planning permission

[booboo67]

sorry this will be quite long, but any comments would be appreciated. story as follows.
8 semi detached houses in a row. plots 1&2 to be demolished and plots 3,4,5,6,7 &8 to have a large portion of their gardens bought by the developer. the site of plots 1 & 2 is to become the new road to the planned small estate consisting of 3 blocks of 3 bed terraced houses, 2 x 3 bed semi's with garages and 2 x 2 bed apartments over the garages. At the moment there is nothing but gardens and trees on view from a number of neighbouring views.
Deeds for all houses concerned and for many surrounding state the following in the restricted covenants.
1) not more than one dwelling-house with garage and other approved outbuilding to be erected on the land hereby transferred.
2) no building to be erected on the land hereby transferred shall at any time hereafter be used for any other purpose than a private dwelling-house or coach house and stables garage and outbuilings belonging thereto and no trade or business shall at any time be set up or carried on in or upon the land hereby transferred or any part thereof.
3) the purchaser shall not be entitled to any easement or right of light air or otherwise which would restrict or interfere with the free use of any adjoining or neighbouring property for building or other purposes and nothing in these stipulations shall be ddeemed to create a building scheme affecting any such adjoining or neighbouring property or impose on the owner or owners of any part of the ********* park estate any restrictions or obligations in regard thereto
END
none of the above makes much sense to me but does it sound like the 8 houses that are planning on selling land to the developers for the planned new build, can? or is there something in the covenant i have typed that says they cant?
thanks in advance

[themas]

Covenant 1 (not more than 1 dwelling house...) in theory prevents any further development of the site.

However, I would guess that these are old Victorian covenants. They are only really enforceable if the beneficiary (i.e. the person/people entitled to the benefit of the covenant) can be located and decide to enforce them. In very many cases these covenants are actually a dead letter and the developer (or seller of the land) obtains an insurance policy quite cheaply to insure against the remote possibility of someone turning up & trying to enforce the covenant.

I've known of cases where covenants like this existed and the houses have been demolished and large blocks of flats built without any problems arising.

[booboo67]

thanks for the answer. the houses were built roughly in 1933. my house which is neighbouring it was rulled down and rebuilt in 1979 and the same clause is still in on my deeds.

[themas]

I'm a bit surprised such wording was used so recently - reference to coach houses & stables is generally indicative of an older era.

However, either the covenants were carried over from much older documents or someone who could benefit from them was around in the 1930s. (If the original house on your site was built in the 1930s & simply replaced in 1979 then the same clause would remain - it applies to the land rather than being specific to the house.)

Often these covenants are stated in the deed to be for the benefit of someone or some organisation. For example, for the benefit of whoever owns the neighbouring land. If there is anything like this in the deeds then whoever is now the relevant landowner could probably raise an objection to what is proposed.