Podcast: Minions to the fore in war on Nimbys

This week, we open up with a chat about our increasingly popular polls and the surprising results this week revealing what annoys you most about your neighbours.

Then we take a look at what NSW Premier Chris Minns really means when he “declares war on Nimbys”. 

If as this article suggests, he may use his power to let his minions (aka senior civil servants) rule on projects held up by recalcitrant, backsliding local authorities, what does that mean for suburbs that have steadfastly held out against medium to high rise developments in their low-rise avenues?

Then we hear about a Canadian “urbanist” who has come up with a new style of communal living, turning apartments into “friendship machines”, whereby families get together to inhabit blocks where everyone has their own living space but they share cooking facilities and child care. 

It all seems a bit commune-like and will doubtless have some citizens of Queensland reaching for their pitchforks when he presents his thoughts at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane next week.

And finally, we can’t avoid having another look at how Airbnb is under serious pressure, especially now that the mainstream media is getting the message that throwing renters out so that investors can make more money, specifically from from tourists, is necessarily good for our society as a whole.

Airbnb again? Hey, it’s all grist to the strata mill.

TRANSCRIPT IN FULL

Jimmy  00:00

We’re doing another poll in the Flat Chat website…

Sue  00:03

Oh yes, what was that about?

Jimmy  00:04

I gave people a list of the 10 things that annoys them most about their neighbours. It assumes that…

Sue  00:11

They are annoyed by their neighbours.

Jimmy  00:12

They are annoyed by something. Actually, one of the options was ‘all of the above.’

Sue  00:18

Oh, no!

Jimmy  00:18

And another one was ‘none of the above.’

Sue  00:21

Okay, how many people ticked ‘none of the above?’

Jimmy  00:23

None.

Sue  00:24

Oh dear!

Jimmy  00:25

60 people have responded, which is pretty good, actually. And they can’t respond more than once, because the programme takes a record of their IP address. So these are 60 different people. Do you want to guess what the biggest complaint is about?

Sue  00:43

Would it be parking, or pets?

Jimmy  00:45

The biggest surprise is that barking dogs is not even in the top three.

Sue  00:51

Oh, good, okay.

Jimmy  00:52

The biggest complaint; the most common complaint, is about people smoking on their balconies.

Sue  00:57

And then smoke drift into…

Jimmy  01:00

And then the next two after that…

Sue  01:02

But you know,  I don’t see anybody smoking anymore.

Jimmy  01:05

Because we live in a trendy building.

Sue  01:08

Okay, Because you just don’t see many people smoking on the street, even. I mean, you see a few young people vaping…

Jimmy  01:13

That’s because we live in a trendy area.

Sue  01:15

Okay. Alright then; fine.

Jimmy  01:18

But you were very close, with the next two complaints; one was about people using visitor parking as their own personal parking space and then, people parking in the lot owner’s or renter’s parking space.

Sue  01:34

Oh, god, really?

Jimmy  01:34

Yes. So people are just ‘parking mad.’ Haha! So today, what have we got in the podcast?

Sue  01:43

I think we’re talking about Chris Minns, are we?

Jimmy  01:45

Oh, Chris Minns’ war on NIMBYs. Chris ‘NIMBY’ Minns… That didn’t work…

Sue  01:55

What is Chris?

Jimmy  01:56

Chris is the Premier of New South Wales.

Sue  01:59

Sorry, I keep muddling him up with John Minns, who is the…

Jimmy  02:03

Property Services Commissioner.

Sue  02:05

Right! Okay, sorry. Are they related?

Jimmy  02:08

I don’t think so.

Sue  02:09

Okay.

Jimmy  02:10

Maybe they are; I don’t think so. So we’re going to talk about his war on NIMBYs and how it’s affected one area of Sydney in particular, because now that the government has finished building (or digging), these stations for the metro, they’re now saying alright, we want to build high-rises on top of them. Which is smart, for so many reasons, because people want to live next to transport, or close to transport and if they can just get in their lift in their apartments and go down a couple of extra floors and be on the platform for the metro… Seriously, I don’t think anyone will be able to do that. But, they’re going to be close to transport.

Sue  02:54

It makes perfect sense.

