New Ruling on HMO Licensing in Town Centre - Petition

[BenEsq]

Main/thesinner/26427

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Lions and tigers and bears...Oh my!

[flarewearer]

I did a little survey of registered interest and biography of the 2 MSPs involved;




Pauline Macneil (Lab) MSP is a former president of NUS Scotland (1986-1988) and is on the Board of Management of Glasgow College of Building and Print.

Andrew Arbuckle MSP (Lib Dem) owns three rental properties in North East Fife;

1) value of £135,000 with an annual rental income of £5,040;
2) value of £140,000 with an annual rental income of £5,320;
3) value of £160,000 with an annual rental income of £4,800.


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[BenEsq]

Quoting flarewearer from 10:30, 14th Nov 2006
I did a little survey of registered interest and biography of the 2 MSPs involved;




Pauline Macneil (Lab) MSP is a former president of NUS Scotland (1986-1988) and is on the Board of Management of Glasgow College of Building and Print.

Andrew Arbuckle MSP (Lib Dem) owns three rental properties in North East Fife;

1) value of £135,000 with an annual rental income of £5,040;
2) value of £140,000 with an annual rental income of £5,320;
3) value of £160,000 with an annual rental income of £4,800.


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Nice. Keep it clean with the petitions though guys. AND, thank you to those who have already started sending e-mails.

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Lions and tigers and bears...Oh my!

[flarewearer]

Quoting BenEsq from 10:32, 14th Nov 2006

Nice. Keep it clean with the petitions though guys.

Quite, I wasnt suggesting we look out Arbuckle's properties and brick them, more that it would be some persuasive information to include in a letter / petition.

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[sqril]

Quoting Don from 09:18, 14th Nov 2006
I believe the person who started this thread said it was 5 houses per street in the city centre, so I would assume that means North Street, Market Street, South Street and a few f the streets which come off them. I doubt it would include anything the other side of Kiness Burn

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Daz, makes your whites #gggggg

I used 5 as a fairly abitary, but perfectly possible, example. I do not know how far from the city centre the changes will have effect, probably there will be different quotas for different areas, as ja242 has said, if the motion passes it will be entirely in the hands of the local authorities

[sqril]

see the other thread on this for details of the petitions and an example email to send to MSPs

[Rob]

This is an absolute disgrace. Faceless demagogues manipulating rules implemented to safeguard standards to socially engineer an entire town. Imagine if this were an ethnic minority rather than a group based upon occupation. If this is what you get when you vote 'LIBERAL' then these people have a curious interpretation of the rule. It is as fascistic piece of legislation as I can ever remember.

[Guest]

Just to clear a few things up on this.

Two scottish MSPs have tabled a last minute amendment which will give power to local authorities in Scotland to put quotas on the numbers of HMOs issued in their respective towns.

This is a national motion, with serious implications for St Andrews, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The amendment was lodged by Pauline McNeill, an MSP in Glasgow. The scottish parliament will be voting on the motion on either Thursday or Friday of this week. Because of the nature of the amendment (Stage 3), it does not need to be scrutinised by the parliamentary committee and nor does it give us adequate time to take action against the amendment.

You can see the agenda for the Scottish Parliament this week at at
http://www.politics.co.uk/parliamentary ... 453179.htm
The HMO amendment is in the Stage 3 proceedings as part of the Planning etc Bill where it has been lodged.

As people have already mentioned in this thread, the implications of quotas would be quite detrimental in St Andrews. There is a serious risk of less housing and because of the shorter supply, prices could rise further than existing rent rates. It is already a difficult task finding somewhere to live in January time when the estate agents lists are released (sleeping outside, queuing, ringing round frantically etc), and this motion, if passed will make the accomodation situation in this town even worse than present.

I would urge everyone to make an effort to sign this petition.

Jon Adlard
SRC Member for Private Accomodation

If quotas are placed on houses in and arou

Quoting flarewearer from 08:39, 14th Nov 2006
I was under the impression that HMO licences were brought in to make accommodation for students safer after a number of tragedies, not to allow petty town councillors with a vendetta to set up an anti-student NIMBY quota system.

Challenge it on the stupidity of the system, if the details are correct. 5 houses per street? That means that only 5 houses on Lamond Drive (with it's 200-odd houses) would be available, while there being 5 houses on North Castle Street (with it's handful of houses) also being available. Also, I'm sure there will be plenty local landlords who have second houses who stand to lose out on this.



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[Legion]

The other alternative is that a large corporation will build a private student accommodation block somewhere out of town, with custom facilities, (such as a pool, a gym, a shopping centre) and run a bus service. Might be a bargain, might be a rip off. Certainly won't be as environmentally friendly as living within walking distance.