Podcast: Is this the end of balcony laundry bans?

Last week Sue dropped a bomb into a discussion about new strata laws in NSW, one of which will invalidate by-laws that block sustainability changes because they would alter the look of the building.

Does this mean the end of by-laws that forbid drying laundry on balconies? Surely not using a tumble dryer and instead using the wind and sun is a sustainability issue?

And, if it is, doesn’t that mean, at the very least, out-of-date laundry bans can be changed with a simple majority, meaning that a no-laundry minority of 25 per cent can’t veto change.

This week we look at the new laws and the current model by-laws and ask if the government hasn’t inadvertently started a war between NOOBs (Not On Our Balconies) and Greenies.

And speaking of wars, we also look at a new book about missing anti-development activist Juanita Nielsen which suggests her campaigns to halt unfettered high-rise developments, and her disappearance 50 years ago next month, may have led to the current housing crisis.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

Transcript in Full

Jimmy

You’ve thrown a bit of a bomb into the whole Strata scheme, Sue Williams.

Sue

Me? What do you mean?

Jimmy

Last week when we were talking on the podcast and we were talking about the new laws that are starting on July 1st, and we were talking about sustainability bylaws, you just said, oh, that means that Strata schemes won’t be able to stop people drying their laundry on their balconies.

Sue

What was the problem with that?

Jimmy

Well, both Robert Anderson, the president of SCA New South Wales, and I looked at each other and went, oh, it hadn’t even occurred to us. So we’re going to talk about that in a minute. And we’re going to talk about a new book about Juanita Nielsen, who was an activist, I suppose, among many other things, and objected to uncontrolled property development.

I’m Jimmy Thomson. I write about Strata for anybody who will publish it. And I edit the flatchat.com.au website.

Sue

And I’m Sue Williams and I write about property for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the AFR and Domain.

Jimmy

And this is The Flat Chat Wrap. OK, laundry on balconies, one of the big issues that have gone on for about 100 years. Can you dry your laundry on your balcony?

And the people are ferociously against it.

Sue

Other people are ferociously for it.

Jimmy

Well, you know, to many people, it doesn’t make sense that, I mean, every new apartment has a tumble dryer built in, not built in, but installed. And that’s a lot of electricity to create a lot of energy when just outside there’s a lot of sunshine and fresh air. Now, other people think that seeing people’s laundry on their balconies is a horrendous thing.

And it’s like downtown Beirut, as one correspondent described it a few years ago.

Sue

Well, I know downtown Beirut quite well, actually, because I spent quite a lot of time there. And parts of downtown Beirut are really nice.

Jimmy

Yes.

Sue

And I mean, I think hanging out with laundry is the least of their problems, really. When you see all the walls that have been pockmarked by bullets over the years.

Jimmy

Well, that’s true. That’s true.

Sue

And it’s clean laundry that’s being hung out. It’s not as if people are hanging out dirty knickers and stuff.

Jimmy

Yeah, but people just don’t want it. It’s like people don’t want to see any signs of life. It’s like that thing we had a couple of weeks ago about the, what was it called?

Veggie pods that could be seen, the net cover for the veggie pods could be seen from down below. And the person who installed it on their balcony was told to get rid of it.

Sue

That’s ridiculous. I mean, it would be good if I could see a veggie pod because it might encourage me to grow some vegetables, which is a good thing.

Jimmy

Or even eat some.

Sue

Boy, that’s true.

Jimmy

No, you’re not.

Sue

Chocolates are vegetable.

Jimmy

No, it’s not. It is.

Sue

Well, I suppose it is.

Jimmy

It’s a bean. Anyway, so I thought I’d look into this thing that because there are new laws coming in that you can’t block bylaws that are sustainable, that have to do with sustainability, on the grounds that they would spoil the look of the outside of a building. So I thought I’d look into this.

Now, this is what the new law that comes in on July the 1st will say. A bylaw has no force or effect to the extent that it would prevent the installation of sustainability infrastructure solely for the purpose of preserving the external appearance of a lot of the common property.

