Domain
Apartments: Packed to the rafters in problems
DateFebruary 1, 2014
Jimmy Thomson
Overcrowded apartments are making a mockery of safety and health issues.
Towering issue: Regis Tower in Chinatown is far from the only building with overcrowding problems.
Photo: Edwina Pickles
It's a problem that starts with notes on lamp posts or online offering cheap rooms in ''luxury'' inner-city apartments. It ends with young people living in conditions we would be reluctant to impose on the chickens that lay our eggs.
Overcrowding in Sydney's apartment blocks was brought into sharp focus this week with the Regis Towers swipe key stoush - where some tenants were locked out of their apartments for alleged breaches of the building's security bylaws.
It was unfortunate for the renters caught in that building's efforts to tighten up security, but its real significance was to suggest we are losing the battle against overcrowding in apartments.
Swipe key stoush: Regis Tower.Photo: Robert Pearce
It can be a matter of life and death. A woman, Connie Zhang, who died in a Bankstown apartment-block fire in September 2012, jumped from a fifth-floor window because she could not get access to a bedroom that had a balcony.
Regis Towers is far from the only building in Sydney with these issues, and its hard-line response was applauded by many.
This week, Owners Corporation Network executive officer Karen Stiles reported hearing of 26 people stuffed into one two-bedder in another Sydney high-rise block. Eric Francis, a building manager, says he has seen a bed made from a board laid over a sink and washing machine in an apartment's laundry room. Building expert Chris Mo'ane says he once opened the front door of a two-bed unit to be confronted by two interior ''front doors''. The unit had been split in half.
Some owners turn one flat into several studios with a shared toilet. But there are easier ways for owners and ''head tenants'' who sub-let rental homes, to make a fast buck.
There's hot bunking, with beds shared on rotation; horizontal sub-division, where internal floors are added; and ''dorming'', cramming as many bunk beds as will fit into a domestic bedroom.
The resulting problems range from an unhealthy lack of light and air in rooms with too many people in them, to additional walls and doors, or even just locks on internal doors, that make a mockery of fire safety measures.
There are reports that up to 12 tenants are being charged $120 a week each, to share a flat that costs the head tenant a little more than $500.
Overcrowding is also bad for buildings. Tenants rarely complain about leaks, blockages or overloaded electrical fuses in case tradesmen report how many people are crammed in. Council officials complain that by the time they have acquired a court or tribunal order allowing them to inspect a flat, all evidence of multi-occupancy has been removed, only to be replaced as soon as the inspectors have gone.
And even if owners corporations can get proof of overcrowding, they face months of mediation and tribunals before a final ruling is made. In buildings where absentee investors are in the majority, that process may never begin.
Using fire safety inspections to gather evidence is fraught with pitfalls. They also require prior notice, but inspectors may not want to be associated with checks that could make it harder for them to get future access. This stalemate is not likely to improve soon. Both strata law and residential tenancies come under Fair Trading but Minister Stuart Ayres said this week his department would not be changing the laws related to overcrowding in the present revamp of the Strata Act.
There will be a new model bylaw limiting residents to two adults a bedroom but it will apply only to new buildings, and even then they can choose not to adopt it. Otherwise, the minister says, his department will be encouraging local councils to take action to identify and deal with overcrowded apartments.
Back to square one. Councils and owners corporations cannot get the evidence to prosecute, so managers of buildings such as Regis Towers have to invent new ways of dealing with the problem.
Many strata experts suggest the simplest solution would be properly authorised and justified spot-checks followed by decisive action against the landlords. However, Ayres says this will not happen on his watch.
There is one reason the government might not be in a rush to do anything. Where will all the tenants go when rentals are reduced to two adults a bedroom?
Sydney's critically low rental vacancy rates rose only marginally in December last year to 1.8 per cent, the Real Estate Institute of NSW says, but this rise was probably seasonal.
Perhaps part of the answer lies in dealing with the blight of so-called ''party flats''. Illegal short-term rentals remove from the market hundreds, and possibly thousands, of homes that should be available to ordinary tenants.
Despite being in residential-zoned buildings, these apartments are rented out like hotel rooms for great profits, to the detriment of permanent residents, owners and tenants alike.
In the past, City of Sydney officials have described this as ''rezoning by stealth'', and just last month a city centre building offering dozens of executive rentals was warned by the council it was illegal. Their advertisements are still online.
It is likely that banning illegal short-term rentals would get more units on the market for longer-term tenants, and there would be fewer opportunities to exploit desperate tenants.
Strata property owners in NSW have been promised that Premier Barry O'Farrell intends to put this state, which introduced the world's first strata laws, back to No.1 in the apartment living stakes by bringing the laws into the 21st century.
With Victoria planning to ban short-term rentals in residential buildings, a failure to deal with either of these issues could mean NSW becoming No.1 in Australia for party flats and overcrowding - and their potentially fatal consequences.
Jimmy Thomson writes the weekly Flat Chat column in Domain and edits strata advice website flat-chat.com.au.
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