A six-bed HMO (house in multiple occupation) has been approved by Cardiff Council despite councillors and 39 residents on the street objecting. Permission for a change in use of the house, 8 Theodora Street in Adamsdown, was granted by the council on Tuesday, September 20.
The house is currently a three-bedroom family home with a downstairs kitchen, bathroom, dining room and lounge, and a rear garden. The changes would see it turned into a HMO with en suite bedrooms across each floor, including an extension on the roof to create another bedroom.
One neighbour submitted a letter of objection on behalf of 39 residents of the street who opposed the plans. In the letter, she cited an adverse effect on the privacy of neighbours overlooked by the roof extension, an increase in noise by the use of the property as a HMO, and an impact on parking and street waste.
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She also said: "The development into the garden and the designation as a large HMO is out of keeping with the character of the neighbourhood and will set a precedent for further garden-grabbing developments which will result in further loss of amenity space and a detrimental impact on the environment. Whilst there is no argument against HMOs per se, such a large change to the existing property and shift in use from a three-bedroom house to a six-bed represents a change to the usual stock present within this community."
Originally the garden of the property would have been dramatically cut in size to accommodate a ground and first-floor extension, but this has since been removed from the plans. The plans submitted to the council's planning department include the downstairs dining room and lounge being converted to two bedrooms, and the bathroom and kitchen being turned into a kitchen-diner.
Ward councillor Owen Jones said that the change in use would be a "watershed" moment for Adamsdown. He said: "We’ve seen the impact that HMO housing has had in Cathays and Plasnewydd where houses have been changed beyond recognition to fit in as many people as possible.
"I’m adamant that I wouldn’t want to see the same for areas of Adamsdown where we still have traditional family housing and, increasingly, young professionals buying or renting first houses. Theodora Street is not a big street, neither are the streets around it.
"The impact of having this many people in one house will stretch amenities. You have to feel for the future residents of the house - future people living there won't have much amenity space."
Councillor Grace Ferguson-Thorne added: "The crux of it is that we’re disappointed in the application being granted. We share the residents’ concerns that this is a massive development for what would traditionally be a family home and it’s incongruous with the rest of the street.
"We’ve seen what Cathays has become and it’s not that we object to students living in Adamsdown at all. It comes back to how many people you’re putting in a home and whether it’s a nice home to live in.
"The more people you’ve got in a home, potentially the more cars you’ve got and the more waste there is, and all the things that come with that. If we’ve got people in that space, how can we make it a nice community for them?"
She was quick to explain that her issue wasn't with all HMOs, saying: "I have no objection to HMOs per se but they have to be in a house that has the space for it. Not: ‘How many people can we fit into this space?’ People deserve to live in good housing."
Cllr Jones said the moment was a watershed because the presence of existing HMOs on the street could be used to justify similar planning applications in future - as, he said, has happened in other areas of Cardiff.
He said: "If you look at Cathays and Roath, they’ve been transformed - what were traditional housing stock are now houses and houses of HMOs where people can’t set down roots.
"Colleagues in those areas really struggled to object to applications because a precedent has been set on the street. It’s important to stop applications now before Adamsdown, which does neighbour Roath, suffers the same problem."
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