Comment: The Fool - I want a bigger bathroom!

Tuesday 18 September 2018

In this month's column for Connect magazine, the secretive business guru known only as 'The Fool' discusses planning applications and how much input should the Planning Minister have into them.

"We’re less than four months into our new period of government, and, with concerns over re-election being a dim and distant prospect, a number of new Ministers have decided to make certain people’s lives a little more interesting, by getting a few early punches in.

"Firstly, the chap who’s responsible for infrastructure appears happy to put a bit of stick about with the States Complaints Board, refusing to follow their recommendation that they, sorry, we, pay a bit of compo to people who tried to sell their shorefront properties without the necessary tithe to the owners of that shoreline, the public. The gloves are laced, and one senses that we are in only the early rounds of what could prove to be a bruising encounter for all parties.

Whilst on the subject of property, our new Environment Minister also appears happy to step outside if you fancy some, telling us that he intends to change the island’s planning regulations so that new buildings “respect Jersey’s special character,” and that he doesn’t want to see “grand design mansions” (his words) springing up all over the shop. It appears that if you build it, they will indeed come (for you).

(If you’ve managed to find somebody who’s willing to pay well over the odds for your seaside 60’s bungalow, so that they can build their 'grand design mansion,' it looks like you might be in line for quite a shoeing).

The second of these matters actually raises a number of interesting issues, given that any judgement over the suitability of a particular building will usually be a subjective decision. The Minister’s desire that any new buildings should “enhance the character of their surroundings” sounds laudable, but also sounds awfully like anything that doesn’t consist of granite and sash windows is going to be excluded; and that is shameful, because that’s not how progress, or indeed construction methods, develop.

Asking a supposedly independent advisory group to come up with a set of building standards against which to judge new applications sounds awfully like the usual avoidance of responsibility so prevalent in the States; and especially so when the Minister has already provided the outcome he would like to see from that consultation process. 

If we want more environmentally friendly houses, or architecture that doesn’t just seek to turn coastal areas into 18^thCentury museums, the minds of planners need to be open, not closed, to new ideas. Some of our most interesting coastal buildings would have seemed jarring at the time of their construction, but are now preserved (and in some cases legally protected) as part of our cultural heritage, something that is not static, but reflects the lives and tastes of changing generations. 

Pictured: Ministers shouldn't decide the size of islanders' kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms, says the Fool.

The most worrying aspect of the Minister’s proposals, however, do not concern building character, but to restrictions on building size. A ridiculous reference to a limit of 20,000 square feet (a building twice the size of St John’s Manor, requiring, one would assume, quite a coastal plot) looks merely like cheap scaremongering. 

It is the reference to not precluding people "altering their homes for their own family needs” which is more insidious, in that it necessarily involves government assessing what is a ‘need’ as part of its evaluation process, and basing its decision on whether to allow something on that assessment.

A ‘need’ is of course a universal concept, irrespective of wealth or aspiration. Somewhere to sleep, to cook, to eat and to wash are basic ‘needs’.  But given that this assessment of ‘need’ will supposedly be aligned to the size of both a family, and a building, the Minister appears to be suggesting that a government department should be an arbiter of the size of those kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. And that, even for a government which has got used to intruding further and further into people’s lives, appears to be quite a leap. 

As the Infrastructure Minister is soon to discover, where government interference into personal freedoms are concerned, there is a group of people called lawyers who love a fight. And, as distasteful as it may be, the average owner (or those planning to own) coastal properties tend to have more financial resources available to defend for their rights than the average Joe. Let’s hope that the Ministers planning to fight the good fight bear in mind who pays the legal bills should particularly wealthy individuals, who want more than their maximum allowable bathroom size, be up for the challenge."

You can read the Fool's column every month in Connect, here.