Re: Change of use from £0 CIL rated development to chargeable development b - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Interesting question but CIL is complicated enough without trying to pre-empt what developers might do to avoid paying it. I think the actual response is to say that while it could happen very few developers are likely to be that cunning simply because they cannot afford to do so. While developers may try harder to ensure property is occupied in some way for the 6 months to avoid paying CIL on redevelopment, building an unviable development in the short term to eventually facilitate a higher value use and avoid CIL is simply not going to happen. Using simple logic, you are charging CIL on retail because retail development is viable and the developer will make sufficient profit even with CIL. CIL is a pretty small part of the development equation anyway. So why would a developer not go straight to a more profitable end use? If retail development is acceptable in planning terms surely land values would reflect that potential use which would also make industrial development even less viable. Anyhow open to other ideas whether anything could be done - I just can't imagine the complexity and uncertainty that would result! What time period are you thinking of for example for "unacceptable" CIL changes? Your suggestion also starts to smack of a policy justification which is clearly ruled out by regulations. My view is to keep things simpler and accept that the odd case might arise. Many developments will not be subject to CIL anyway and given the prospects of some planning free-for-all in respect of changes of use recently announced my concerns would be more focussed about losing the ability to mitigate any effects arising from changes of use than the loss of a small amount of CIL, for example new housing without contributions to education or affordable housing provision.

Graeme, it wouldn't be lawful to "set a CIL charge for industrial but also allow for full CIL relief for industrial units so long as they do not change use to retail in the future" as there is no provision for granting relief of that sort.

Thanks Andrew and Tony. My idea of setting a charge and also relief was all I could think of without having fully thought out it's relationship with the Regs. I think you are right in saying that it would be an unlikely event. It would be a lot of hassle for a developer to go through and it would rely on them having someone lined up for the industrial unit who knew it was only temporary amongst other things. I just wondered if anyone else had considered this sort of issue as it is not unimaginable.

I guess I would be questioning why the change of use accorded with your development plan Graeme....is it / should it be that straightforward to change from industrial to retail use? Rhetorical question. It's interesting that CIL Reg 53 provides for the clawback of social housing relief if the social housing ceases to be social housing (see also the definition of 'clawback period' in CIL Reg 2). Maybe there's a case to be made for such clawback to apply more widely in the event that changes of use are used to avoid paying CIL? But that would mean more amendment regulations, like there aren't enough already?! Sorry, another rhetorical question.

I'm not suggesting it would be a straightforward/easily come by change of use. It is an entirely hypothetical situation - they would have a lot of hoops to jump through to get to that point hence why it would be a very unlikely circumstance, but technically it could happen. The clawback was the sort of thing I had in mind, but perhaps it's too unlikely to really need regulations specific to it?