Nimby dog whistles, company title and micro apartments

This week we take a swing at polarising polititicians who are hoping to fire up the Nimbys against medium-density housing.
They know it's what the state needs, they know it will help resolve the housing crisis, they don't have a viable solution, but hey, if it means they can get a few more votes in marginal constituencies, to Hell with the homeless.
Then we go back to the future with Company Title.  Are apartment blocks where owners set their own rules and have nothing to do with strata law the answer for the strataphobic?
Even today there are company title blocks that can ban pets, Airbnbs and even kids.  What's the catch?  We have a look.
And finally a new development of micro-apartments with shared common areas and compact living areas is already oversubscribed.  Sue gives the concept the thumbs up, Jimmy likes a bit more space. You can see inside one in a clip from the Today show HERE
That's all in this weeks' Flat Chat Wrap

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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai; Transcription tidied up and sensified by Raphie.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:00

It's Wednesday night, which is late in the week for us to be recording well, sometimes recording on Thursday, but you're off to Lithgow tomorrow. Yes,

Sue Williams: 0:08

I am freezing cold.

Jimmy: 0:12

You have to wear your oodie thing or you'll freeze to death? But we're gonna knock off another podcast. What have you got, Sue,

Sue Williams: 0:23

Yeah, well, I've been really interested in the political row over housing. Fantastic.

Jimmy: 0:28

I've got company title. Our friend Francesco Andreione, has written a very interesting piece about the history of company title and the fact that some people are still doing it. That's on the website. And there's a thing about micro apartments we want to have a quick chat about. So yep, let's make this one short and snappy. I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the flat chat column for the Australian Financial Review

Sue Williams: 0:51

And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for the AFR, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the age and domain.

Jimmy: 0:56

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. And it. So we've mentioned this a couple of times recently. This idea, which seemed brilliant, that the state government would encourage councils to allow medium density developments, especially in and around stations, or, I should say, on and around stations.

Sue Williams: 1:29

Absolutely, I mean, I think that's been very much the cornerstone of its plan to try and beat the housing shortage.

Jimmy: 1:34

To actually put people in houses. Yeah.

Sue Williams: 1:37

What? Apartments?

Jimmy: 1:38

Oh, apartments, yes, to give people roofs over their heads

Sue Williams: 1:41

To allow people to build low and medium density around these big transport hubs. So it seems a perfect idea, doesn't it?

Jimmy: 1:48

Really, it does. And who's complaining?

Sue Williams: 1:50

Let me guess. Yes, the opposition. I mean, it's interesting. The New South Wales liberals are planning to introduce a bill to allow for the abolition of these transport oriented development locations,

Jimmy: 2:05

and what is their reason for this, apart from the fact that it's a good idea, well,

Jimmy Thomson: 2:09

We already got.

Sue Williams: 2:09

We do that an awful lot. But you know these I think it's bloody mindedness, really. You know, it's kind of a shame, because we don't really want housing to be a political football. We really, really kind of things where you think, you know, we need more housing. don't. I know it's, you know, an intensely political debate about what we need to do and what needs to happen. But really, we don't want to get, like the states, where they just kind of say no to stuff, just for the point point of it. Where's the best place to have housing? It's not a good idea to Really have we haven't. sort of make Sydney or Melbourne spread out further and further and further. In fact, Sydney can't really spread out much further because of the mountains and the sea, so therefore the best place to have a bit of medium density, and that's only like six storeys high housing, apartment buildings would be around the transport hubs, around train station. Nod yours, right? So you think that's absolutely obvious, but the New South Wales liberals are saying no, because the the state government is just imposing this on local councils, on local people, and it should be up to local people to decide. Well, local people vote for local councils, and 12 of the 13 councils with these transport development locations have said yes and have agreed to housing targets, and only one occurring guy is holding out. Well they're going to hold that. So the Yeah, exactly, and the councils are actually agreeing to this. I mean, whether they particularly want it or not, really, because that New South Wales liberals are saying the people need to decide, what do they want? The people need to decide. Who is going to say, Oh, yes, I want some more development in my area. Yeah. Who is ever going to say that? No, everybody is always going to say, no, we want no more development now area, because one might want to keep it exactly the same.

