This is a small neighbourhood. There are all types of houses there. To your right is half of a regular semi-detached house having become a small pub, and its garage is a barbershop. The other half is still a normal house.
To your left, the two end houses on a terrace are joined to make a shop.
It adds immediate value to the neighbourhood, as the people who live there need walk no more than a few steps to get their milk and bread, to enjoy some social company in the evening, or to get their hair cut.
You'll also notice the density is nothing like US suburban houses with their masses of space all around each one. And if you travel a little further down the road, you'll see there are more shops not that far away!
Planning permission is handled by the local council, but it is mostly standardised. This would be conversion of usage class C3 (normal house) to A1 (shop) or A4 (pub). Councils have a list of things they're allowed to consider in planning applications (and solicit comments from the public for 21 days), called Material Considerations, and things they're not allowed to consider.
For example, they are allowed to consider traffic and parking, appearance of the area, noise and disturbance, loss of sunlight or daylight, etc. But they are not allowed to consider the effect on business or property values, or the reputation of the applicant.
And the best part is that we don't even need to get this dense. Americans love our greenery, and there's space for that, just not multi-square-mile neighborhoods with NO commerce and housing only a few hundred (or a few dozen!) families. This is where planning IS helpful: identifying places to keep green-space, while also filling in dead-space.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.5577247,-0.238575,3a,75y,287...
This is a small neighbourhood. There are all types of houses there. To your right is half of a regular semi-detached house having become a small pub, and its garage is a barbershop. The other half is still a normal house.
To your left, the two end houses on a terrace are joined to make a shop.
It adds immediate value to the neighbourhood, as the people who live there need walk no more than a few steps to get their milk and bread, to enjoy some social company in the evening, or to get their hair cut.
You'll also notice the density is nothing like US suburban houses with their masses of space all around each one. And if you travel a little further down the road, you'll see there are more shops not that far away!
Planning permission is handled by the local council, but it is mostly standardised. This would be conversion of usage class C3 (normal house) to A1 (shop) or A4 (pub). Councils have a list of things they're allowed to consider in planning applications (and solicit comments from the public for 21 days), called Material Considerations, and things they're not allowed to consider.
For example, they are allowed to consider traffic and parking, appearance of the area, noise and disturbance, loss of sunlight or daylight, etc. But they are not allowed to consider the effect on business or property values, or the reputation of the applicant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_consideration
As you can see... if your country's laws support repurposing of property, then people will do it, and make a better world for themselves.