AIBU to object to a large co-living dwvelopment near my home?

Where exactly, what road?

@Mathsdebator lots of people. You save loads of money and they make it easier to budget as all the bills are usually included. Think young professional out of uni, doesn't want to live by themselves as it's boring.

I have a friend who is a civil servant who has since bought a shared ownership 1 bed flat in yorkshire but previously was living in an en suite room and didnt drive..shared kitchen and living. In wolverhampton

My advice to him previously was to take full advantage of 300k stamp duty exemption and to buy something that could serve him long term.. now he has an overseas girlfriend and if they marry and she moves over, will need something bigger than a 1 bed and shared ownership isnt easy to sell.. honestly best thing for him would have been to live there for longer and buy only when he could afford a 2 bed. Think many young people now know this which is why most first time homes are houses rather than flats. I say this as a flat owner but i bought in london where i had to pay stamp duty anyway and still i got a 2 bed. V different in yorkshire.

In South Yorkshire

@Mathsdebator I saw you’d posted on a local page tonight (not stalking you honestly!). Judging by the one in South Shields and this one, it looks like the developers look to buy up previously commercial properties and turn them in to multi-occupancy dwellings.

I love all the deliberately obtuse comments, when people know fine well that a not particularly affluent part of the NE isn’t going to have a market for boutiquey co-living spaces a la Lonon and Brighton.

You need proper reasons, Not just “what ifs” (no matter how valid they may be.
things like parking, extra traffic for the road, flooding concerns if they are creating hard standing over vegetation.
the building not being in keeping and over bearing. That sort of thing.

good luck, not all HMOs are equal, some are really poorly thought out, and some are beneficial to the area and housing market.

This is a nicer area I think, although the rooms are not ensuite, but presumably a residential area and fairly subdued.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/170173583#/?channel=STU_LET

This is a local 17 bedder (for students), much closer to town, in the town in fact and seems to have repurposed a much larger building, looks like previously was office space.

A completely different beast

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/164174072#/?channel=STU_LET

Its a way of developers/landlords avoiding minimum space standards. It might work in London Where there is demand and a lack of space - but in other cities where rents are cheap there's no need for it. It creates a race to the bottom for rental housing.
I expect the people being so obtuse and wide eyed innocent about this on this thread - probably live nowhere near properties like these.

I dont know if people are being deliberately obtuse on this thread

No one is arguing that there shouldnt be rooms to rent, bedsits to rent. Ive made the point that these are necessary and Im on another thread adivsing the OP to rent a bedsit

Its the fact that this small plot seems to be earmarked for 18 rooms, it seems incongruent with the plot and the properties around it and isnt your average house share/landlord offering a room/bedsit

Its not akin to the chichi developments that people keep citing in London or other cities.

There are tons of bedsit rentals in the area by the looks of it for people who dont want long term committment/students/professionals at the uni and hospitals

@Macmeme I posted above that it has already been called in to committee for a full review. To quote the councillors “we believe the proposal raises important and serious questions that deserve greater transparent, scrutiny and public discussion, particularly around its impact on the local community and the suitability of the development”.

this information is COMPLETELY WRONG.

Anyone can object, you don’t need close proximity, and you don’t need to be invited to comment.

Depending on the borough, the develeloper will need to get planning permission for Change of Use.

OP, you need to roll up your sleeves and do some proper research on how to object, contract you local councillors. If you feel strongly, form an action group with others. Read up of planning law. This is stuff any homeowners should know but shockingly few people understand it. The developer is relying on ignorance and apathy to get these conversions pushed through.

good luck opposing this!

Object- on planning grounds- look on planning portal for these.
Contact your ward councillor and ask if they can call it into planning committee if the officer recommends approval. Good luck.

X

I am an Australian teacher who worked in the UK for a year on an exchange. I had a bedsitter and it suited me down to the ground: minimal upkeep and responsibility, not enough space to collect too much stuff, close to transport and my school. Not interesting enough to invest too much emotional energy so that I felt no sadness leaving it or nostalgia afterwards. I knew of three other teachers in nearby schools who were in similar circumstances.

Several such developments are going up round here, but larger, mostly in or near the town centre. They will comprise small studio flats with communal areas. Rents are not cheap from what I gather but they do include bills. All aimed at ‘young professionals’ aka with a job and enough salary to afford the rent.

It can be a lot moving hundreds of miles away from home. Renting for the first time, not being aware of what bills when and who to contact. Also you know no-one.
So long as renters are vetted it means all bills inclusive and bunch of people in the same boat as you like a 2nd family.

**
But they can't scrutinise that way

Of course they can, a PP has said this application has already been called in to the planning committee, the purpose of this is precisely to scrutinise the details and, if necessary, to impose extra conditions - for example putting an explicit ban on turning it into an HMO in future.

You have no idea who the landlord is going to rent to.

I think that that is the whole point, OP is worried that the quiet hard working young professionals might turn out to be noisy HMO residents. There are legitimate reasons why people don't want HMOs near them and one reason is that they can (not always) be noisy and disruptive. They are an easy way for developers to make money when they don't happen to live near them themselves and there are good reasons for restricting the number of HMOs in any one area.

I am sure that the planning application will have explicit details of building proposal.
I'm sure there are, and it's important to read the details on the application. However, when you have been involved in the planning system as long as I have you know very well indeed that where the applicant is a commercial organisation the very first thing they do, after planning permission is granted, is to go to the council and ask to change those details. For example, if I had a pound for every time a developer asked to reduce the number of affordable housing in a new development I would dine out every night

I don't either. I no longer live in Sunderland but the housing there is great value, lots of my friends set up lovely homes on basic incomes. I don't see where there could possibly be the demand for this in the 'professionals' space. My worry would be less on the foreigners route but more ex offenders, drug users etc. being housed.

It's not just possible crime etc. Most people in HMzos are not bad. But HMOs are transient. Too many in small area will create transient population who rarely really cares for/about the area. Plus they do local take housing off from families and others. Many of the not so great landlords cashed in on that with changing houses to HMOs since they make more profit.

Few HMOs, great. Too many, a problem. And I lived in them for years.

I think the concerns around such developments are that they start off looking like a wonderful option for young people starting out in their careers. But they often end up being something completely different after a while. So unless there are covenants prohibiting a HMO style clientele, (needs to be defined) then it is open to all sorts of change of use I reckon.

Is that discriminatory? I don't know, but if they are being marketed to one demographic only, that could be classed as discrimination against another anyway.