AS SHARED houses go, a former nightclub and adjoining office won’t be the smallest after plans to convert the building into accommodation for 26 people were approved by Swansea Council.
A new storey will be added, rear extensions replaced, windows changed and the internal space reconfigured to provide 26 bedrooms, two kitchen-dining rooms, a communal living and dining room, and a gym. There’ll also be a communal terrace.
The detached Walter Road building on one side was Mozart’s nightclub and bar – a quirky late-night haunt in Uplands before the area became the thriving night-time attraction it’s now known as. Immediately next door was a physiotherapy practice and office space.
It lies within a conservation area and has seen better days, notwithstanding proposals in recent years to turn it into flats and a cafe, then just flats.
Council planning officers said in a report that the building has extant permission to be converted into nine flats and that therefore the principle for residential use was acceptable.
The HMO application led to six objections on the grounds of too many such shared properties in the area, and concerns about noise, mess, overlooking, and the standard of accommodation for future occupants of the building.
The council’s HMO team said there ought to be six not two kitchens, while highways officers said the nine parking spaces proposed at the rear fell short of requirements although they also suggested conditions if the application were to be approved.
Planning officers said the two kitchen-dining rooms would be large enough for 26 occupants and that there was also some shared space on every floor, including the communal living and dining room, except in the roof space. Their report said: “It is also noted that the majority of bedrooms are large and allow for people eat and relax in their rooms, as well as the shared amenity spaces.”
Referring to parking, planning officers said the relevant parking guidance now had “reduced weight afforded to it” and that the proposal was considered to be acceptable subject to conditions and applicants FECV Property Assets Ltd agreeing to fund upgrades to road markings and signs on Westbury Lane at the rear, including the prevention of right turns onto Westbury Street.
The planning approval comes with several conditions, one of them being a requirement for secure storage space for at least 26 bikes.
Uplands councillor Peter May said the application would have exceeded a HMO threshold if a rule for the area only allowed 10% of residential properties within a 50m radius to be HMOs, which he’d campaigned for, rather than the 25% level that’s in place.
But Cllr May also said the building faced a bleak future unless someone had come forward with plans to find it an alternative use. “I would hope that any works are sympathetic to the design, bearing in mind the features of the conservation area,” he said.
