Brisbane student accommodation faces tripling in rates

Hundreds of Brisbane students could be slugged with higher rent, after an accommodation operator revealed he’d been hit with a 200 per cent rates hike by Brisbane City Council.

Brisbane City Council has introduced a new student accommodation rates category.

Hundreds of Brisbane students could be slugged with higher rent, after an accommodation operator revealed he’d been hit with a 200 per cent rates hike by Brisbane City Council.

The council introduced a new student accommodation rates category in July, which is expected to impact 16 developments across the city and has been labelled by the Queensland Property Council’s student accommodation president as a lazy cash grab. Rates per apartment have more than tripled from $3 to $9.40 per week.

Student One accommodation owner William Duan revealed his latest quarterly bill had jumped from $35,000 up to $110,000, a cost he would not be able to absorb. Instead, he would have to look at raising rent prices for students.

“Which doesn’t help, with the current market,” he said. “But the government is adding costs on to us, what else can we do?”

Student Accommodation Council president Anouk Darling said the rates hikes were “absolutely unfathomable” at a time when Brisbane was experiencing some of the lowest vacancy rates in the country.

“We’re trying to attract capital and ensure a pipeline and convince our investors we’re running successful businesses,” she said. “This is a 90 per cent increase year on year for our six sites, nearly $1m. We’re here providing a solution to housing but also helping students achieve and be good citizens and in return we have a lazy council and government who hasn’t taken the time to understand the industry. It’s literally a revenue generation exercise without thinking about the actual consequences … cutting (our) services, which delivers a poorer product and stops attracting students, these are the secondary effects the council is not thinking through.”

But finance chair Fiona Cunningham said council made no apologies for the hike, and wealthy accommodation owners were “crying poor”.

“Brisbane households are dealing with rapidly rising living costs and shouldn’t be expected to subsidise the big businesses behind these types of accommodation,” she said.

“Before this change, these owners were paying as little as $1.78 per apartment a week in rates so it’s bit rough for them to be crying poor and trying to shift their costs on to other Brisbane households.”

Property Council Queensland executive director Jen Williams said the cost increase would ultimately make it harder for new projects to proceed.

“More than 16,000 domestic and international students are housed in purpose-built student accommodation in Brisbane, with strong demand for many more bedrooms,” Ms Williams said. “Local governments in Queensland are afforded autonomy in ... their rating practices and are not required to consult with stakeholders or ... justify their decisions. The Property Council urges Brisbane City Council to abide by these principles, amend the new rating categories, and play its part in stimulating further housing supply.”