Jimmy  02:55

We’re going to talk about somebody that you’ve found, who’s coming from Canada, to tell us how to live in apartment buildings.

Sue  03:02

That’s right, and make them much happier places.

Jimmy  03:05

And we’re just going to catch up (a little bit, I promise), on an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald, about Airbnb. It seems like the mainstream press has finally caught up with us, after all these years. I’m Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.

Sue  03:22

And I’m Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.

Jimmy  03:24

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

So Chris Minns, Premier of New South Wales (not to be confused with John Minns), has declared war on NIMBYs. What does that mean? Do you have any clear idea of what that means? I can tell you what I think, which is that he’s told local councils… Local councils have basically been told to build a certain number of low-to-medium-rise apartment blocks in their areas and they have just kind of refused to do it, because they want to keep their areas pristinely low-rise.

Sue  04:16

And it’s very easy to bow to public pressure, isn’t it? Just say “no,we’re not going to do anything.”

Jimmy  04:21

Yes, and the government doesn’t have much in its armoury to deal with that. So Chris Minns has said “enough is enough. If you don’t approve these high-rise apartment blocks, we will step in and do it.”

Sue  04:36

I think that’s fairly reasonable.

Jimmy  04:37

I mean, there’s been a bit of this going on; there’s that thing of, if a project is worth over a certain amount of money, then the state government can take over planning controls. But this sounds like a much more aggressive approach, where he’s saying well, look, we’ve got these provisions. We’re already there, and we can use them, but here’s what’s different; we’re going to use them.

Sue  05:02

I think that’s fair enough. Look, none of us like change; we always have this knee-jerk reaction when anybody kind of starts talking about change. I know I’m terribly guilty of it. Whenever a Microsoft programme changes, I think “oh my god, I hate this!” Whereas, other friends of mine say “oh, it’s so exciting to see what the difference is.”

Jimmy  05:22

Really? Do they?

Sue  05:23

Yes, they do. It’s amazing; I don’t understand it. But so when anybody is talking about building more apartments, or more medium-density, or more high-density anywhere in your neighbourhood, I think it’s natural that people just immediately say “no, we really don’t want that,” because they want to preserve their own lives.

Jimmy  05:41

That is exactly what it is; yes.

Sue  05:44

Research has shown that often after these developments have been built, people actually really quite like them, because they can change the nature of a suburb for the better.

Jimmy  05:54

But that’s one of the things that just struck me, that these people who say “we’ve got this lovely pristine area, and we want to keep it the way it is;” are they are the same people who poison trees, because they’re in the way of their view? Just a thought…

Sue  06:09

I think that’s a bit of a long-bow draw.

Jimmy  06:12

I’m known for drawing long-bows. So do you think this will be effective? I mean, we have heard all this before.

Sue  06:19

We have, but the fact that he’s speaking out so loudly and clearly about it, I think it shows a certain amount of courage, because it’s always a really unpopular position to take. So maybe, he’s thought it out very carefully… He’s got a safe kind of majority. He’s okay in Parliament.

Jimmy  06:38

There’s not an election for another three-four years.

Sue  06:42

He’s in a good position to try and do something. We’ve got so much homelessness, it’s just horrendous. We really need more homes, and people who want to buy homes for the first time, they need to have some homes to buy.

Jimmy  06:56

Absolutely, or rent.

Sue  06:58

Yes, absolutely. So we really need building to be kicked up a gear.

Jimmy  07:03

This has come to the fore recently apparently, in Chatswood, where an area above the Metro Station has been earmarked for high-rises and the local council have said “well, we’ve got enough, thank you very much.” And the state government has said “well, this is our land, and our planning rules apply to this and so, tough.”

Sue  07:26

Well, areas like Chatswood and areas like St Leonards… I mean, all these places where there’s a lot of infrastructure… There’s great railway stations, there’s good roads nearby. There’s fantastic shopping, there’s cafes… These are the kinds of areas where people want to live and they’re the kind of places where they can support a bigger population. We don’t want the greenfield areas to become high-rise connovations, really. We want people to be able to live close to work, or within striking-distance of work, with good public transport. Those are the places that can support more people.