Jimmy: 3:56

We try not to be too political here. Well, we don't really try very hard, but it is, as you say, it's that polarisation thing where the Liberals are saying whatever labour wants is a bad idea, and then they come up with some pathetic logic to justify the fact that they're just saying no to everything. I mean Peter Dutton must be terrified at the thought of Josh Frydenberg coming back into politics. God, because the only, the only word in Peter Dutton's vocabulary is the word no. I mean, what does labour want? It doesn't matter. We just don't want it. And it's so like he's modelled himself on Trump in America, where the trumpies Just say no to everything. I mean, we had this thing today where Joe Biden has said, Right, I'm using, reluctantly, using my executive powers to do something about the border. And Republicans are going, it's too little, too late. About two or three months ago, Republicans and Democrats in in Washington had agreed on a plan to. Limit illegal immigration at the border. It was Mexico, and Trump said, Don't do it. Don't agree to it. Scrap the plan, because I want to campaign on this. Which is, it's disgusting ... absolutely disgusting. And it's dividing the country. It's it's encouraging racism. So now we're getting the same thing here with not all liberals, the liberal leadership, who are saying, oh, you know, the problem with housing is Asians coming into the country. Can you believe that they are actually saying this? It's all the immigrants that are causing the problems. It's horrific. And by the way, the fact that we can't build enough houses is because we don't have enough people to build the houses. So that's Labor's problems. Or who are we going to get to build the houses? Well, we might get some immigrants. No, you can't have that because that just causes a problem. It's ridiculous. So we will just sit here and say no to everything, no to medium density housing, and come up with this cockamamie idea that, what do they want? Do they want a referendum?

Sue Williams: 5:59

The thing is, they could, they could manage to get it through. You think, really, because if they get enough support on the cross benches and any of those people in any of those local councils where there's some controversy about the new housing being built ... that's an easy populist platform, but it's not about populism. It should never be about populism. It should be about the common good.

Jimmy: 6:20

Housing should not be a political issue. No, maybe once you've got to the point where most of the people who need housing in New South Wales or in Australia have a home to live in, then you can make it political if you want. But at the moment, it's just disgraceful.

Sue Williams: 6:37

There are so many people now couch surfing, so many people on the street, so many people, young people, kind of moved out. They've been independent, they've been students, they've been working. Suddenly, they're having to go back home and live with their parents. It's more like 51% of young men in their early 20s are now being forced to live back with their parents because they just can't afford to rent a place. There's no places around to rent. They can't afford a mortgage because property prices are so high, so they're being forced to go back and live with their parents. And the number of women is much fewer. I think it's about 35% of women aged 20 to 24 are being forced back to live with their parents. But what are those young adults who don't have parents who are willing to let them move back?

Jimmy: 7:24

What about the parents? You've done your hard yards, you've raised them, you've put them through school, you've taken them to football or whatever, you know 18 years, and off they go to uni. And you think, woof,

Sue Williams: 7:37

That's right. And you kind of launch them, and then many of them are moving back home, and it's been considered a failure to launch.

Jimmy: 7:45

It's not really. It's a failure of to land

Sue Williams: 7:48

It's a failure of successive governments to provide decent housing choices so they have somewhere to live.

Jimmy: 7:54

And meanwhile, and I, and all this stuff the Liberals are doing about, you know, curbing development and stopping medium rise development. It's such dog whistles politics for NIMBYs, it really is, and all they're doing is consolidating their base in the the liberal seats, because they tend to be places like Kuringai, where people are going. "Oh, we don't want any apartments here, because they spoil the look of the suburb." Tell you what spoils the look of a suburb, people sleeping in shop doorways

Sue Williams: 8:26

Places like Kuringai they have a desperate need for apartments because lots of older people who want to downsize.. We both know Kuringai quite well. It's kind of big houses on big blocks, quite handsome mansions. We

Jimmy: 8:41

used to know the former mayor of, yes, that's the swearing mayor of kurringai. She was called.

