Allambie Heights Village CEO: hands tied on rate increases
Ciarán Foley says he has received rent increases of 465%, 5,278% and 6,234% on three parcels of land it leases for aged care and retirement living.
The Not For Profit is believed to be one of 12 operators who are on Crown Lands that have suffered sharp rate rises.
Ciarán, who opened Bellburra retirement village in October last year, which sits alongside the original Allambie Heights Village (opened 1966) and the adjacent Martin Luther Hostel residential aged care facility (1996), said he has been hit by a "staggering" 6,324% increase in its crown land rent.
Ciarán, who looks after 200 people across the retirement villages and residential aged care home, said they will not be passing on costs to residents as legislation prevents them from doing so.
"Retirement village legislation doesn't allow us to do so, and it keeps us to CPI [inflation]," he said.
"So, it would be nice if the New South Wales government would apply its own diktat and rules regarding legislation to keeping things to CPI."
A spokesperson for the NSW Government's Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure said Allambie Heights Village had in 2015 paid $52,994 per year in rent for three tenures of land now valued at over $37 million.
Ciarán disputed this figure, stating Allambie Heights Village only had two leases in 2015, which were valued at around $7 million.
The Department spokesperson also pointed out Allambie Heights Village had reported a profit of $2.75 million in 2024.
"The [Crown Land Management] Act requires rents to be at market rates to ensure tenure holders who benefit from using crown land pay a fair return for the people of NSW to be reinvested back into community land," the spokesperson said.
"Rent returns are reinvested back into the crown estate. For example to maintain public land and infrastructure, do fire protection works, clean up contamination, and restore heritage buildings."
The spokesperson said the rent on one of the parcels of land was last calculated in 1994, while another was last assessed in 2002 and the third in 2010. They said Allambie Heights Village had been given a 50% rebate as a community group.
