25 January 2014 - The Sydney Morning Herald
Apartment owners in a large Sydney block say a growing culture of prostitution, drug-dealing and illegal immigrants in inner-city apartments is behind their adoption of strict security measures that have left tenants locked out.
Tenants of the Regis Towers apartment block near Sydney's Chinatown complained that their electronic access swipe keys had been cancelled for minor infringements, effectively locking them out of their own flats until they paid $150 to get a new card.
Tom MacDonald of the Redfern Legal Centre said he had been receiving complaints almost daily about swipe keys being cancelled since tough new bylaws to deal with overcrowding were introduced at Regis Towers last month.
Mr MacDonald said one tenant said his card had been cancelled because he had supposedly been acting ''suspiciously''. In fact he had entered the lift then gone back to his flat without getting out because he had forgotten something.
Other tenants reported sending a house guest out for milk with a swipe card only to have it deactivated because they could not produce ID to match the card.
''It seems these harsh bylaws are being implemented very harshly,'' Mr MacDonald said. ''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 flatmates to let them in and out until they can raise the money, while others have had to go and live elsewhere.''
But the executive committee of the building's owners corporation (body corporate) rejects the criticism, describing the Redfern Legal Centre as ''pro-overcrowding''.
''Other illegal activities are flourishing in inner-city buildings, such as prostitution, whereby large numbers of young women (and, we suspect, young men) are overcrowded into units by their overlords/landlords, accommodation provided. Drug trafficking is also rife within the buildings,'' said the Regis's secretary, who asked to remain anonymous in a letter 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 City of Sydney said it had not received any complaints about prostitution at Regis Towers, but agreed that overcrowding was a problem in the CBD.
''It is particularly hard to police because there is no legal standing that defines what overcrowding is,'' a spokeswoman said. ''Under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, council officers cannot enter residential properties without a court order or the tenant's consent, making it difficult to gather evidence of overcrowding.''
Fire and Rescue NSW said it was aware of overcrowding in residential buildings in Sydney's CBD. ''This is usually discovered by firefighters when responding to automatic fire alarms, where we discover issues with overcrowding or unauthorised modifications,'' a spokeswoman said.
The Regis Towers parted company with its strata managers last year. With more than 600 lots and an annual budget of more than $5 million, it is now probably the largest single self-managed strata block in NSW, if not Australia.
The secretary's letter says: "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 Towers, but nothing is done.''
The Regis Towers owners corporation is within its rights to set its own bylaws for handling security cards, and the new increased security measures had to be approved by more than 75 per cent of the owners who voted at their AGM last month.
"The Regis Towers bylaw regarding the use of security cards issued to residents could be considered quite stringent," NSW Fair Trading told Fairfax Media. "However, it does not appear to breach strata scheme management laws."
