A plea to prevent a shared house in Grangetown has led to a bitter row about “local entitlement” and fears of community cohesion.
An application to turn a four-bedroom house in Kent Street into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) prompted a petition urging Cardiff council to refuse permission.
But the landlord applying for the change, who said he lived in the house with friends, said he felt “utterly heartbroken” and claimed the petitioners had misunderstood his plans.
Read more: 'It's a nightmare' Life in the Cardiff suburb home to more than half of the city's shared housing
Neighbours on Kent Street pleaded to the council’s planning committee to stop the house from becoming an HMO, due to the potential impact on parking and the feel of the street.
Councillors on the planning committee heard from both sides during a meeting on Wednesday, January 19, before voting to approve the application.
Tim Bennett also lives on Kent Street and organised a petition with 50 signatures against the application. He told the committee that HMOs bring issues like rats, rubbish and increased parking pressures, and allowing this particular HMO “could bring chaos”.
He said: “Kent Street is a lovely, neighbourly and diverse street. However permitting this HMO could bring chaos to the cohesion and stability of our community. Evidence clearly shows HMOs bring all sorts of issues.
“There are already three tenants and three cars, plus visitors, putting pressure on already pressured street parking and a knock-on impact on neighbouring streets as people park around the corners.
“People here have pride in and are trying to improve the area, so we are appealing to you to turn down this application.”
John Penketh, the applicant, said he “just wanted to live with some friends”, including a lawyer, a lecturer and a midwife. He added it was “discriminatory” to claim they would bring problems like rubbish or rats or should be prevented from living together.
He said: “When we asked friends if they would like to move in with us, in a home we had made for ourselves in Grangetown, the last thing we expected was that it would become a council matter. We still believed that who we chose to live with was a real non-issue.
“We were utterly heartbroken receiving the petition out of the blue, to find out a concerned neighbour had not felt able to speak to us, but instead had gone to every other door and beyond to get signatures for a petition, containing emotive and discriminatory language with wording to the effect that a family looking like ours was not welcome in their community.
“We put out a response letter to signatories on our street in case of misunderstanding. We received apologies from signatories who had felt they had been misled by the person going door to door.”
The owner of a nearby corner shop, Kent Street Stores, even wrote to Mr Penketh and his housemates to apologise for the misunderstanding and added the petitioner “should have done his homework better—sorry for any inconvenience caused”.
Mr Penketh said: “The shop withdrew their support for the petition, and made us feel very welcome in the street. At the heart of this petition isn’t planning guidance—that I believe we meet the requirements of—but an element locally of entitlement beyond that guidance to have a say on what types of households make up what they see as their community.”
Councillors on the planning committee voted unanimously to grant permission for the house to become an HMO.
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