New rules put in place to avoid high concentrations of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) across Bath and North East Somerset have been introduced.
HMOs are houses with three or more people from two or more families living together in a single residence.
Bath & North East Somerset Council has revised its HMO Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) following a consultation with local residents, resident associations, estate agents, the Bath Student Community Partnership and Bath Spa University.
The changes, which were approved by Councillor Tim Ball, the cabinet member for Planning and Licensing, in a single-member decision, include simplifying the tests the council uses to assess applications for new HMOs and providing additional guidance on the so-called ‘sandwich test’.
Applications will not be permitted where it would result in any residential property being ‘sandwiched’ between two HMOs, or where the application tips the concentration to 10% or more HMO properties within a 100m radius of the application property, or where there is already a concentration of 10% or more.
Councillor Ball said: “HMOs have an important role to play in the local housing offer, providing accommodation for a wide range of people from young professionals to students, immigrants, asylum seekers, those on housing benefit and contract workers.
“However, over recent years we have seen HMOs become concentrated in certain areas. These changes will ensure our communities remain sustainable with a wide variety and balance of accommodation.”
The revised HMO document also includes additional guidance to support updated policies in the Local Plan Partial Update (LPPU), which was recently submitted for examination.
Once the LPPU is adopted, the updated policies will include a requirement for all new HMOs to achieve an Energy Performance Certificate rating of C or above and to provide a good standard of accommodation, in relation to details such as room sizes and noise reduction measures.
The Local Plan Partial Update will also widen the scope of the current policy to include planning applications in the city of Bath for the change of use from residential (C3) to small HMO (C4) and applications district-wide for:
- Change of use from C3 residential (C3) to large HMO of more than 6 people (sui generis)
- New build HMOs
- Change of use to HMO from other uses, for example commercial
- The intensification of small HMOs (C4) to large HMOs (sui generis).