Jimmy  08:01

And it’s funny, when you drive through these areas; you go up to Chatswood, and in the centre of Chatswood, it already has a few high-rise offices and apartment blocks. But you drive two streets away from the centre, and you’re back into bungalows and cottages. It’s almost like you’re driving into the country, when you leave the city-centre. There’s obviously room for a few more high -rises there, which would all contribute to helping to solve the housing problem.

Sue  08:34

And a big complex of high-rises went up, there about 20 years ago, which was the same time as the apartment building that we live in went up. It was the same developer… We had lots of problems with defects; they had lots of problems with defects, as well. And people were protesting about their apartments, even then, about those being built. But everybody who went to live there, absolutely loved it. And you know, more and more people are trying apartment living and really like it. The good thing about high-rise apartments is they take up a smaller footprint. They have great views often, and they can exist on smaller infrastructure.

Jimmy  09:17

They don’t need lots and lots of roads leading to them.

Sue  09:22

And if there’s lots of offices in Chatswood as well, then maybe they’ll be able to walk to work, or they’ll be able to cycle to work. So it will put less pressure on the rest of the infrastructure. Maybe, some of them don’t have to go into the Sydney CBD; maybe they work in the North Sydney CBD.

Jimmy  09:38

Well, now that they’ve kind of built the motorway that takes you a way out of the city, before heading north, so you don’t have to go up that goat track towards Hornsby to get on the motorway up to Newcastle… I mean, that must change things around there a lot.

Sue  09:54

Yes, sure thing.

Jimmy  09:57

I think this is a kind of a test case, but I think we’re going to see a lot more of this. And I think the government; if they’re smart (and I have no reason to believe they are any stupider than any other government), they will say to local authorities “look, you can get involved in the planning if you want, and that will look after your citizens; your constituents, but if you don’t get involved, we’re still going to do it. So make your choice.”

Sue  10:24

Yes, because some of those local councils may make applications to have more medium-density going over a larger area, rather than really high-rise living, but you know, they may have a big contribution to make, so it’s important that they have a say, absolutely. But it would be nice, if it wasn’t negative.

Jimmy  10:48

But if they get very political about it, then the government should step in and say “look, you’ve had your chance; we gave you a chance to put your point of view, and you’ve decided that you’re just going to try and block it. So, tough.” When we come back; we know that people in Queensland love being told how to run their homes and their apartment blocks, and a Canadian gentleman is about to put his head in the lion’s mouth there, because he’s coming to speak at a conference in Brisbane, in which he is going to tell us all how to live in apartment blocks. That’s after this.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

Sue, this lunatic coming from…

Sue  11:36

He’s not! He sounds fantastic!

Jimmy  11:39

He hasn’t been properly informed about how things are in Queensland…

Sue  11:44

He’s an urbanist and his name is Charles Montgomery. He lives in Vancouver, which is one of the happiest cities in the world, according to all the surveys. He came up with this great idea a few years ago, of building a building with 25 of his best friends. And now all these families live in this building, and they’re really happy together. They look after each other’s kids. They’ve actually become a real community. They look after each other’s kids…

Jimmy  12:13

Sounds like a commune…

Sue  12:14

Maybe it is kind of a commune really, but they do have their own private apartments, but they do actually contribute to the social life and the fabric of the building. He’s written a book called ‘Happy Cities,’ and he’s got an urban design team, also called Happy Cities. He’s talking about how you can build multi-family housing, that works as a relationship machine, or a friendship machine. How nice would that be, to have an apartment building, surrounded by friends?

Jimmy  12:22

I’ve just been sick…

Sue  12:46

Oh, god, Jimmy; you’re so cynical! But you know, we live in this apartment building; there’s probably about 100 units here…

Jimmy  12:54

132.

Sue  12:55

Okay, so probably about 260 people live here and I probably know, maybe 15 of them.

Jimmy  13:03

No, you know, more than that.

Sue  13:04

Well, I don’t regularly talk to…

Jimmy  13:06

You probably don’t know their names; you know their dogs.

Sue  13:09

Exactly. Well, dogs are great for creating community.

Jimmy  13:13

This sounds a bit utopian. I mean, it’s a nice idea…

Sue  13:17

What’s wrong with that?

