Two separate applications to turn family homes into shared houses for couples have been submitted.
Both schemes – from two separate developers – want to turn a large house in a leafy suburb into houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) with multiple double bedrooms.
Ardeshir Diznabi, who runs holiday lettings company Diznabi Ltd, wants to turn a five bedroom home in Ridgeside Avenue, Patcham Village into a seven-bedroom HMO.
And Amir Khan, who owns Taj, wants to turn his former family home in Dyke Road Avenue, Withdean, into a 13-bed HMO – with most of the bedrooms suitable for couples or adult sharers.
The application for the Patcham house says the shared house would be managed by a lettings agent with HMOs.
There would be four double bedrooms on the ground floor, one with an ensuite, and two communal bathrooms, as well as two communal kitchens, a dining room and a lounge.
Three double bedrooms, all with ensuites, would be on the first floor.
The application, written by HFM Design and Build, says: “It is not considered that the additional comings and goings from a small HMO use including 2 additional bedrooms, would create a substantial harm to neighbouring properties when compared to a large family dwellinghouse use.
“Furthermore, noise and disturbance will be controlled by robust tenancy management and compliance with Environmental Health requirements.”
The application for the Dyke Road Avenue house says Mr Khan bought it in 1994, when it had been used as a residential home and day centre, and has since used it to house his large extended family of three adult siblings, partners and children – up to 16 total occupants.
The house would be minimally reworked to form 13 double bedsitting rooms, two or three of which would have ensuite bathrooms and up to four with private cooking facilities.
The others would share two kitchens, two bathrooms with toilet, two shower rooms with toilet and one separate toilet.
There would also be one communal living room.
The application, written by DJH Architectural and Planning Consultants, says: “Although it is more usual for HMO conversions to deliver single occupancy rooms, there is a housing demand in Brighton for double occupancy rooms of high quality for adult professionals, key workers and shorter term contract workers with a local connection, who are not currently in a position to rent or buy a self contained flat.”
Two neighbours have objected to the Patcham application, and one to the Withdean, all citing parking concerns.
Anyone wishing to object may want to note that this proposal goes beyond a normal shared house (Class C4) and would instead be classed as sui generis because of the number of occupants. That means it falls outside permitted HMO use and can be refused on grounds of over-intensification, impact on residential character, and breach of City Plan Part Two Policy DM7. In practical terms, this is one of the strongest and most defensible planning grounds to object on.
Oh, and the planning proposal is BH2025/02489 for Dyke Road Avenue.
Why are we allowing these people to create tomorrow’s slums
HMOphobia alive and well in Brighton & Hove.
Personally, I just think people deserve better than being squeezed into a building as tightly as possible, and professionally, I’ve seen some really unsafe and subhuman standards within multiple HMOs in Brighton. They are not for long-term living. I think we can do better.
I doubt there’s the infrastructure to support an increase in population density in the area.
Disgusting. It’s just making flats on the cheap, expecting people to live like peasants to make this bloke rich. If he gave a care in the world he would build flats or sell it as is. But judging by the hygiene rating at his business it’s clear he doesn’t care about anyone anything but money.
Refuse it
Refuse it. All the nonsense and empty promises they’ve made about the things they’ll do to reduce the impact to the local area should be taken with a pinch of salt. I think I’ll boycott Taj from now on too after reading that!
Is this the same Taj owner whose shop failed poorly on health issues, according to local newspaper, when the health inspectors checked? The time before Taj also failed inspection in food hygiene according to the newspaper which reported dripping blood from raw meat onto foodstuffs below, amongst other issues, if the report was accurate?
If this is the same business owner how can the Council ensure a business owner who allows such poor standards for their food business, guarantee to run an HMO to high standards or will corners be cut with the same disregard to health and possibly safety and other issues in the pursuit of profit?
It may be an agency running day to day management, but the health and safety of the property needs to be up to standards before letting.
A better use of the properties would be if they were sold to a developer to build permanent flats at a higher standard, which would benefit any neighbourhood better than temporary tenants coming and going without putting down roots.
The businessmen still make a profit, so does the developer and permanent homes for people who become part of their neighbourhoods instead of passing through as temporary tenants.
Both areas are not suitable for HMOs. Much better use of the houses for permanent flats where residents become permanent citizens, contributing to their neighbourhoods.
I hope the Council have the forethought to refuse this application. We have overpopulated the City with substandard HMOs for temporary residents at the expense of the permanent population and mainly for the profit of absent landlords who do not live locally or contribute to the circular economy.
(I do not live in these areas, but where I live we have 69% student occupancy which has ripped the heart out of the community with no homes left for families and destroyed the communities locally).
One large house being converted to provide 13 affirdable homes. The neighbouring nimbys want to pull the ladder up so those who cannot afford multi million pound withdrawn houses cannot access decent (hopefully) accommodation
A 13-bedroom sui generis HMO marketed to “adult professionals, key workers, and contract workers” is not affordable housing in any interpretation, and it’s disingenuous to claim it is, especially from someone of your background, Mike. It’s a high-density private rental scheme designed for profit, aiming to avoid regulation and affordable tenure under City Plan.
Your comment is a clear rhetorical trick to make others sound elitist, but here it collapses under scrutiny. True affordability would come from self-contained, energy-efficient flats at social or LHA rents, not from carving up one house into 26 adult bedspaces with two kitchens.
There’ll have to be slum clearances in a hundred years time if this sort of thing continues.
Tell me you know nothing about slums without telling me you know nothing about slums.
That’s an original comment. Why not elaborate?
Wow so he is proposing 26 couples will live in this HMO. Probably hoping to get a SERCO asylum seeker HMO contract if he wishes to do this to a house of this size.
Slum Hmo horrors for maximum profit from the Taj owner who got 0 out of 5 hygiene at Western Road …tip of the ice berg with these Kharn Brothers and extended family.