Sue

So that would include washing lines, wouldn’t it?

Jimmy

Well, is it an installation? Now, the existing law about the financing and installation of sustainability. This is in New South Wales, by the way.

Sustainability infrastructure means changes to part of the common property, which includes the installation, removal, modification or replacement of anything on or forming part of that property for any one of the following purposes. A. To reduce the consumption of energy or water or to increase the efficiency of its consumption.

Sue

Yay! Washing!

Jimmy

And E. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sue

Yay again!

Jimmy

Right. Then it goes on to talk about electric vehicle charging stations. And then it explains sustainability infrastructure resolution means a resolution to do any one or more of the following that is specified to be a sustainability infrastructure resolution.

C. To change the bylaws of the Strata Scheme for the purposes of the installation or use or both of sustainability infrastructure. Is a washing line sustainability infrastructure?

Sue

I would argue that most definitely is.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

Because you could just put a standalone washing line on your balcony like we’ve got or you could put it into the fabric of the building.

Jimmy

Right. Well, this is what I’m thinking because you can get these things that are the retractable washing lines and that would be drilled into common property. So you would need some sort of bylaw approval or just committee approval.

And in fact, that might be easier to pass than changing the bylaw to allow a portable drying rack on the balcony.

Sue

Well, at least it means that all the drying racks will be exactly the same. So it would kind of create a particular pattern on the outside of a building. So it wouldn’t kind of distress those people who just really don’t like anything that looks slightly different.

Yeah, uniform.

Jimmy

Right. I just thought while I was at it, I looked at what the current model bylaws are. So for pre-1996 buildings, it says an owner or occupier of a lot must not, except with the consent and writing of the owner’s corporation, hang any washing towel, bedding, clothing or any article on any part of the parcel in such a way as to be visible from outside the building other than on any line provided by the owner’s corporation for the purpose and there only for a reasonable period.

So that’s the old thing where older buildings used to have washing lines on the roof or in the back garden.

Sue

So it’s okay for the people who’ve got balconies higher up in the building where maybe it’s not visible from the street. But for people lower down, you can’t have them, which is terrible.

Jimmy

Well, it’s the rich people again, isn’t it?

Sue

That’s right, yeah.

Jimmy

But then they probably have servants to come around and dry their, no, I’m joking, I’m joking. You know, in these times where energy prices are going up, I mean, there’s this sustainability thing. If you don’t have to use electricity, it’s probably a good thing not to use it.

But there’s also the fact that energy prices are going up, the cost of living is going up. And if people can save a lot of money every week by drying their clothes on their balcony, that’s a benefit to everybody, especially the people who are not living in the penthouses, who can pretty much do what they want.

Sue

That’s right. And also clothing is becoming more expensive, obviously. And a lot of clothing gets ruined if you put it into a tumble dryer.

I mean, it’s okay for towels and sheets and things like that. Although we had some sheets that shrank.

Jimmy

Yeah, they did. You can’t get them on the bed.

Sue

So it’s much healthier for clothes to go outside anyway, to be dried. Yeah.

Jimmy

Now, the current or more modern bylaw, the model bylaw, says an owner or occupier of a lot may hang any washing on any lines provided by the owner’s corporation for that purpose. The washing may only be hung for a reasonable period. Two, an owner or occupier of a lot may hang washing on any part of the lot other than over the balcony railings.

The washing may only be hung for a reasonable period.

Sue

So therefore, that’s the big one, isn’t it really? Because lots of owner’s corporations don’t provide lines really. So it’s just your own personal lines.

You may hang them out, presumably if the owner’s corporation passes that new bylaw.

Jimmy

So the owner or occupier of a lot may hang washing on any part of the lot. So this stops the thing of people hanging up a washing rack inside their apartment and some busybody saying, oh, I can see you’re washing in your apartment and you’re breaching the bylaw. So that’s one thing.

But here’s the thing. Up until fairly recently, all bylaws had to be passed with at least 75% approval or the 25% of the vote could not be against it, which meant a minority of people could block a change of the bylaw. So you would get, in many buildings, 25% of the people in a vote saying, we are not going to allow washing on the balcony.

