21 DUMP STREET
THIS picture is not from a campsite in rural Gold Coast. It is in the city’s CBD, metres away from $1 billion developments, where residents have pitched tents for a place to sleep. Councillor Dawn Crichlow says property owners need to clean up their act.
SQUATTERS have set up tents on a vacant block in the city’s CBD that once housed a notorious crack den – but the area councillor does not lay blame on them.
The house located on the corner of Norman and North streets in Southport was destroyed by fire in April.
The 2500sq m block has been cleared and put up for sale by CBRE. In the meantime, squatters have made themselves at home.
The set-up in the back corner of the property involves at least one large tent, battened down and reinforced with an additional tarp.
Wooden palettes are set up at either side of the tent like fences, strewn with clothes and shielding passers-by from the mounds of miscellaneous items piled up at the rear.
They are even using the property’s wheelie bin.
A woman seen walking around the tent makes an obscene gesture and yells.
Southport city councillor Dawn Crichlow said she did not blame the people living there for resorting to these situations. She was critical of the landowner.
In her experience, such as the recently demolished flophouse on Queen St, absentee property owners are to blame for leaving sites unmonitored, contributing to creating unsafe, unsightly and unsavoury neighbourhoods.
The owner of this lot is JTLP OOL Investments Pty Ltd. Its only method of contact is a postal address registered in Hunters Hill, Sydney.
Cr Crichlow said she had contacted the landowners to demand they do something about a problem that is making Southport look bad.
“Of course it is (affecting the suburb’s image),” she said.
“I’ve just written to the owner again. We’ve issued a show cause notice because there are people living there.
“These people just don’t care because they’re not here but there are frightened families in these neighbourhoods.
“Interstate owners don’t give a damn, so we’re forced into this situation and to go through the legalities of show cause.
“I have been told the owners have given the police permission to remove them.”
CBRE declined to comment on the progress of the sale or if the tent presence was hindering a sale.
Andrew Antonopoulos, of Gold Coast Project for Youth Homelessness, said the number of people living in tents was on the rise, but they needed community support.
“There’s more of these areas arising – people building (their) own communities and living there for months at a time,” he said.
“There’s nowhere to go. All we can do is provide support to get them back on their feet.”