A Current Affair last week ‘exposed’ an apartment building that doesn’t allow families with kids – or even pregnant women – to buy into it.
As a result, according to their story, the Heritage listed Glenfalloch building in Brisbane’s New Farm area is populated entirely by young urban professionals and retirees.
There was much shock and horror on the ACA track, with lawyers saying this was discriminatory and illegal – which seems to be the case under federal Age Discrimination laws.
But there’s the law and then there’s the way things work. In company title buildings like Glenfalloch, you have to front up for an interview with the Board, or committee, who decide if you are a suitable person to come and live in there. This is where, potentially, parents and even the pregnant get weeded out.
It’s also where party brats and hot-bunking, multi-tenanting landlords get the ‘don’t call us’. That’s discrimination too … but the good kind. I, for one, would be more concerned if this building excluded certain races or gay couples.
Why? Because I don’t think this is about ‘human rights’ at all – it’s about money. Company title apartments are cheaper because it’s harder to get mortgages and they are known to have restrictive rules.
It seems some people want to have their cake and eat it. They want the cheap apartment with the nice views but they don’t want the restrictions that come with the reduced price. Why else would you take your children to live in a building where they clearly aren’t welcome?
Is it illegal? Is it discriminatory? One person quoted on the TV item said the legality hadn’t been established because nobody had challenged it. So, really, is it such a big deal? If you saw the ACA track, you could barely hear the real estate agent over the howling of one kid and they even had to use subtitles. I rest my case.
And let’s be clear, it’s not as if there’s a lack of choice. Last week the Domain website listed 2033 apartments in Brisbane that had two bedrooms or more (and at prices that would make Sydneysiders and Melburnians weep).
One reason given for the ban was that there were safety fears over the balcony heights. Maybe so. More realistically this is an older building and may not have the same level of soundproofing between apartments that some newer building enjoy. Children are noisy by nature and that can create problems for more neighbours in apartments than in houses.
We have kids in our building and it’s fine. They are generally cute and well-behaved and, as well, we have grandparents who love showing off the littlies when they come to visit.
But I also know people who were driven mad by a neighbour’s child who screamed and yelled all night, every night. And I have heard so many stories of parents who put down timber floors in their apartments – “Hermione has asthma so we can’t have carpet” – then insist on their kids’ right to run and jump around, driving their neighbours below insane.
Switching off the tabloid TV beat-up filter for a second, this whole thing smacks of ‘entitled’ parents insisting on their right to inflict their indisciplined progeny on people who don’t want to be around kids. A couple of buildings where grumps, young and old, can avoid children (and vice versa) doesn’t sound like the end of the world to me.
Could this be happening elsewhere in Australia? Strata law in NSW forbids the passing of by-laws that say children aren’t allowed, unless the strata scheme has been specifically set up for retirees. But this is company title and I know a few CT buildings in Sydney where I’ve never seen anyone under 30, let alone 13.
The Queensland Community Titles Management Act and the South Australian Strata Titles Act don’t refer to kids at all and the Victorian act only mentions that you can restrict access to children from certain areas if there is a safety concern. The West Australian Strata Titles Act also doesn’t mention children but it does say owners can pass a by-law restricting a building to over-55s or retirees.
The default position for all territories is a federal Age Discrimination law which says it’s illegal to discriminate against another person on the ground of their age by, among other things, refusing to let them access to accommodation. This doesn’t over-ride State laws that allow retirement complexes for the over-55s, but it does fill in the gaps where no State law exists.
So can the residents of company title buildings expect to hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet any time soon? I doubt it. If you don’t advertise the building as being child-free but the real estate agents point out that the building has no children in it or even that it’s not really suitable for kids, is that discriminatory?
And if the parents insist on going to an interview, well, the committee could always blackball them on the grounds that they just can’t take a hint. Failing that, just ban giant 4WD strollers from the lifts – that will keep most of the “I know my rights” parents off the premises.
You’ll find a link to the Current Affair story HERE. And you can add your share to the torrents of abuse doubtless coming my way either right here or on the Flat Chat website.