The government is allowing developers to convert offices into homes without planning permission, but can developers, architects and contractors meet the challenges?
Office, sweet office
The government has decided that developers can convert offices to residential property without requiring planning permission. Why?
- To provide badly needed homes for local people and ease the UK’s national housing shortage.
- Bringing underused offices back into effective use should help create jobs in the construction and services industries, and regenerate town centres and former commercial areas.
- These new homes will bring a greater resident population to high streets, increasing footfall and supporting local shops.
Change of Use Class from B1(a) – offices to C3 – dwelling houses.
A dream for developers . . .
Developers stand to profit from well-positioned conversions as residential space is generally worth a great deal more than office space.
So when can developers begin?
- April 2011 – Parliamentary consultation: Relaxation of planning rules for change of use from commercial to residential.
- July 2012 – Summary of consultation responses and the government’s response to the consultation.
- September 2012 – Announcement in Parliament that development rights would be altered to enable change of use from office to residential purposes, without requiring planning permission.
- 30 May 2013 – changes came into effect.
Which means . . . NOW! But developers had better be quick. The changes are initially limited to three years, after which there will be a review of the policy.
Listen to Laure Duhot, Director, Strategic Markets at Grainger PLC speak in favour of the policy.
Council backlash
When the policy was announced, many councils feared that an uncoordinated building boom could flood parts of the markets with substandard properties or create long-term problems for commercial districts.
- 165 councils applied to the government for an exemption.
- Just 17 full or partial exemptions were granted (11 of them in London).
- Some authorities unsuccessful at gaining an exemption have pursued legal action to block the policy’s impact.
E.g.
– Brighton & Hove City Council
– Islington Council
– Lambeth Council
‘Landlords . . . have been handed a free rein to turn offices into flats – it’s simply unacceptable. The new regulations could harm trade in [these] key areas and raise the prospect of job losses, lost business rates and reduced funding for infrastructure.’
Pete Robbins, cabinet member for housing and regeneration – Insidehousing.co.uk
What construction opportunities will the controversial policy offer?
Some office buildings already offer generous heights and daylight levels and will require limited intervention.
For instance, many councils have a surfeit of 1960s and 1970s office stock, much of it empty, and their three-metre floor-to-floor heights, impressive views, and relatively open concrete structural frame make these well suited for residential.
Other office to residential conversions will throw up a number of interesting logistical and technical challenges for property developers, architects and contractors.
For example, some conversions will need to be intelligent re-inventions of deep-plan office space, incorporating courtyards, light wells and other communal areas. Carving these spaces from existing floor plates may require major modifications to the building frame, as could the inclusion of extra services and drainage needed for new bathrooms and kitchens.
Externally, many offices have large windows and balconies that may fall well below thermal requirements under Part L 1B as well as the aesthetic needs of potential tenants, making a re-clad the only option.
Looking to the future . . .
All this talk of office to residential conversion perhaps masks the underlying problem of the inflexibility of current building design.
If architects focus in future on designing new structures and spaces that are suitable for different uses and end-users, these planning issues may well disappear.