Jimmy  13:18

Is it something you can plan for? Can you build a building and say “okay, we need 25 families, who know each other and get on with each other, to move in?”

Sue  13:30

No, but you can design a building in a way that creates social spaces. You have lots of common spaces and ammenity spaces. You have a common kitchen and dining room; you might all eat together a few times a week… Something like that. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, but for singles in the building, or for anybody who’s a bit social, that’s kind of a really nice thing to be able to do.

Jimmy  13:54

So this reminds me of two things… One is the two young women in North Sydney; Lane Cove was one of them, who put together a kit, to help people to create communities, because they noticed (I think they’re both from Southeast Asia originally, or their families are), that there’s no places in the buildings, where residents can just hang out together. We’ve said this many times about, you know, people coming home from work late at night and a lot of cultures, they just like to get a cup of tea and go out in the lift lobby, because that’s the only place they can meet and talk about their day, which is really nice, apart from if you’re not in that little group and you’re trying to get to sleep in the flat next door.

Sue  14:38

And you want to get to know them. That’s where build-to-rent is doing so well, because they have so many common areas, and ammenity  floors and things. It really engenders a sense of community and friendship there.

Jimmy  14:49

And that one we saw near Olympic Park; they had a huge commercial kitchen there. So you could hire that, or use that, but hire chefs to come in and actually have a proper catered party there.

Sue  15:03

There were lots of places; there were playgrounds for the kids, indoors and outdoors. There were working spaces. There was a lounge…

Jimmy  15:10

They shared a lot of their facilities with the apartment block next door, which was all either owner-occupied or rented from owners.

Sue  15:19

So they can all get together there. That’s a really nice cross- pollination.

Jimmy  15:24

I shouldn’t be so cynical…

Sue  15:25

No, you bloody shouldn’t!

Jimmy  15:26

 Alright. What’s his name again?

Sue  15:30

Charles Montgomery.

Jimmy  15:31

And he’s speaking at what?

Sue  15:32

He’s a keynote speaker at the 2023 Asia Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane, which is October the 11th to the 13th, which is next week. He sounds like he’s got an awful lot of interesting things to say. They save a lot of money on childcare, by looking after each other’s kids. That’s kind of nice. I don’t actually have any children in my life and if I could babysit once a month, or a couple of times a month, I’d quite enjoy that. I love kid’s company. They save a bit money by eating together and cooking together.

Jimmy  16:06

Trading recipes and borrowing sugar. If anybody from Brisbane is listening to this, who’s going to that conference, can you please ask Mr. Montgomery, what he thinks about the pre-sale of management rights contracts, because I think I’d love to see that, just to see the look on his face, as somebody explains to him, what that is and how it works. When we come back, we’re going to talk a little bit about Airbnb. We’ve been talking a lot about it, but things are starting to move, That’s after this.

[MUSIC]

Sue  16:44

I think you did your column in the AFR this week, didn’t you, about Airbnb?

Jimmy  16:48

I did. It was kind of because I was incensed last week (and I think we spoke about it last week), about Q & A on the ABC and all the stupid arguments that there were, about how the new tax in Victoria wasn’t going to make any difference… It was either not going to make any difference, or it was going to destroy society as we know it, or whatever. It was just such a muddled argument. And I picked that up for my column. But then there was an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend and it felt like (and I’m not claiming credit in any way), but it felt like it summed up a lot of the arguments that I’ve been putting up over the past couple of months (and the past several years). And one of them is that Airbnb and their ilk (like Stayz, and there are other platforms), have basically had a free reign for the past few years and it’s coming to an end. Because we’ve got the tax coming in, in Victoria. We’ve got the cap in Byron Bay. We’ve got the increase in rates in Hobart and overseas, various cities are bringing in rules. In Scotland, they’re really cracking down; you’ve got to get planning permission, and your planning permission… They’re saying it costs thousands of dollars and your planning permission will mean that you’ll have to have proper fire safety and things like that. A lot of people are saying “well, shouldn’t there be proper safety measures in these places?”

Sue  16:51

Well, hotels have them.

