A new application to build a student accommodation block in the back garden of a thirteen bedroom Union Road student House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) has been submitted to Exeter City Council.
It follows refusal of an earlier application for the same site, upheld by a planning inspector in October.
The new proposal, submitted earlier this month, is for a single storey 136 square metre block with six bedrooms and a separate living, kitchen and dining area.
The original proposal was for a two storey, ten bedroom block with the same footprint. It received 61 public objections without a single supportive response.
It was refused by council planning officers in December last year on grounds including its scale and intensity, the impact it would have on neighbours and its incompatibility with the St James Neighbourhood Plan.
3D view of original development proposal. Image: Ercle.
The applicant appealed the refusal in May this year, before separately applying to build a six bedroom two storey student accommodation block in the back garden of another student HMO he also owns in Pennsylvania Road.
In the October decision dismissing the appeal, the planning inspector said the development would be “uncharacteristically prominent, bulky and of a density and massing that would be incompatible with the immediate and surrounding townscape setting”.
The Pennsylvania Road application prompted 26 public objections. It was refused by planning officers last month.
3D view of revised development proposal. Image: Ercle.
The applicant owns a total of twelve licensed HMOs in Exeter, providing 91 bedrooms, according to the city council register. At a typical rent of £500pcm per bedroom, the annual income from these houses would be around £550,000 each year.
It is not known whether the applicant also owns unlicensed HMOs in the city, or how many if so.
Unlicensed HMOs make up the bulk of residential housing that is being used for student accommodation in Exeter, but the city council does not know how many there are or where they are all located.
