Latest news with #MichaelGuettler
ABC News
23-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Uniting Church wanted secrecy around its move to evict ex-homeless couple
The Uniting Church tried to keep secret the details of its move to evict a formerly homeless couple from a Brisbane property, arguing media coverage could thwart its development plans and ruin a local real estate agent. The church has obtained a warrant in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) to force its tenants to leave the Mitchelton property, where it plans to develop a new 92-lot subdivision "so that the current housing crisis can be further alleviated". Disability pensioner Michael Guettler and his partner, Maria Hall, have rented a former farmhouse on the site since 2022, when a social worker found them living in their car. A church spokesman said it had provided the couple with "temporary affordable housing [and] to afford them transparency, the development application and relocation of the dwelling on the property have always been part of this arrangement". Documents filed in the tribunal show the Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Q) repeatedly applied for orders to limit public scrutiny of its push to evict them. On April 2, the property agent acting on the church's behalf, Grants Real Estate, sought a non-publication order because "the landlord does not want this QCAT case to affect the outcome of the development application". "We also wish to respect the tenant's [sic] privacy as they are in a vulnerable situation," it said. Mr Guettler said he thought the church had tried to "protect their brand from a corporate point of view" because the eviction would put the couple "at risk of becoming homeless again". After the tribunal refused on April 10, the church applied for a closed hearing, citing concerns about media reporting. "Should the media attend the QCAT hearing, this could negatively impact the outcome of the property development application," it said. The application claimed publicity could also harm the property agent, which was a "small family business of two part-time employees, a father and daughter, with a small rental portfolio of less than 30 properties". "Any form of negative press could severely impact this business and may cause the business to close, which would impact the welfare of Emma and Rob Grant," it said. "We request that this hearing be closed to all members of the public including the media. "Whilst we understand that we cannot prevent the media from reporting on this case, we wish to limit the information that is made available to them due to the reasons outlined above." The tribunal refused that application on May 2. The church was "aware of this matter progressing through the QCAT process and empowered our property managers to act on the church's behalf as the landlord to reach a resolution", its spokesman said. The tribunal granted a warrant of possession on May 26, paving the way for the couple's eviction next month. They are yet to secure alternative accommodation in a rental market with a 1 per cent vacancy rate and a social housing waiting list of almost 48,000 people. The church, which bought the 21-hectare site for $3.5 million in 2020, assessed "the site's potential for other uses … including aged care and social housing, however it was deemed unsuitable", the spokesman said. It now stands to make a windfall from a new 92-home estate in Mitchelton, where the median price for houses over the past year has been $1.23 million according to Tribunal filings said the church was "aware that the tenants are in hardship, and as such, the lease has already been renewed three times on compassionate grounds". "Unfortunately, due to the development of the property, and the demolition application, the owners are not in a position to renew the lease for a further term," it said. Its property agent had "made many efforts to assist the tenants in finding a new home", citing emails to the couple listing rental vacancies on real estate websites. The church spokesman said its agent had also offered help with "rental applications and references, and the church has been offering ongoing social support". Mr Guettler denied the church had offered any help. He said the couple, who paid $280 a week in rent, understood that the church was "not under any obligation to rent to us if they don't want to". "But what I'm saying is that the overarching delineation between private rental and renting from a church is that the image of the church in society is one of compassion and sharing and caring and inclusivity," he said. "And we don't feel that the inclusivity is alive at the moment and not once have they come here to ask how they can help us. A day after QCAT signed off on the eviction notice, a report emerged of the church's sale of a 12-storey Brisbane city office block for $48 million. Its trust bought the building for $40 million in 2007. Set up to fund the church's charitable works, the trust held almost $400 million in assets including investment properties, according to its last filings with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. Its charity status entitles it to discounts on development fees and its voluntary board is chaired by a former Macquarie Bank private wealth manager, Allan Hanson. It has also provided land for affordable housing projects with the Queensland government, including on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait and at Warwick, about 150 kilometres south-west of Brisbane. Mr Hanson and other members of the board did not respond when contacted by the ABC. The church spokesman said it was a "leading provider of health and community services to thousands of Queenslanders". "We offer a broad range of assistance for vulnerable people and are committed to helping people flourish," he said. "The current situation highlights the overwhelming need for more affordable housing to be brought online as quickly as possible in Queensland."
The Guardian
31-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
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. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 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. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 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.