Jimmy  17:16

Yes, and I mean, if you’ve got people in an apartment, they don’t know the apartment; they don’t know the apartment building. They don’t know where the exits are. They don’t know how the smoke alarms work. Yeah, you’d better have safety measures. So there’s a lot of whining going on in Scotland. I say there’s a lot; in the Glasgow Herald pages, people are saying that it’s about time, because people are sick of tourists coming in and ruining their areas. So it was interesting to see in the Sydney Morning Herald that there was an editorial, talking about this and saying that one of the arguments I’ve been using for a while, is that these short- term letting platforms came in and persuaded people to ignore planning laws, because a lot of the apartment blocks in Sydney were built (and they specifically said in their planning approval), ‘you may not use this for short-term rentals.’ It was there, but as the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald pointed out, councils did not have the wherewithal to police this, because it all happened so suddenly, and there’s no income from it. You know, you can police parking, because people who park illegally pay fines and those fines pay for the parking police. Nobody is fining short-term lets for running their business and so there’s nobody around who’s being paid to check on them. In Barcelona, they have a very active force, that goes around and knocks on people’s doors and say “are you holiday rental?” And people panic a bit and they say “no, we’re not going to throw you out, but we just need to see a copy of your rental contract.” And then they can go back to the apartment owner and say you shouldn’t be doing this. So it’s turning; it’s changing. It’s interesting… Everybody is saying it’s going to affect tourism…We’ve got hotels, we’ve got hostels; we’ve got a whole range of things. One of the things that disappoints me about Sydney (and I think you would probably agree with that), we travel; we’ve been to a variety of different styles of hotel, is that not true?

Sue  20:25

Yes.

Jimmy  20:25

And some of them are really great places to stay in; you don’t mind paying a bit extra.

Sue  20:29

Also, when you look at Byron Bay… I was talking to someone from Byron Bay today, and they were saying that a lot of the big homes, like the most expensive homes on the beachfront, they will be in an exempt area; they will still be allowed to have… Well, they will now be allowed to have Airbnb and Stayz, for 356 days a year.

Jimmy  20:48

Really?

Sue  20:49

Yes. So their rental cap will be going down.

Jimmy  20:55

So their cap is coming off?

Sue  20:59

Yes. Because most people will say, well, those places aren’t the ones that will be let out on long-term residential leases, because they’re far too expensive. And they were actually set up for holiday leases. So they’re going to be exempt.

Jimmy  21:12

They’ll bring the tourist trade in.

Sue  21:15

Whereas, further back from the beach, where it used to be residential housing, those are the ones where there’s going to be this new, more stringent cap.

Jimmy  21:23

60 nights.

Sue  21:25

That’s right.

Jimmy  21:25

And I think that’s fair, in a way. I mean, it’s still two months, or if you have it six months, if you only rent it out at the weekends… But, it’s going to make a big difference and there just needs to be some control. The various things that the governments have done in the past, have been so weak, that they’ve basically been open -slather.

Sue  21:54

And we really need to have council jump this, really.  I mean, in New South Wales, we talked about it for so long; about zoning… We talked about policing the caps, we talked about making sure that people weren’t kicking out other people, so that they can have holiday rentals in, but nobody really did anything. It became a huge talk-fest and nothing really eventuated. But things are changing. You’ve got more families living in apartments, more people living in apartments for a lifestyle choice, rather than just a means to get a house. So I think our attitudes have changed and governments are catching up. Politicians are catching up as well; it’s just the sheer volume of people now.

Jimmy  22:16

I remember vividly, the New South Wales’ government inquiry into short-term holiday lets, and the chair of the committee (whose name escapes me), he actually said in the preamble to the findings, that there is no doubt that short-term holiday lets will affect people in apartments more profoundly than anyone else, but that’s okay. He didn’t actually say “but that’s okay,” but just skated over it. He acknowledged the fact that people in apartments would suffer more than people in houses obviously, but he didn’t see any reason why they would change the laws for apartments. And that’s how it’s been in this state, since we first moved here.  And thanks to you and another bunch of rabble-rousers, we also have the Owners Corporation Network, who have given apartment, residents and owners a voice, which is something very special. Thank you, Sue, for digging up all that information. And I know you’re very, very busy at the moment. And thank you all for listening. We’ll talk to you soon. Bye.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Wrap 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 favourite pod-catcher. 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.