| UsaSatsui wrote: |
| Alowishus wrote: |
| Fun Fact: In the United Kingdom you don't own the land your house is built on. You rent it. Any development you wish to carry out on said land must be applied for. |
Clarification of fun:
1: The government owns all land. The landowner isn't really "renting" it, he just owns the rights to use it as he sees fit. The government can claim the land back at any time but rarely does so.
2: The reason you need to apply for development is because of zoning laws and regulations, not because you're a tenant.
3: Technically, it's the same way in the US and in all countries that use English common law. |
Clarification of your clarification.
1. Actually the land is not owned by the government. In the United Kingdom it is owned by a number of land owners or owned by the Crown.
E.g. in the case of the crown:
"The Crown Estate is one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom with a portfolio worth £7.0 billion, with urban properties valued at £5.179 billion, and rural holdings valued at £1.049 billion; and an annual profit of £240.2 million, as at 31 March 2012.[2] The majority of the estate by value is urban, including a large number of properties in central London, but the estate also owns 144,000 ha (356,000 ac) of agricultural land and forest"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate
and you do have to rent the land called "Ground Rent" (in NI anyway) as stated in this statute:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/nia/2001/5/contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_rent
"Ground rent, sometimes known as a rentcharge, is a regular payment paid by the owner of a leasehold property to the freeholder, as required under a lease. A ground rent is created when a freehold piece of land or a building is sold on a long lease."
2. Well i don't want to sound like i'm being a dick but i know all this because my degree is in town planning aka i am the person who deals with requests for development. I will design the development plans in which zoning is laid out. That would be me and the planning team i am in who deals with that.
I will point out that the planning system in the states is NOTHING like the system in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
I can easily say this because i have been told by members of the Royal Town Planning Institute that i cannot work in the US because their system is so different.
The UK system has more in common with the Canadian and Australian systems. The USA planning system is more focused on economic development and is more right leaning. Also people like you, a member of the public have more power in the US system.
In the UK and Ireland it's seen pretty much as a strictly professional occupation and basically your concerns can be heard but we can give 0 value to them if we want. In the US your system allows a sort of democratic approach and politics are very important in driving that.
Politics are important here but it's different.
Zoning law is only one aspect of planning. That will be in the development plans. Obviously you have to be in general conformity with the plans but there can be some sort of deviations.
Policy plays a big part of planning too. Albeit the policies are designed from statute and when i say designed i mean the policies exist because of statute. Nothing in statute has the ability to dictate the content of policy.
Obviously because you a tenant isn't the reason. Like it's a legal requirement. It's not necessarily true for all developments. There are some developments which you can carry out without legal or planning permission.
See:
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/responsibilities/planningpermission/permitted/
They are granted automatically from government. The planning legislation in the UK anyway also varies by country. For a while in NI during the troubles it was dealt with by Westminster aka our Legislation was drafted from there.
But since devolution our own Planning Act NI 2011 has been released. There all some similarities.
I could go on forever though. I will stop here lol.
EDIT: Sorry i forgot your third point.
3. What you say is true for most law. Planning Law is an exception. There is no way that Planning Law could have been translated to the USA.
That is because the first planning legislation was created in 1909 approx.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Town_Planning_Act_1909
There may have been an earlier one, i can't remember. So there was no long tradition of Planning Law to be given to the USA.
Also the first significant - and by that i mean actually created the system we have today was in 1947.
So there are similarities between our systems but overall they are quite different. Our statute would not be the same.
I mean you have planning applications and zone land but your planning system and how it is organised (which is basically what is outlined in planning statute) is fundamentally different.
