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Owners in Regis Towers, the building where beefed up security has left tenants locked out of their homes, say they were forced to take action because of prostitution, drug dealing, illegal immigrants and other criminal activities, much of it masterminded by the landlords of overcrowded units.
Tenants complained this week their electronic access swipe keys had been cancelled for minor infringements, locking them out of their own flats in the apartment block near Sydney’s Chinatown, forcing them to pay $150 to get back in.
“The problem is that very tough by-laws to deal with overcrowding were introduced at Regis Towers in December,” says Tom MacDonald of Redfern Legal Centre. “And it seems these harsh by-laws are being implemented very harshly.”
But the executive committee of the building’s owners corporation (body corporate) has hit back at critics, saying the Redfern Legal Centre is “pro-overcrowding”.
“Other illegal activities are flourishing in the inner city buildings, such as prostitution, whereby large numbers of young women (and, we suspect, young men) are overcrowded into units by their overlord’s/landlords accommodation provided. Drug trafficking is also rife within the buildings,” say the building’s secretary in a letter written exclusively to Fairfax Media.
“The access cards are disrupting these activities and are upsetting the criminals running the operations. Accordingly, the operators, with the assistance of greedy and dishonest Real Estate Agents are using government agencies … to break down the access controls put in place by legitimate owners and occupiers of the building.”
The letter continues: “There is a lot of money in it for the criminals in these operations. There are a large number of young illegals housed in the building. The Federal Police are only yards away from the Regis Tower but nothing is done. It is not hard to imagine why these young illegals end up owing money to the criminal elements and are then compelled to do whatever is required to repay money owed.”
Mr MacDonald agrees that over-crowding is bad for tenants across Sydney but says he is getting complaints almost daily about swipe keys being cancelled – all from Regis Towers. He adds that one tenant said his card was cancelled because he’d been acting ‘suspiciously’. In fact he’d he got in the lift then went back to his flat without getting out because he had forgotten something.
“Don’t forget these people are tenants – the reconnection fee of $150 is a lot of money for some of them. Some have to depend on their flat-mates to let them in and out until they can raise the money, while others have had to go and live elsewhere.”
The Regis Towers owners corp is within its rights to set its own by-laws for handling security cards, and the increased security measures must have been approved by more than 75 percent of owners who voted at their last AGM in December.
“The Regis Towers by-law regarding the use of security cards issued to residents could be considered quite stringent,” Fair Trading told Fairfax. “However, it does not appear to breach strata scheme management laws.”
The Regis Towers secretary preferred not to be named and the building parted company with their strata managers last year meaning, with more than 600 lots and an annual budget of over $5 million, it is now probably the largest single self-managed strata block in NSW, if not Australia.
You can read the Regis Towers letter in full here.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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If you want more details, especially on the illegality of the actions of the Regis Executive Committee, read my comment under the “Regis Towers letter in full” link at the end of this article.
As a long term resident of Regis Towers, I can tell you that this is not new, it’s just starting to come to a head. The Regis Executive Committee have been cancelling cards for over 6 months now it’s just that people are fed up with it.
This whole thing is just facile, if Regis Towers had any evidence to suggest that the tenants in one or more of their apartments were undertaking illegal activity they should take that evidence to the police and let them deal with it. If there is no evidence then imposing sanctions on people who are, as far as anyone can prove, innocent of any offence is commonly referred to as harassment.
Why should the tenants of Regis Towers be denied the rights common to all other tenants in Australia i.e. to be able to come and go from their homes without fear of having their locks changed?
As for any kind of sustainable prostitution in Regis Towers, that is a simply ridiculous. What person in their right mind, would go to a brothel in the middle of the city, on a street that is covered in cameras, in an apartment block which also has cameras everywhere and 24 hour security guards no less. I lived next door to a brothel in Manly for over a year and you can spot 90% of the customers from a mile off just based on their behaviour. If it were really going on, people would notice. If the Regis Towers Executive Committee expect people to be on their side, they should really come up with more convincing arguments to justify what they are doing.
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