As promised in our last post, directors from Madison Oakley attended yesterday’s BANES/Arup feasibility workshop on proposed planning legislation changes for HMO property in Bath. We were joined by several of our local landlords and noticed a fair few more familiar faces in the audience! Several other agents attended as did developers, local councillors, student union representatives & local residents of Bath.
We note that Arup have undertaken to deliver their findings to BANES around Christmas, meaning that any implementation or further discussion will occur during 2012 (and likely to be Q2 2012 at that). It was also mentioned that other UK councils who have instigated an Article 4 have allowed a 12 month notice period prior to implementation. The majority of cities have also decided to implement throughout a city as opposed to targeting individual areas.
Sadly, the main focus of some attendees seemed to be on the “student problem”. This ignores the obvious fact that not all HMO properties in the city are occupied by students – in fact many young professionals & transient workers rely on house shares for reasonably priced accommodation in a very expensive city.
Figures were given on density of HMO properties within the city (highest in Oldfield Park but also quite widely spread across the city), as well as some extremely interesting statistics on anti social behaviour complaints (it came as a great surprise to some attendees that Oldfield Park as an area scores rather well in these stats against some other areas of the city not known for HMO density!).
It seems that the overriding ethos behind this proposal might be to “balance” or “disperse” the impact of students among the community. With so many HMO’s already existing within the city, it would be difficult to see how preventing another small percentage of homes being converted would fulfill this criteria. If the real complaints centre around student behaviour or rogue landlords, surely there are better legislative means to control the problem?
It was pointed out by some objectors to the proposal that a major reason students have congregated in Oldfield Park and Lower Weston is down to the Orange bus route – it would not be likely that investors and students alike would be comfortable moving to other areas of the city that are not served by convenient public transport routes. In addition, if the Article 4 direction is implemented (and is not retrospective), there is more of a chance that areas of current high student density will actually stay student dominated areas for a very long time. Lastly, if the proposal was implemented, any existing HMO’s would be so attractive value wise to investors that they would be even more unlikely to be sold to local couples or families than at present.
A highly charged debate – we await Arup’s conclusions with interest!
Further update – as of 10/11/2011, we have received the following information from BANES
“The study on the potential to implement an Article 4 Direction to control the increase of HMOs in Bath is due for completion by early December 2011.The Council will be then consider the findings of this study, with a decision anticipated early in the new year. All of those on this contact list will be updated when there will be Committee discussion on this issue by elected members. Furthermore, should the Council decide to implement an Article 4 Direction additional public consultation will follow, which we will invite you to be involved in.”
Further update – as of 02/12/2011, we have received information from BANES that the draft report from Arup is now available and will be discussed at a Cabinet/DC Committee meeting on 14th March 2012. Early indications from the report are that the density threshold for HMO change of use might well be 20% and any Article 4 Direction is very likely to be implemented with a 12 month lead in time.
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