Because all you need is a bylaw that says, yeah, you can put your washing up. You could even have a bylaw that says you can put your washing on the balcony, but not at weekends when people are coming to view apartments and things like that. Now, if hanging your washing out to dry is a sustainability measure, it only requires a 50% vote.

So that minority cannot block the vote anymore.

Sue

That’s a good thing.

Jimmy

Well, if it’s true, if it’s real. I mean, here’s the thing. I’m just saying this.

I’m reading this from the point of view of, you know, a Bush lawyer. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t understand 100% how the law works, but it seems to me there’s a possibility there for a challenge.

And there are people who really strongly believe that it’s ridiculous for buildings to block drying their laundry when it just makes so much sense, especially in this country.

Sue

Yeah, absolutely.

Jimmy

I mean, sometimes you put it out, you put the washing out on the rack, if you had one. And by the time you’ve put the last thing on, the first thing is dry. It’s so warm.

So, yeah, it makes sense. Anyway, I’d be interested to see, what do you think? You think there are battles coming up?

Do you think somebody will pick up with this?

Sue

I think it’s going to be hard for somebody to try and ban washing on balconies again now. I mean, it was okay 10 years ago. Now, I think they’re going to be incredibly unpopular.

Jimmy

But what it will take, those bans are pretty much in place already. What it will take is somebody to say, I’m going to change the by-law.

Sue

Yeah.

Jimmy

And that’s the thing. Is somebody going to fight the good fight and say, I want to take on my owner’s corporation? I can get 50% of the vote at an AGM to change the by-law.

Sue

Absolutely.

Jimmy

And will the people, the objectors, will they say, this is not a sustainability issue? And, of course, if we had a helpful Attorney General’s office, they would come to us and say, hey, guys, we’ve had a look at this, and we think that’s probably going to be either sustainable or not sustainable when you take it to the tribunal. But, of course, they don’t.

Sue

It’s a shame, isn’t it, really?

Jimmy

Well, it’s useless.

Sue

And as well, for anybody taking it, who’s thinking about taking it to court, just a word of caution, because do you remember I was sued by somebody once because I was suggesting that we do something that was very environmentally friendly, and they were dead against it. And when I criticised them, they took me to court for defamation because they said my insinuation was that they were an environmental vandal.

Jimmy

Well, I think that wasn’t the insinuation. I think you said that.

Sue

I didn’t.

Jimmy

You’re right.

Sue

I didn’t.

Jimmy

Okay. Well, they lost, though.

Sue

They said it was implied.

Jimmy

They lost, and they lost a lot of money in that case as well.

Sue

Thank goodness. But it was incredibly stressful and awful, and I wouldn’t want other people to go through that. So just be careful of your words.

Jimmy

So if you are in a building which you think you would get the 50% vote in favour, maybe get in touch with some of the green organisations and say, guys, can we get together? Will you give me some support on this?

Sue

And give me wording for my law change.

Jimmy

Yeah, and get me a lawyer who’s going to help me and stuff like that. Because this is how precedents get set. This is how the law really works.

It’s all very well for the MPs to sit in Parliament and pass these laws, but as they found with the Joe Cooper case and Pets, it’s only when it gets to tribunal or when it’s challenged in the Supreme Court or the Appeal Court that the law is established. And that changed the law for the whole of the country.

Sue

Absolutely.

Jimmy

Yeah. So get on it. That’s my view.

When we come back, we’re going to talk about a cold case, a murder mystery, and a famous person who took on the developers. It’s after this. And we’re back.

Sue Williams, you’ve been writing about Juanita Nielsen, who used to live just around the corner from us.

Sue

That’s right. I think a lot of us know Juanita Nielsen.

Jimmy

Well, for those of us who don’t, who was she?