Sue Williams: 8:47

But the thing is, a lot of people now want to downsize into apartments because it's lock up and leave. It's easy, it's convenient, it's single level living, but they can't move into apartments. They want to stay in their own area, but they can't stay in Kuringai because there aren't enough apartments, right? They want kind of big three bedroom apartments there so their grandkids can stay if they want to, but there aren't enough being built. So there are an awful lot of people who would like more apartments around the place, but the people who don't want any development are those with the loudest voices.

Jimmy: 9:16

I just had this horrible thought about boomers and retirees having to House share, like, the septuagenarian version

Sue Williams: 9:24

Well, yeah, because households now are much smaller than they were even 10 years ago, and that was probably of Friends? a result of covid. Really, lots of people want to live alone or in two people together, rather than three people or bigger households. So there is an argument saying that maybe we do have enough housing, but we just don't have people willing to live with other people and in apartments. It's great because you do have people living with other people, you know, cheek by

Jimmy: 9:58

Maybe the idea is mansions, because we were jowl, really different apartments. But maybe it will force people to actually share houses or share apartments. looking up the definition of mansions the other day

Sue Williams: 10:12

That's manor houses.

Jimmy: 10:13

Manor houses. That's not mansions, manor houses. And this is the where you've got one building with four apartments in and they've all up to front facing, and you think, Wow, you basically quadrupled the number of families that can live on the one patch of ground. Are they becoming more popular?

Sue Williams: 10:33

Yes, they are. And that's kind of one of the things with low and medium density housing. You know, low density housing, that's a Manor house, really? Yeah, lots of ways it could be a series of townhouses.

Jimmy: 10:44

So I can imagine, I mean, I can't imagine the people of Kuringai complaining that having things that look like Tudor mansions popping up around the place are spoiling the look of the area. No, this would make the area look even posher than it does already.

Sue Williams: 11:00

Or if you had a house and divide it into six flatlets, maybe that would be an interesting way to...

Jimmy: 11:06

Four Jaguars park outside, rather than just one. When we come back, we are going to talk about a thing that we've featured on the Flat Chat website this week, which is a piece about company title that's after this. So this week we have another piece by our guest writer who is very much in the area of being a strata expert, a former strata lawyer, Francesco Andreone, and he's a very good writer. Actually, a lot of lawyers aren't because they feel they need to cover every possible condition of what they're writing. Its like,"I don't want to say something here, because it might be misinterpreted, so I'll say another three things to make sure it isn't." He doesn't do that, and he writes well. And this week, is writing about company title, which may sound a bit old fashioned and uncontroversial, but a way of sharing an apartment block without having strata, which I think a lot of people who live in strata would go, wow, I want a piece of that.

Sue Williams: 12:17

So tell us the difference between company title and strata title? title

Jimmy: 12:21

Well, strata came in in 1961 and that was a way of sharing the ownership of a building based on sharing the airspace within your lot. So, I mean, it's all become modified over the and moderated over the years, but the idea is that anything that is within the paint on your walls is yours, but everything around that, like the walls themselves, are owned collectively by the people in the building, by your neighbours. And this was a really clever idea in 1961 to be able to build apartments and get finance for them from the banks. Prior to that, banks were notoriously reluctant to offer loans even for company title, because all you had was shares in a company which owned the building that you were living in. So getting back to that, just to backtrack, a company would be set up to build a building and own a building, and people would buy shares in that company, and those shares would entitle them to live in one of the apartments in the building. One of the problems with that is it is not governed by strata law. It's governed by company law.

Sue Williams: 13:33

So if there's a dispute, it has to go to Supreme Court.

