How the Left fluffed the forced sales laws

FLAT CHAT COMMENT by Jimmy Thomson

Predictably, proposed strata law reforms have survived the NSW Parliament intact and the new world order will come into effect for the state’s 2 million or more strata residents on July 1 next year.

But you have to wonder if the left-leaning wing parties in the Legislative Council have deliberately missed an opportunity to moderate the most controversial of the proposals – the plan to allow 75 percent of unit block owners to force the other 25 percent to sell their homes.

I write as a ‘shiraz socialist’, former Labor supporter, and I’m feeling a little let down. There were two strata Bills that went through Parliament this week – one mostly covering the daily dilemmas of strata living, the other allowing a majority of strata owners to force a minority to sell their homes to a developer.

Admittedly, the government was ruthless. Debate was curtailed and the Bills were riveted together tighter than the girders on the Harbour Bridge.  MPs were told if they wanted the much-needed reforms to strata living laws, they had to accept the forced sales proposal.

It’s not without merit. The 100 percent vote currently required gives absolute power to individuals, and that is undemocratic. And the principle of property owners being forced to sell for the common good is already established – just ask the owners of houses in the way of new motorways and the airport planned for Badgerys Creek.

It’s just that the 75 percent voting threshold seems too low to many people, including some who agree that the majority of owners in a crumbling building should not to be held to ransom by opportunistic hold-outs, or those emotionally but illogically attached to a block that’s well past its use-by date.

And, of course, this system will be rorted – this is Sydney, after all – not least because there is no test demanding that the community as a whole benefits.

For instance, a four-unit block with fabulous ocean views could be transformed into a mansion for, say, a minor local politician who has a major addiction for bling and the bank balance to feed it.

If there’s a proposal to turn a block of eight, half of which have no views, into four storeys each containing one luxury pad with fabulous vistas, the existing unit owners will be interested in only one thing – how much are they getting for their otherwise unsalable units?

But we have too many older apartment blocks in Sydney that waste space and resources yet, by law, have to be maintained by the apartment owners regardless of how badly built or how old they are.

A recent UNSW survey says about 8,500 strata schemes in Sydney are potential candidates for renewal, especially if there was a positive interpretation of their local planning laws. However, as explained here, getting strata owners to vote for renewal or redevelopment will be a lot harder than turning up with a chequebook and a bulldozer.

So why 75 percent? One theory is that the majority of older strata schemes have only four units in them.  If you make the required vote any more than 75 percent, you are back to single owners having a veto in the biggest pool of potential renewal projects.

OK, then why don’t we have a sliding scale, as they do in Singapore, or a community benefit clause that simply says there should be no fewer dwellings after the renewal than before? Did anyone suggest this?

That’s where the Labor Party and Greens may have let us down.  They decided that they were going to fight the good fight on a “no forced sales” front, even though they must have known they were doomed to lose in an all-or-nothing battle.

The balance of power in the legislative Council (NSW’s upper house) effectively put the passage of legislation in the hands of two Shooters and Fishers Party members and Fred Nile’s Christian Democrat duopoly. Given their conservative inclinations, it looked like a clear run.

But what if they’d had a choice? You have to wonder how many of Rev Nile’s constituents are the hypothetical Auntie Mabels about to be thrown out of their flats and driven to a retirement home in the back of a builder’s ute.

And wasn’t it anticipated opposition from the Shooters and Fishers that prompted the government to delay the reforms until after the last election. Exactly how wedded would the death sport aficionados have been to the reforms?

So why would Labor and Green members take such a rigid and ultimately doomed position instead of suggesting amendments that just might have won support?

Fast forward to six months before the next election when the legislation has been up and running long enough for there to have been a virtual cavalcade of Auntie Mabel-bearing utes, and a TV feast of families dragged kicking and screaming from their homes to make way for luxury flats for entitled ‘entrepreneurs’ and fabulous nobodies.

Few institutions know better than the NSW Labor Party that there is an opal-like vein of corruption running through the lower levels of the apartment development industry. We can reasonably expect that a shameful act of deceit and exploitation will occur.

When they do, the people who said “no forced sales, no way” will be standing on the moral high ground pointing the finger at the government, saying “we told you so!”

But will anyone ask, why didn’t you do more when you had the chance?

Is Jimmy Thomson missing the point (again) or do you think the Opposition parties could and should have done more.. Click below to send us a comment.