declarations in the certificate that no stamp duty land tax (SDLT) is due
 
Anti-avoidance legislation affecting partnerships
Legislation will be introduced to amend provisions to ensure that, where there is a transfer of an interest in a property within an investment partnership, there will be no charge to SDLT

House prices indices
The government will work with industry to investigate the possibilities for the development of detailed house price indices which would help the development of insurance on house price movements

On Friday The London Assembly’s planning and spatial development committee published a report on the use of Section 106 Agreements …. so we thought we would take a look at it for you.

Key points:

- The planning system is designed to balance development with the economic, social and environmental effects on the wider community. Section 106 (S106) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 ensures local authorities can acquire contributions from developers to both secure the infrastructure needed to support their new development(s) and also to mitigate the impact of the development. These contributions can be both financial contributions and also benefits in kind.

- Direct financial payments to London boroughs could exceed £1 billion in the next ten years with hundreds of millions more in terms of ‘in kind’ benefits such as new affordable homes, improvements to the public transport network and new open spaces provided directly by developers themselves.
 
- The LA review has found that developers generally support having to contribute to ‘mitigate’ the effects of their proposals. But, they also need to be clear what is likely to be expected of them at an early stage of the process – and even before they apply for planning permission – to calculate whether their development can be viable.

- The skills and resources of the local authorities and their staff involved in negotiating S106 are hugely important, yet one third of boroughs do not think they have enough staff devoted to S106. This problem is compounded by high staff turnover, which is increasing, and means that experience is lost to the organisation: Boroughs need to have not only staff with adequate skills to negotiate S106 – they need to have enough of them devoted to this particular aspect of the planning process.
 
- The LA recommend that boroughs and universities set up some form of formal post qualification and training specifically aimed at improving S106 skills.
 
- The LA also recommend the boroughs and Mayor think about pulling together those local authority planners, valuers and lawyers who already have the widest range of experience of the most complex planning agreements and making their skills available to the rest of London when they are needed.
 
- The LA feels there would be merit in ring fencing some of the S106 monies to direct towards training for planning officers in negotiation skills: Ultimately this could be self-financing if better skilled staff were able to lever in more S106 funds as a result of better training and skills.
 
- Outside the professionals there is an important role for the local councillor and the communities that they represent. They are the ones who should be aware of potential applications that may have negative impacts for their local area. They should also be involved in developing priorities for any money that S106 may generate and making sure that agreements are upheld and the money is spent.

- Government guidance quite clearly states that councillors and communities should be more involved in devising policies for managing planning obligations through Statements of Community Involvement.

- Boroughs must do more to ensure that councillors and the community have sufficient knowledge of the S106 process and the available information about what is going on. There must be a policy that is in place and clearly communicated to the community that makes the process transparent and accessible for those who want to be involved.

- Boroughs should prioritise the monitoring of S106 agreements. They should also make available, in a simple and accessible format, all details of signed S106 agreements along with the regular monitoring reports of how those agreements are being implemented.

- From now on it is not just the boroughs in London that will decide planning applications and negotiate S106 agreements. The GLA Act 2007 gives the Mayor new planning powers that will allow him to take over and determine small numbers of applications that have potential strategic importance for London. Details of these planning powers are still being finalised but it is expected that they will come into effect in April 2008.

- While there has been no formal statement from the Mayor about exactly how he will exercise his new planning powers, including his policy and priorities for S106 negotiations, the Committee expects the Mayor to act in a way that reflects our calls for boroughs to increase transparency and accountability throughout the process.

The first Cereal Networking event of 2008 proved to be a real success yesterday morning.  Liz Peace, Chief Executive of the British Property Federation, delivered her views on the challenges facing the property market in 2008 to an audience which included senior representatives of Land Securities, DP9, RICS, Teacher Stern Selby, Turley Associates and many others.

Following her assesment of the challenges, Liz expanded on:

• the challenges and opportunities for the property industry and new Minister for Housing and Planning, Caroline Flint
• the perception that in the past the property industry has made too much money (!)
• Changes to leasecode and valuation systems
• The property industry under the Conservatives
• What might be in the budget - which will be held during MIPIM week
• The role and scope of Brussells and the European Property Federation
• Stamp Duty evasion and VAT codes
• The London Mayor’s new powers and the implications for London Boroughs.

Watch this space for details of the next Cereal Networking event.

The Government has come under pressure after official figures showed that it was likely to miss its target for the number of new homes built in England. DCLG had set target of increasing the annual build rate in England from 160,761 in 2006 to 240,000 in 2016. However, official figures have shown that the actual number of new constructions begun in the first nine months of last year fell by 4.9 percent.
Despite Gordon Brown’s efforts, senior figures in the property industry are doubtful the Government will now reach its target of building 2 million homes by 2016. Ian Robertson, former Chief Executive of Wilson Bowden said: “The Government’s targets will be blown by the housebuilding industry acting commercially. The Government had always expressed concerns about [a downturn] as one of the vulnerabilities of its plan.”
The news came as Halifax reported that the combined price tag of the 22 million homes in the country has more than trebled in the past decade, rising by 208 per cent to over £4 trillion.

Pictured: Artists impression of the U2 tower which has the potential to be the tallest building in Ireland

The Dublin skyline is to rise with the release of a plan by Dublin City Council next month  which will set out the direction for all high-rise and high density developments.

The plan entitled: Maximising the City’s Potential -  A Strategy for Height and Intensification is expected to show which areas of the city the Council favours for intensive development of ‘high rise’ and ‘landmark’ developments.

Guide to Dublin City Council height terminology:

High Rise = 50 - 150m
Super High Rise = above 150m

So it seems that due to lower density ‘inner city’ areas than those found in the UK and an acceleration in urban sprawl in the past decade, the direction for development will be up rather than out. It will be interesting to see if this new policy is monitored by other city councils across the island such as Belfast as it rapidly develops across the city postcodes.

As another Ford hits the scrap heap - Martin Ford, Chairman of the Aberdeenshire Council’s infrastructure services committee that is - ‘The Donald’s’ plans for his 556 hectare pitch and putt in Scots-land-shire looks like it is still on.

With the Aberdeenshire Council making a dramatic U-turn after an embarrassing bit of, whats seems to be,  ill advised planning PR last week, the ‘application’ has now been ‘called in’ by the Scottish Executive for ‘another look’. Doesn’t look like Trump and his helicopter accompanied ‘Trumpites’ paid too much attention to his community relations and public affairs with the local Councillors and local residents. Lesson to be learned here is - regardless of the amount of money you have to build, or how much investment you will bring to the local area, decisions (yes even this one) are made by real people and real elected people with local mandates and you have to convince them that a vision is achievable and sustainable for local people and local businesses. Sometimes the cut and trust of deal breaking on the 73rd floor in a building overlooking Central Park just ain’t the way some things are done.

One burning question that everyone wants to know the answer to Donald and I think the debate should start here- who does your hair laddie?

Conservative Member of Parliament for Sevenoaks, Michael Fallon MP,  has proposed a bill in the House of Commons  to give councils the right to implement the so called ‘Merton rule’ which will enshrine in law the rights of councils to insist that developments meet a certain amount of their energy needs from onsite renewable sources.

According to Building magazine the policies have been proposed by about 100 councils but as yet does not have the backing of the Government.