Jimmy: 13:37

Now, there was some talk about getting company title disputes resolved through the tribunal. I haven't heard of that happening, and the Tribunal is overloaded anyway, but you know, one of the first stories we ever did was about two very powerful, rich business people who lived in an apartment block not very far from here, who got into a dispute over which way the carpet was being vacuumed in the lift lobby, because one of them thought the carpet should be vacuumed so that it was the tufts were lying down, and the other one said the tufts should be sticking up, and that went to the Supreme Court. Don't know what the resolution was,

Sue Williams: 14:22

And the company bought that runs the building, that's more powerful than a strata committee in strata, isn't it really,

Jimmy: 14:28

Absolutely, because you can do things in company title like I don't know if this has ever been fought through other laws apart from strata law, but you can ban pets, you can ban children, or you could as well. You can ban tenants. You can certainly keep Airbnb of the building. And this has led to a revival of a company title in states where you cannot ban Airbnb and developers of large very. Very expensive high end apartments are saying, What if we make this company title, wow, then we can sidestep the strata law, and that reassures the purchasers that, you know, one of their neighbours isn't going to turn their flat into a party flat, you know, in the summer or during the tennis in Melbourne or whatever.

Sue Williams: 15:22

So it's coming back into fashion.

Jimmy: 15:23

It is, to some extent, wouldn't say, I wouldn't say fashion. That implies that a lot of people favour it, but it's back in a favour with some people. And that's the thing, is getting the articles of the company right. This is basically your bylaws. Get the articles of the company right in the first place. And you probably could have a very nice situation developing there. And we know, I mean, the Macleay Regis, for many years, we knew somebody who lived in there, a couple of people who lived in there, and they had a really strict old fashioned board in that building. And one of the things that they had for many years was no pets, except it was reported that some of the members of the board had pets. So there's always these little angles, but I could see a situation arising where people were choosing not to have strata law and choosing to develop under Company title, because it's still legal, but put safeguards in the articles of the company so that owners were treated fairly and reasonably. We have a post on the flat chat forum from somebody who's in company title in Victoria, and the person above him had applied to the board to put down Timber Flooring, and now he's being driven mad by the people upstairs stomping around, probably just walking normally, but because they don't have strata law there that They haven't been compelled to put down proper insulation. And you think, Well, that's an example where strata law would be very handy indeed. The Downstairs neighbour can still do something about it. He can still, depending on the articles of the board, but he could say that his peaceful enjoyment of his apartment is being ruined by the fact that they allowed the person above him to put down Timber Flooring without enough insulation in it. But I think, again, it's in Victoria. I think that's Supreme Court, because that's Supreme Court decides on company law matters.

Sue Williams: 17:37

So if the law just caught up with it, if it modernised company title. It could be a really,

Jimmy: 17:42

yeah, it'd be a great thing. I think people would jump at it, yeah.

Sue Williams: 17:45

Because in the old days, people used to kind of steer clear of company title because they think it doesn't sell very well, yep, harder to get a mortgage, yep. And they often were looking at changing company title to strata title. That was a very expensive, time consuming exercise, because you have to work out all the unit entitlements and stuff,

Jimmy: 18:02

and that's covered in Francesco's article, by the way.

Sue Williams: 18:05

Yeah, good, but, um, no, look forward to a day where it could be a good rival for strata title.

Jimmy: 18:11

Well, it gives you people a choice. And generally, people who've got lots of money like to have lots of choice. And if you've got the money where you don't need a 90% mortgage and you can afford to not Well, the thing about company titles is you pay a bit less for them as well. Yeah, I think it's, it's not, I don't think company title is going to go away anytime soon. Great, when we come back, we're going to talk about micro apartments. That's been given a bit of a spin in the media. I caught up with a little TV clip on the internet, just yeah, just about 10 minutes ago, it's your editor, your Domain Editor.

Sue Williams: 18:57

Oh, Alice? Yeah, yeah. She was on the morning show today, I think it is, and they were talking about micro apartments. Oh, fantastic. I didn't see that. But what was it like?

Jimmy: 19:07

Well, it was really interesting because they were talking about how micro apartments, like the smaller apartments in Sydney, is about 23 square metres, and that sounds quite small. Do you know what the average size is in Tokyo?

