5 days ago
Michael moved to a Uniting Church farmhouse in Brisbane to escape homelessness. Now his landlord is evicting him to build more houses
When Michael Guettler moved to Hungerford Farm, in Brisbane's north-west in 2022, he thought he was finally safe from homelessness.
The home, at the centre of a 28-hectare former chicken run, is just an uninsulated 'four-bedroom shack', he says. At $280 a week it was all he and his partner could afford; they were without other options, so they were happy to stay.
But on Monday, the Queensland civil and administrative tribunal signed off on an eviction notice for their landlord, the Uniting Church of Australia.
Guettler believes they will be forced back into his car by the church's decision.
He says despite the church billing itself as 'a strong advocate for social and affordable housing and ending homelessness', the decision was 'unchristian'.
'Where does Jesus fit into all of this?' he says.
Guettler and his partner have been caught up in a fight over the historic lot at 76 Kooya Road, Mitchelton. The church plans to remove the house to make way for a 92-dwelling estate.
Many locals oppose the scheme. If approved, it would mean the subdivision of the last of what were once many farms in Mitchelton.
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Guettler claims he and his partner have been offered no alternative housing to the Mitchelton estate and cannot find anywhere on the private market they can afford on the disability support pension. This is a claim the Uniting church denies.
'The property managers operating on behalf of the Uniting Church have offered ongoing assistance with suitable alternative properties, rental applications and references, and the church has been offering ongoing social support,' a spokesperson for the church says.
Brisbane's rental vacancy rates are near record lows at just 1%. The couple, meanwhile, have been on the social housing waiting list for about six years along with 47,818 other Queenslanders.
'We've got an application approved with the Department of Housing – which is as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike,' Guettler says.
Development was the last thing on the mind of Greg Hungerford, the former owner of Hungerford Farm. His family had called 76 Kooya Road home since the 1920s as the suburb rapidly grew around them.
Once just a scattered handful of semi-rural homes at Brisbane's north-west edge, the 1950s arrival of the car turned Mitchelton into one of Brisbane's fastest-growing suburbs. Unlike other landholders, the Hungerfords resisted selling, continuing to run their free-range poultry farm into the 70s, selling eggs to their increasingly numerous neighbours.
Surrounded by suburbia on three sides and the Enoggera army barracks on the fourth, it remains untouched by development today. Curlews, bandicoots and even kangaroos continue to visit regularly.
Greg Hungerford, who inherited the property, described it as 'like paradise in the city'. He died in 2015.
In his will he directed his lawyers to sell the land to the Brisbane city council, that it 'be protected from commercial development, that its environmental and natural values be protected' and that it be converted into parkland 'for the benefit of the public in general'.
The trustees were released from any obligation to obtain a fair market rate for the land; one of its few conditions of sale was that the park be named for his mother, Pearl.
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A spokesperson for Brisbane city council says it attempted to buy the site but 'sadly the executors of the will did not agree'.
Instead, in 2020, it was sold to the Uniting Church of Australia property trust.
The church reportedly considered converting the huge field into something like an aged care home but decided against doing so. In 2022, it submitted plans for a housing subdivision to Brisbane city council.
Calling themselves 'Friends of Hungerford Farm', scores of neighbours wrote to the council to oppose the church development application. Many homes in the area display corflutes calling for a 'better deal for development at 76 Kooya Road' organised by the federal MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown.
The Greens MP says the site lacks public and active transport access but is 'ideal for mixed-use development, maximising the benefit to the community'.
A spokesperson from the Uniting Church in Australia's Queensland synod says 'the development application is now in its final stages'.
'The current situation highlights the overwhelming need for more affordable housing to be brought online as quickly as possible in Queensland.'
As a tenant, rather than an owner, Guettler believes he has virtually no rights in the face of development.
Brisbane's median rents for a house have increased from $461 to $752 since the beginning of the pandemic. The city passed Melbourne to become Australia's third-most expensive city and then Canberra to be second-most, both in 2024. Prices continue to increase, due to record-low development approvals.
Guettler's tenancy will be terminated on 30 June, with a warrant of possession issued for 1 July.
Guettler says he feels overwhelmed, anxious and stressed about returning to potentially being homeless.
'We're a first world developed country, it's really becoming so shameful,' he says.
