Rowers say council forcing them from riverbank
Torrens Rowing Club say it is close to quitting the riverbank altogether as negotiations for a new lease with the Adelaide City Council appear deadlocked.
The club’s landlord, Adelaide City Council, has pushed up the rent for many operators along the riverbank.
A bigger problem, says club president Leigh Chapman, is that the club has been stopped from using its boatshed as a lucrative function centre – a move he says will strip the club of half its income.
The 70-member club has been locked in negotiations with the council since November last year but Chapman says Town Hall has told him it won’t shift its position.
Council dispute Chapman’ claim and say the rent increase is equitable, the Club will still be able to use its function centre, and negotiations are ongoing.
“If they don’t allow the functions to occur, not wanting to sound melodramatic, but I don’t know that we would necessarily be viable, without the fees going to $2000 per person or $1500 per person,” Chapman said.
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“They’re just not going to budge. And they’ve said they’ve got no room to move.
“The worst case scenario is council comes back and says ‘get out, vacate the building, we’re not going to renew your lease’.
“We’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Torrens operates its learn-to-row sessions from a boatshed on the eastern side of the King William St bridge.
The rent rise is part of the council’s Park Lands Property Strategy which aims to progressively place the 37 riverbank tenants on consistent market-value rents.
Torrens faces seeing its rent increase from $1000 to $6000 a year, despite getting a 90 per cent discount for being a community organisation.
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Adelaide City Council’s strategic property manager Mike Philippou told InDaily the rent increase was fair and had been endorsed by council representatives.
“The lease value is consistent with the Parklands strategy which went to public consultation and was endorsed by council in January last year,” he said. “The lease value embeds an 80 per cent discount already, based on independent valuation.
“So we’re not making these figures up, we’ve gone out to valuers are received this information and then put a series of criteria up through the consultation on how to subsidise or create a reduced rental allowance because of the fact that we’re dealing with not-for-profits and community groups.
“Council will continue to negotiate with the club to find a solution that will suit everybody.”
Chapman questioned how the market value of his club’s facility had been calculated.
“We can’t be compared to Adelaide University Boat Club who is backed by a multimillion dollar organisation. We’re a completely amateur club.
“The reality is, what’s the market value based on? If it’s based on being a fully-fledged function centre, then why can’t we do that. And what’s the market that they’re determining it from?”
The club is currently on a temporary licence while the negotiations are being completed, with the council keen to get them to sign up to the new licence as soon as possible.
The club currently earns around $50,000 a year from using its clubrooms as a function centre, out of a total annual revenue of $100,000.
Until it was raised by the council during negotiations, the club didn’t realise its liquor licence expressly required it to get permission from Council to run private events – unlike the other rowing clubs on the riverbank.
Chapman wants to get that condition changed.
Philippou said the council would consider all requests from the club to use its boatshed for private functions. However he declined to say whether the council would approve the current uses of the shed.
“The functions or events that are used as part of the function centre need to meet permitted use criteria and that would have to occur with Council’s consent. If it’s outside permitted use that makes it a little bit tricky because of the legislative obligations that play out. But certainly we’re committed to helping all the clubs find alternative revenue streams to derive as income that makes them sustainable in the long term.”
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