Edinburgh Council’s consultation on its proposed Short-term let control area opened at the end of last week and will run until November 5. Angus Dodds reflects on how the Council is moving fast to use new powers to create such a zone, while suggesting that the real area of public interest in this matter may be at the end of this month when Proposed City Plan 2030 comes to Committee.
As anticipated in our July blog, after agreement at its Planning Committee of 11 August, the City of Edinburgh Council is moving swiftly to consult on the boundaries of a new short-term let control area encompassing the whole city. This follows new Regulations introduced by the Scottish Parliament in April that allow Councils to establish such zones where the securing of planning permission for such uses will be compulsory. The exception being where they can evidence that they have been using them as short-term lets for more than 10 years. Ministers can be expected to agree to the final boundary of the control area early in 2022.
The whole city approach to the initial proposed boundary is perhaps not surprising, as it does keep open the possibility of shrinking the control area at the conclusion of the consultation; although it may well remain as currently proposed, given fears that a tighter zone would merely create a ‘ring’ of such properties around any smaller control area.
Aside from requiring planning applications from all those within any affected zone, the precise boundaries of the final area are perhaps less important to property owners than understanding the criteria the Council will apply when determining whether their compulsory applications will be acceptable or not. The wording of the relevant draft policy that is due to go to Committee on 29 September as part of the ‘Proposed City Plan 2030’, will therefore be of critical importance
The supporting papers to the August Planning Committee report stress that ‘the designation of a short-term let control area … does not mean a blanket ban on such uses: each case will have to be assessed on its own merits’. At the same time however it also rather alarmingly notes that ‘regular use of any tenement flat as a short term let is inconsistent with tenement living and generates a high number of complaints to the Council’.
Given that the vast majority of the 3533 ‘entire properties’ shown as being available across the city as short-term lets in March 2020 are likely to be found behind tenement doors, and that the existing policy used to assess these applications in the current Local Development Plan does not offer much support to such uses in these settings, the question needs to be asked: under what circumstances will the Council be happy to support these in the future?
The reasons the Council wants to introduce a short term let control area have been well-rehearsed. Loss of long-term rental housing, loss of residential amenity, and loss of an area’s character are well-understood as important issues by the many short-term let property owners and managers that Contour Town Planning has been liaising with on this issue. However, its also clear that there are distinct areas within the city where individual circumstances of geography and proximity have led to a greater concentration of this Use Class as a positive and necessary response to a burgeoning tourism economy. Such circumstances have not incidentally escaped the attention of Scottish Government Planning Appeal Reporters.
It is easily understood why the Council should want to use the planning system to better control the enforcement of such uses, and perhaps why it should look to purpose-built tourist accommodation as the main provider for short-term stays. However, given the complex investment contingencies behind every new hotel, it is illusory to think that every permission granted for a purpose-built hotel inevitably results in new bedspaces delivered in rapid course thereafter. The highest annual number of hotel room completions delivered to date in Edinburgh was in 2019 when 1268 were completed. Such a delivery rate won’t compensate any time soon for the large-scale loss of short-term visitor accommodation if the Council feels that only a radically restrictive policy will be appropriate in the next Local Development Plan.
Put simply, a blunt embargo on short-term letting in tenements would largely remove a popular style of visitor accommodation in the city, just as the St James Quarter and the Johnnie Walker Experience open, just as Edinburgh Airport gears itself up to double passenger numbers by 2030, and just as Visit Scotland’s latest Innovation Insight research anticipates visitors craving to live “like a local and creating memories discovering their own authentic Scotland.”
Edinburgh quite rightly needs to carefully consider how development management decisions should be approached in order to safeguard housing – the undisputed number one priority in securing a sustainable future for the capital. However, it would be regrettable if no creative thinking was applied to the challenge of considering how and in what circumstances short-term lettings could play a part in the future of the Edinburgh tenement – a built-form synonymous with the capital since the Middle Ages, and still the city’s dominant building typology.
Planning is increasingly asked to try and equitably manage an increasingly complex built landscape. The challenge of framing a policy for Edinburgh in relation to short-term letting seems like a splendid example of managing exactly that. Contour Town Planning will be watching developments in this area with great interest toward the end of this month. If you would like to discuss anything mentioned above or to have a general planning chat about short-term letting in the Capital or further afield, please do not hesitate to get in touch with Angus Dodds 07729 873829 or by email angus@contourtownplanning.com