Sue

She was a woman who ran a local newspaper around Sydney’s Pots Point, King’s Cross, and she campaigned very vigorously for a number of beautiful old terrace homes, Victorian terrace homes, to be retained when developers were trying to knock them all down and just build high-density housing.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

Lots and lots of apartment buildings, and the developers said that they wanted to create a mini Manhattan, and that was in kind of Woolloomooloo and which spread up to Pots Point, really. They wanted to redevelop the whole area and make a lot of money, really. And the New South Wales government went along with it for a while and then discovered that all the plans had been drawn up without any consultation with any bodies that were involved, like the sewerage, the water board.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

There was no provision made for sewerage for all these extra people to be there.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

Nothing talked about transport infrastructure.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

And the whole thing kind of fell apart. But Juanita Nelson led a big anti-development movement against these changes.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

And she mysteriously disappeared in 1975.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

Presumed murdered. And there’s been a number of court cases and coroner’s reports who’ve said that they’ve found that she’d been murdered but nobody’s ever discovered the body.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

And they think it may well be buried in the foundations of one of the new buildings that went through. And the whole affair only kind of finished around the Green Bans coming in. You remember Jack Mundey, the union leader, the unions downed tours and said that they wouldn’t work on any of this new development because there’d been no consultation with the public.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

So lots of changes came in as a result of this, the furore about it, really. And it’s interesting, there’s a new book out about it by a guy called Mark Scalzi. The book’s called Views to Die For, Murder Anarchy and the Battle for Sydney’s Future.

And he argues that all the fighting and the urban warfare of that period really helped precipitate today’s current national housing crisis because it cast developers as real villains and made people adamant that they didn’t want high-density development. Whereas others argue that these kind of laws that came in after Juanita’s death need to be further strengthened to protect our cities because heritage planning came in, all these kind of changes came in at that time. It’s really interesting to see what happened 50 years ago, next month, in July, to see that kind of influencing what is happening now, really.

Jimmy

I think to say that it characterised the developers as villains, they haven’t done an awful lot to disprove that notion, have they? I would say the developers characterised themselves as villains in a lot of cases.

Sue

Yeah, and some of the developers involved in this were extremely shady in lots of ways.

Jimmy

Oh yeah. We should add, not all developers are shady characters and not all of them are dodgy dealers.

Sue

And they provide really valuable housing that we really need, especially at the moment. So yeah, but we want good developers, we don’t want bad developers, really. It’s interesting because Juanita Nielsen really campaigned for affordable housing, which is a debate which is going on at the moment, and for developers to retain portions of projects for affordable housing.

And she also was a strong advocate for public participation in planning developments because at the time there was very little public consultation at all. And as a result of Juanita Nielsen and what she did and the rouse and misery over her vanishing, people are now always consulted, all the neighbourhood is consulted about big planning decisions.

Jimmy

Right.

Sue

And maybe that is also holding up lots of developments because we’ve had the growth of NIMBYs.

Jimmy

Do you think there’s the other side to that, that for a while people were reluctant to speak out because Juanita Nielsen had disappeared and something awful had happened to her? And I think there must have been a period where people would have gone, oh, we shouldn’t take these guys on because they’re heavy.

Sue

Yeah, maybe that’s a factor as well. But although public participation in planning decisions became part of law, planning law, so they were able to make that. But then we both know somebody who was speaking up against a certain developer and he was told to desist, otherwise he might end up in the bottom of the harbour.

So it was a very clear threat he received and I suppose that’s still going on today.

Jimmy

We’ve made worse comments on that. In my last novel, Mole Creek, I put forward the opinion that gangsters and property developers have basically used the same methods, but gangsters are different because they have a moral code.

Sue

Oh, that’s terrible.

Jimmy

Does this book offer any theories about what actually happened to her?

Sue

No, not really, because he wanted, I mean, there’s been lots of books and movies about Juanita Nielsen and her disappearance and looking at maybe developers who were involved, maybe government officials, maybe corrupt police.

Jimmy

So maybe all of them.

