Naturally, this got me thinking about zoning laws & building codes (I’m not familiar with the British ones), but this bit of the article seems relevant in this respect:
In his ruling the judge also said visitors can see into areas of the flats known as “winter gardens”, which were conceived by developers as “sort of indoor balconies” and not part of the living accommodation.
Residents use the area as living accommodation and so had created their own additional sensitivity to internal gaze.
To me, this reads like technically you can’t look into the flats as such (the actual, private, living accommodations), but in areas where “people can look in from the outside” is to be expected.
Using the “balconies/winter gardens” as full time living accommodations might even violate the terms of the building permit.
Like I said, I’m not familiar with British zoning laws/building codes.
But I am familiar with real estate developers - designing buildings in a way that lets you exploit or create a loophole in the regulations in order to obtain a building permit is not totally unheard of.