Sue Williams: 19:23

No 14. Ooh,

Jimmy: 19:26

so with people who feel they're being squeezed into a tiny space in Sydney, they're actually doing all right at 23

Sue Williams: 19:34

I guess the difference is, I reckon small spaces are great if they're well designed, because architects can be really, really clever. These days, there's been some micro apartments built in the inner west, and the architect has kind of built all bespoke furniture for them that's kind of all built in cabinetry. Yes, that's right, yeah. And it saves so much room and so much space, and it looks really. Good. It looks excellent. And of course, you know, our parents would say, Oh, why? Why would you have our parents both quite humble, really? Yeah, it was say, why would you have a really big house? Because it's so much room to clean, yeah, and these small places, you just think they're pretty efficient, really.

Jimmy: 20:17

I remember the first time we had an apartment was two bathrooms, and my mother response was, why would you need two bathrooms? It seemed like the most extraordinary extravagance to her, absolutely. But you know, this stuff was all the built in furniture, and it'd be interesting to talk to somebody who's lived in one of these places, because, you know, the typical example, the most common example of living space with built in furniture would be a caravan or a mobile home, wouldn't it? Yeah, I guess it would be, yeah. Do you think you could spend a long time living in that kind of space,

Sue Williams: 20:51

not in a caravan or a mobile home, but in a well designed apartment? And some of these apartments, these micro places, I mean, they are modern boarding houses, and they also have a lot of communal facilities, right? And that makes a big difference, because then you've always got kind of a common lounge area to go and sit around in. Always got places outside the apartment that you can go. And when you think about hotels, one of our favourite hotels, I think you probably agree, is the citizen M in London, well, I like Paris and one in Glasgow, okay, great. And they're actually really small rooms, yeah. And the bed takes up huge bed. The bed takes up most of the room, and there's kind of storage space under the bed, yeah, but it's a really great room, yeah? And it's got a good, good little, tiny shower, which is really sort of colourful, yeah, because it lights up in different colours, right? You can it's really interesting and fun. But the great thing about the other great thing about Susan M hotels is they have communal areas, so that you might have a library you go and sit in, or the cafe where you go and sit and drink coffee and have meals. And those areas are really used by guests, and in the same way in places like micro apartments, in boarding houses, if you've got nice communal areas as well, you might have a rooftop where you can go and sit and see a big kitchen

Jimmy: 22:12

where you can cook a proper meal, rather than just microwave something that

Sue Williams: 22:16

Yeah, and I remember at university, it was fantastic. We lived in halls of residence. We had these great rooms that were really well designed. So it had kind of a bed and a desk, and then it had just the other side of a wooden wall had the bathroom facilities, and then there was a kitchen at the end of every corridor, just a very basic kitchen with a toaster in and stuff and a kettle. But it was fantastic. It served everybody really well. And I don't know, I think we've become too obsessed with having loads and loads of space.

Jimmy: 22:52

You know where the kind of apartments that had decent sized apartments and they had communal facilities like kitchens and dining rooms and things like that company title. Back in the day, a lot of the older buildings had their own restaurants on the roof. And yeah, we had to do was turn up at six o'clock at night to get your dinner and eat whatever they put in front of you.

Sue Williams: 23:17

But that sounds a really wonderful way to look. And that was that was rich people.

Jimmy: 23:22

Well, like some of them turned into that as the residents just ripened. But some of these radical ideas are actually quite old and tried and tested, and people have moved away from them. But if you think about the practicalities of living, they might not work for families, but they've certainly worked for young singles and older retirees,

Sue Williams: 23:43

and maybe even young professionals who don't have very much time off anyway, all they want

Jimmy: 23:47

is somewhere to plug in their computer. They just want fast internet. They'd live in a cardboard box if they had fast internet. I think that's covered a lot of ground. I'm sure some of our listeners will be outraged at US attacking NIMBYs again.

Sue Williams: 24:05

Let us know. Yeah, that

Jimmy: 24:06

would be good. We have a forum. It's dead easy. Thanks, Sue. I can tell you, your voice is about to give out again, but you're sorry. I'm such a trooper. You're such a trooper. You're plugging away there. And thank you all for listening. We'll talk to you again soon.

Sue Williams: 24:21

See you. Bye, bye.

Jimmy: 24:24

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 you.