Sue

Yeah, working in cahoots, really, and the underworld of King’s Cross at that time as well. So the finger has been pointed at many different people over the years, but he wanted to look at her disappearance through a prism of planning because he felt that that was something that kind of got lost by the murder mystery, really. We were all kind of looking at who killed her and why and what happened to her, whereas he was looking at the effect that she had on planning law and on the situation as it is today with planning and the lack of housing.

Jimmy

Right, okay. Well, interesting, different. And it is good to get that different perspective.

I don’t think that we can blame Juanita Nielsen for the problem that we’ve got in housing at the moment, but I think there is an issue there in this. It’s not just here in Australia. I mean, all over the world.

Developers, they’re talking about big, big, big, multi-million dollar investments and there’s a lot at stake and that means that they are more likely than most of us to cross the line when it comes to trying to get things done properly. That doesn’t make them bad people, but cumulatively I think there is a culture there where people are rightly cautious.

Sue

Sure. But it is so fascinating that this was 50 years ago and it’s still so relevant today. It’s quite incredible, really.

I mean, one of Nielsen’s big obsessions was about depopulation of cities. And as you know, we’ve been doing stories about lots of apartment buildings in King’s Cross with small studio apartments, kind of affordable units, being demolished and being converted or rebuilt into big luxury apartments, three bedrooms for probably wealthy downsizers, really. And they would allow a lot fewer people to live in this area.

So she was really concerned about that back then and this is happening now.

Jimmy

50 years later.

Sue

Yeah, we’ve got the Paddington boarding houses which are, you know, they’re still going through the court of appeal about whether the developers should be allowed to change those into, you know, big luxury houses. So not much has changed in some ways.

Jimmy

Yeah, Clover Moore recently saying, you know, trying to bring in a by-law for the city of Sydney that you can’t build a development that reduces the amount of accommodation, like the number of people, by more than…

Sue

More than 15%. Yeah. And that’s gone through now with the New South Wales state government.

So that’s great for the future. But maybe, you know, it’s not retrospective obviously and it might take a while to actually come in.

Jimmy

We’ve got a story on the FlatChat website, you know, just last week about a development where, you know, eight apartments are going to become five sub-penthouses. So that’s eight families reduced to five families. But that’s not in the city of Sydney.

But it’s going to be statewide, yeah?

Sue

Yeah, that’s right.

Jimmy

And so it should be.

Sue

And it’s happening all over the country really.

Jimmy

Yeah.

Sue

And it’s hard because downsizers… I was talking to somebody from the developer Mervac and they were saying demand for new apartments, 40% of that demand is now coming from downsizers. And downsizers want three-bedroom apartments or even four-bedroom apartments because they want their grandkids to come and stay.

And they want a bedroom. They want another bedroom to work as a study or a workspace. And then kids coming to stay.

And so they’re a cashed-up demographic who really are ready to buy stuff. So when there is so much demand from them, it’s hard for developers to resist from making three-bedroom apartments.

Jimmy

But I see even going from a three- or four-bedroom McMansion to a three- or four-bedroom apartment is still better for everybody because that apartment is on top of and underneath other apartments and it takes up less footprint.

Sue

Yep. But it’s only if it comes at the expense of lots of smaller apartments that many other people called home once that it’s a bad thing.

Jimmy

Right. And on that note, we’re heading off, folks. By the time you hear this, we’re going to be sitting on a ship somewhere near Norway.

Sue

Hopefully.

Jimmy

Hopefully. With any luck. And so we’ve got to rush off and pack now.

But we will keep in touch. There will be another podcast. There might be the sound of the waves rolling, splashing against the bow of our ship.

Sue

Oh, I do hope not.

Jimmy

But it’s so easy these days to work when you’re remotely and keep an eye on things. So we will be doing that and we’ll be talking to you again next week. Thank you, Sue, for coming down the corridor and interrupting your frantic packing.

And thank you all for listening. We’ll talk to you soon.

Sue

Bye.

Jimmy

Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Rap Podcast. You’ll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au. And if you haven’t already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Just search for Flat Chat Wrap with a W, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying.

Thanks again. Talk to you again next week.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.