The affordability of housing in Sydney is a serious issue, and one made all the more urgent by recent events.
In the early hours of Wednesday 2 July a fire at an industrial site in Alexandria destroyed shipping containers and caravans. When fire fighters arrived at the scene, they were surprised to find people living on site who needed to be rescued.
The property only had development consent to operate as a tourist coach depot. But media reports stated that overseas visitors were living at that site because it was affordable, despite the shocking conditions and safety risk.
The idea that a property owner would put people’s lives at risk by offering them an unsafe place to live is abhorrent. But there is no hiding from the fact that this is the reality of our city.
Overcrowding and illegal accommodation is a difficult problem faced by councils across Sydney.
“These weak powers give unscrupulous landlords time to evict tenants and remove the evidence our staff need to take action or start a prosecution.”
The City of Sydney is currently developing a strategy to boost housing diversity and affordability, but no local council will be able to solve this problem on their own. The scale is too large, and our powers to weak.
The City of Sydney area includes 110,142 properties; of which 91,584 are residential and 18,558 are business.
In the last financial year our 24hr Hotline received and logged 113,480 calls and requests, including approximately 1,100 allegations of overcrowding and illegal accommodation.
We currently have 30 officers employed in the Health and Building Unit who oversee the investigation of building compliance and fire safety matters.
When the City receives a complaint about overcrowding or illegal accommodation, our officers investigate using the powers given to local governments in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.
“We need a licencing regime for visitor and tourist accommodation premises, similar to the ones in place for boarding houses.”
These powers are limited. Council officers do not have the right to enter a residential property without the owner’s consent. If our officers are denied entry to carry out an inspection, they can issue a notice of their intention to come back at a specific time and date to do an inspection. If access is still denied, a search warrant must be obtained from the courts.
These weak powers give unscrupulous landlords time to evict tenants and remove the evidence our staff need to take action or start a prosecution.
The City of Sydney is committed to the safety of our visitors, but we desperately need the State Government’s active engagement.
For many years we’ve unsuccessfully lobbied successive the Governments for increased authority to take action about overcrowding and illegal accommodation. But successive State Governments have failed to respond.
We need a licencing regime for visitor and tourist accommodation premises, similar to the ones in place for boarding houses.
And we need to have greater powers to gather evidence of people doing the wrong thing, before they catch on and destroy any chance of a successful prosecution.
NSW’s new Planning Minister Pru Goward recently announcement that she will look at stronger powers for the State Government, including court orders to shut off water and electricity for rogue operators.
These ideas might warrant further research, but to be truly effective state and local government need to work together.
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