Tough planning rules to end ‘student ghettos’ contagion

The council’s cabinet will decide next week whether to launch a public consultation on introducing new rules from April this year forcing landlords to seek planning permission to turn a property into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) which are usually occupied by students.

The decision follows a marked rise in the past decade of HMOs across a number of areas in the city including the Clifton and Guildhall wards and Hull Road, with council officers warning that unless it is managed, the increase will lead to “unbalanced communities” with increased levels of crime, noise and antisocial behaviour as well as having a negative impact on local amenities such as schools.

The Government’s cuts to housing benefit from April 2012 are also widely anticipated to lead to more people seeking rooms in houses of multiple occupation across the city.

Coun Dave Merrett, York Council cabinet member for city strategy, said: “These proposals seek to achieve an appropriate balance on the impact of conversions to houses in multiple occupation on communities, and there are important questions in the proposed consultation that we need feedback on from local residents, landlords, tenants, students and the higher education sector.”

Under the proposals, the proportion of houses in an area or street would be assessed.

If the proportion of HMOs were above an agreed threshold, planning permission for future HMOs would be recommended for refusal. The consultation will seek views on the threshold of when a community tips from balanced to unbalanced, alongside which approach is considered most appropriate to assess concentrations of HMOs.

In addition to the normal online consultation material and letters sent out to residents, it is also proposed that a focus group event will be set up to explore the issues with a wide range of stakeholders, including representatives from the universities, residents, students, tenants groups and landlords.

If agreed by cabinet on January 10, the proposals for HMOs planning applications will go out to public consultation for six weeks and come into force on April 20.