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City Of York Council |
Committee Minutes |
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Meeting |
Customer and Corporate Services Scrutiny Management Committee (Calling In) |
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Date |
9 May 2022 |
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Present |
Councillors Crawshaw (Chair), Baker, Hook (Substitute), Musson, Norman, Vassie (Substitute), Wann (Substitute) and Daubeney (Substitute) |
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Apologies
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Councillors Fenton, Hollyer, Orrell, Pearson and Rowley |
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14. Declarations of Interest
At this point in the meeting, Members were asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary interest or other registerable interest they might have in respect of business on this agenda, if they have not already done so in advance on the Register of Interests. No additional interests were declared.
15. Public Participation
It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.
16. Called-in Item: Review of the "Controlling the Concentration of Houses in Multiple Occupation" Supplementary Planning Document 2012 (revised 2014) in response to the Council Motion of December 2021
Members considered a report which set out the reasons for the call-in of the decisions made by the Executive on 21 April 2022 in respect of the review of the “Controlling the concentration of Houses in Multiple Occupation” Supplementary Planning Document 2012 (revised 2014), along with the Committee’s remit and powers in relation to the call-in.
The decisions were contained in the extract from the relevant Decision Sheet at Annex A to the report. The original report to the Executive Member Decision Session was attached as Annex B. The decisions had been called in by Cllrs Doughty, Kilbane, Pavlovic and Warters for the following reasons:
a) “The decision reached does not satisfy the will of Full Council with regard to the motion approved on the 16th December, something of a constitutional anomaly but also the decision from Executive;
b) Does not provide any explanation as to why a review of this HMO SPD cannot take place alongside and separate from the LP process to assess best practise policies and thresholds as used by other local authorities;
c) Indicates that the current HMO SPD and its use when assessing new HMO applications is ‘robust’ when clearly it is not and has not been for some years now based on planning application determinations and of course the report from the LGSCO.”
Under the provisions of the council’s constitution and the
requirements of Local Government Act 2000, the following
options were available:
· A – not to refer the matter to Executive, in which case the
original decision would be confirmed, or
· B - refer the matter to Executive with specific
recommendations.
At the invitation of the Chair, two of the Calling-In
Members, Cllrs Warters and Pavlovic, addressed the committee in turn, explaining the reasons for the call-in and their individual positions on the Full Council motion. They also responded to questions from Members of the committee. The Executive Members for Economy and Strategic Planning, Finance and Performance and Housing and Safer Neighbourhoods then addressed the committee to explain the reasons behind the Executive decision and respond to Members’ questions.
The meeting was adjourned from 19:05 to 19:13 for a break after which Members put questions to the officer responsible for the report at Annex 2.
During the responses to questions, Members were informed
that:
· Short term holiday lets did not fall under the umbrella description of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO)
· It had not been considered the best course of action to ask the planning inspector for an informal view on the proposed change to a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). However, the officer report to Executive had not ruled this option out.
· Officers were willing to work with Members to draft effective motions.
· More frequent information from an HMO registration scheme would provide better data for planning purposes. The licensing of HMOs would improve the quality of the accommodation provided and would also contribute to the data set.
After a full debate which centred around the potential impact of delaying the Executive Member decision further on the progress of the Local Plan and the alleged failure to comply with the motion on HMOs approved by Full Council on 16 December 2021, it was moved by Cllr Vassie and seconded by Cllr Daubeney that:
Option A be approved and the original decision not be referred to Executive.
A vote was taken it was
Resolved: That Option A be approved and that the original decisions be not referred to the Executive for further consideration.
Reason: There being no agreed grounds to refer the decisions to the Executive for reconsideration.
Cllr J Crawshaw, Chair
[The meeting started at 5.32 pm and finished at 7.52 pm].