source : the age
It was a cheerful day in 1967 at Sydney University’s newly opened International House when the Herald visited. In its enormous atrium, students milled around under a dramatic chandelier. A lift servicing eight floors provided access to students’ rooms, which were “compact, comfortable and bright”.
Almost 60 years later, the building on the corner of City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale, is abandoned, water pools on the floor and mould is growing on the walls, recent visitors escorted onto the property say. Chain wire fencing surrounds the perimeter.
In the middle of a housing crisis, International House at Sydney University sits empty.Credit: Steven Siewert
Despite a rental affordability crisis often blamed on international students, International House has been closed since December 2020, when the remaining residents were ordered to leave and given university accommodation elsewhere.
In an announcement in June of that year, International House director Jessica Carroll said the building that could house 200 students was “reaching its end of life”. It had been marked for redevelopment, she said, pleased that its future would continue.
“The building had issues being compliant with fire safety, the internal railings were not compliant, the lift wasn’t working and it needed to be replaced, as it was forever breaking down. There were chronic problems,” said Gregory Houseman, chairman of the Sydney University International House Council.
“We haven’t given up on it,” Houseman added. “There are always competing demands from sectors of the university, and the message we have got is your request for funding has not reached the top of the pile.”
The original idea behind an international house, the first of which was built in New York in 1924, was to promote understanding and friendships by providing spaces such as dining halls and programs to promote cultural exchange and understanding.
In 2023, the student newspaper Honi Soit published an article by an anonymous contributor who had grown curious about why the lights in the dining hall were sometimes on in the evening.
“The only way to find out was to break in,” they wrote. The accompanying photographs showed how belongings were just left behind: keys, surfboards and computers.
Sydney University student representative council president Angus Fisher said the situation was part of a broader picture of the university selling off other student accommodation sites since the pandemic while trumpeting ambitious targets to attract students from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
“You shouldn’t have a site of 200 beds sitting empty. That’s just crazy to me,” he said.
“There simply isn’t enough housing. I think the university should prioritise student housing for low SES students in their strategy because it is so important.”
A university spokeswoman said it had spent $220 million on building affordable student accommodation since 2015, and was developing a new pipeline of such projects on campus.
“We’ve only closed accommodation that is no longer suitable for student use or requires urgent refurbishment – and have, in fact, increased the number of beds we can offer by working with purpose-built student accommodation providers to secure additional spots for our students,” she said.
Inside a terrace that has been refurbished for student accommodation next year.Credit: Steven Siewert
She described International House as an “important and complicated development, involving several stakeholders, and once plans are agreed and finalised we’ll submit them for approval as is standard”.
She said one fundamental issue needed to be resolved – that university accommodation, which was 25 per cent cheaper than the market, was not officially considered affordable housing under state planning laws.
“We’ve appealed for a change to this categorisation, to make it easier for all NSW universities to fast-track student accommodation developments, providing planning control relief, density bonuses and exemptions from development contributions that would allow us to increase affordable local accommodation by at least 20 per cent,” she said.
Next year, there will be a boost to housing supply when a string of terraces bordering the university in Darlington, which have been shuttered since the end of 2022, are made available to students again.
Terraces along Darlington Road adjoining the university will be refurbished and open for next year.Credit: Steven Siewert
Other universities have also sold off inner-city student housing. The University of Technology Sydney sold property to Scape, a purpose-built student accommodation developer, on the condition it remained student accommodation. That decision was made solely to liberate funds to protect staff and avoid any forced redundancies during the pandemic. Despite the sale, last month the university announced 400 jobs would be axed.
Professor Alan Morris from UTS said university-owned accommodation helped vulnerable groups such as international students to survive on their own in Australia.
“UTS sold the housing in response to the financial crisis brought on by COVID. They’re lost forever, they will never get them back,” he said.
Meanwhile, International House at Sydney University is protected by a 1962 trust deed that restricts what it can be used for.
Chair of the International House alumni council, Dennis Schatz, said that in retrospect, the alumni would have preferred minor renovations be carried out on the site, which would have allowed students to live there while redevelopment plans were made.
“Anybody who’s been involved with International House is not happy with it,” he said of the delay.
He has attended meetings about the site with university management who acknowledged the need to redevelop it.
“What was really being said was: ‘There’s a whole redevelopment that’s occurring from the Wentworth building down through to the Seymour Centre. And, we’re going to do this with the Wentworth Building first, and work our way down, and we’ll get to International House’.”
There were reports the Wentworth Building may be demolished in 2025, but the university says that is not the case and that it is working with the Sydney University Union to review options for redevelopment or refurbishment.
Tenants’ Union of NSW chief executive Leo Patterson Ross said there was a bigger problem beyond student accommodation.
“We don’t have a system which incentivises the use of buildings,” he said. “It is financially viable to let a building sit empty.
“It is an indictment on our housing system. You can be sitting on the land and it can appreciate in value.”
He said if there was a real holding cost and property owners let sites sit empty, they would be hit in the pocket.
International House is said to have reached its “end of life”.Credit: Steven Siewert
Patterson Ross said universities, alongside state and federal governments, had a responsibility to ensure housing was available.
“We are asking people to come to Sydney, or wherever the university is, to pay a lot of money. A big part of the sales pitch is: this is going to be a good experience. Look at the marketing material … They show beaches, the harbour, they show aspects of life in the area, and they don’t show what housing is going to be like.”
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