Plans to stop whole streets turning into Airbnbs

And when shared housing is not a HMO, as well as other nuggets from Liverpool’s draft local plan

Liverpool’s blueprint for how the city should develop over the next two decades is coming before cabinet tomorrow, and it contains a few, well, interesting developments.

The draft local plan sets out everything from where homes should be constructed to how the council wants to tackle climate change through new builds and, once adopted, will become one of the main documents used to decide planning applications across the city for the next 17 years.

These are important policies because they will shape everything from where apartment blocks are built to whether new takeaways, betting shops and Airbnbs get planning permission in the city. But, what’s in the draft plan and what could it mean for our communities?

Perhaps one of the most eye-catching proposals tucked away within the 200-page behemoth that is Liverpool’s draft local plan is a proposal to stop short-term holiday lets dominating parts of the city.

Under the draft policy, the council wants planning permission for new Airbnb-style accommodation to be refused if it would lead to too many holiday lets in one area or undermine what it describes as ‘balanced and mixed communities’.

In practice, one of the ways the council plans to measure this is by looking at the concentration of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) in an area. Applications would normally be refused where 10% or more of properties within 100 metres are already HMOs.

Anyone applying to convert a property into a short term let would also have to submit a management plan explaining how many people could stay, how long guests would typically visit for, how rubbish will be dealt with and provide details of a property manager contactable 24 hours a day. Bedrooms will also be limited to two people (excluding infants) and subdividing rooms to squeeze in more guests would not be allowed.

If adopted, Liverpool would become the first council in Merseyside to include a dedicated short-term lets policy in its local plan. Sefton already has guidance aimed at limiting the impact of holiday lets, but that sits in a separate planning document known as an SPD. By embedding the policy in the local plan itself, Liverpool’s approach would carry greater weight when planning applications are decided.

Liverpool may not be the only one doing this for long, though. Councils across the city region are currently in some stage of reviewing their local plan following changes to national planning policy and significantly increased housing targets, and the growth of short term lets has not just been of concern to Sefton and Liverpool, so we may well find more of this kind of approach across Merseyside going forward.

Liverpool’s draft plan also introduces a new policy for ’co-living’ developments. This is a type of shared accommodation aimed mainly at young professionals - a bit like modern student halls accommodation, but not for students. If you’re wondering how that’s any different from a house in multiple occupation, you’re not alone, but there are a couple of key differences that mark them apart.

The biggest is that co-living developments are purpose-built rather than created by converting existing houses. They’re also expected to provide much larger communal spaces than a typical HMO, including shared kitchens, lounges and co-working areas.

Developers would have to prove there’s demand for this type of accommodation and also show it wouldn’t reduce the supply of ordinary homes or lead to an over-concentration. The plan also makes clear this type of development is most likely to be appropriate in and around the city centre.

Perhaps the most interesting line in the policy says private rooms ‘must not be self-contained homes or capable of being used as self-contained homes’, which appears intended to stop developers simply rebadging small studio flats as co-living developments, although the plan is much less explicit about how ‘capable of being used as self-contained homes’ would be assessed in practice.

They’re not the only interesting proposals tucked away in the draft, of course. Alongside area- specific plans (which the Monitor hopes to come back to in the coming weeks) there’s also a dedicated policy on build-to-rent developments, aka large apartment blocks owned and managed by a single company rather than sold off individually.

Under the draft plan, operators will be expected to make ‘available’ long tenancies of at least three years, as well as provide on-site management and give tenants more certainty over rent increases. On schemes involving 10 or more homes, at least 20% of them would have to be offered at affordable private rents.

The plan also sets out new policies around betting shops aimed at reducing ‘clusters’ of them. New betting shops would normally only be supported in larger district shopping centres, rather than smaller local and neighbourhood shopping parades. Rules are also planned for hot food takeaways, with both proposals grounded in local public health concerns, according to the draft plan.

Climate change runs through a fair bit of it all too. Alongside policies on cutting carbon emissions and encouraging renewable energy, the council wants new developments to increase Liverpool’s tree canopy cover, improve biodiversity and include more green infrastructure. Particularly topical perhaps given the current heatwave, it also wants buildings designed to cope with hotter summers and more extreme weather in the decades ahead.

Of course, plans are one thing but the proof is always in the pudding. A local plan might well set out the council’s ambitions, but developers can still argue that requirements such as affordable housing, tree planting or environmental measures would make schemes financially unviable.

These are arguments the council has grappled with repeatedly in recent years, at times resulting in controversy over schemes criticised as being ‘let off’ with requirements that could mitigate their impact. Now, with the increased pressure on local authorities like Liverpool to ensure a significantly higher supply of new builds thanks to government housing targets, it‘s unlikely to be an issue going away any time soon, even with a strengthened local plan.

Once cabinet members approve the draft tomorrow, it will then go out to public consultation, meaning people will have an opportunity to comment before it’s submitted to the planning inspectorate for examination, the final stage before it gets adopted to shape how our city is built for nearly two decades to come.

before you start laying those foundations …

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