Application number: 23/P3138

Ward: Graveney

Recommendation: GRANT Planning permission subject to conditions? and a s106 agreement

It was proposed and seconded to defer the item as the applicant was not in attendance to answer member queries.

Jon Berry informed the committee that it was not a requirement for the applicant to attend. The application was reviewed by an inspector and as such there was a risk to the Council of an appeal based on non-determination. Any appeal could be accompanied by an application for costs against the Council. A consideration would be whether or not members reasonably delayed making a decision, the applicant not attending the meeting would not be considered sufficient grounds. There would be possible financial and reputational risk for the Council.

A proposal was made for delegated decision, but this was not seconded.

Members of the committee agreed to proceed with the application.

The Planning Officer presented the report.

There were no registered speakers for this item.

In response to questions raised by the committee, Planning Officers advised:

·       Each application would be taken on its individual merits, very few sites had material planning considerations applied to them in the way that this application did. There was a very strong steer from the planning inspectorate which members had to give great weight to and overall the development was judged to be a good quality development that provided a particular form of housing which met a housing need, that the inspectorate felt was right for the area.

·       The spare room was an attractive addition to give more space for homeworking and did not take away from the shared amenities such as the lounge room and spacious kitchen. As such, the loss of the room would not be grounds for refusal.

·       It was difficult to know what the inspector looked at when considering the volume of HMO’s in the area. Graveney had a higher number of HMO complaints but in proportion to the number of complaints per HMO, Wimbledon Village and Hillside had more than Graveney.

·       It was in the developer’s best interest to maintain the standard of the property to ensure that they could charge the desired rent. 

·       The purpose of the 106 agreement was to make it permit free. The development was in a CPZ so there could not be any car ownership and as such would not add to parking issues.

·       The development had permission for a 6 bedroom HMO, the question before members was around the impact of going to a 7 bedroom HMO.

·       All registered HMO’s were recorded by the HMO department, this would be the 7^th HMO in a road of approximately 200 properties.

·       You could not issue a condition for a person to keep the inside of a property as attractive as one would like for it to be.

·       A condition was recommended which would limit this development to 7 persons in total. This would also be covered within the HMO license.

·       The inspectorate’s decision was based on 7 people.

The Chair moved to the vote on the Officers’ recommendation: Votes For – 7, Against – 2, Abstentions –1.

RESOLVED: That the Committee GRANT Planning permission subject to conditionsand a s106 agreement.