Sunshine Coast Council has made a submission to the Queensland Government’s red tape reduction taskforce to simplify the letting of council properties.
The red tape was discussed during Thursday’s council meeting, which heard the council had been searching for a new tenant for 65 Bungama Street, Maroochydore, without success.
A report to the meeting said the council acquired the property in May last year for the future Maud Street-Sugar Road upgrade and the owner was offered the opportunity to lease it back but chose to leave in October.
The council offered the property for lease by tender, in accordance with local government regulations, in January.
“To support the tender, a local leasing agent was engaged to market the property and handle inquiries, directing all interested parties to make a submission via council’s tender portal,” the report said.
The property was also listed on the ‘Tenancy opportunities’ page on council’s website.
However, after three weeks, a lease had not been secured.
The report indicated that council officers believe the tender process may have contributed to difficulties finding a suitable tenant. They instead proposed that the property continued to be marketed by a commercial agent, which the report described as a “more typical” arrangement.
“The requirement for prospective tenants to submit a tender response through a government tender platform is a somewhat unusual process in the commercial leasing market,” the report said.
“The recommendation is deemed advantageous to council by removing potential barriers for parties interested in entering into a lease.”
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To enable the property to be simply marketed by a leasing agent, a motion was put to councillors, and carried unanimously, that it be exempt from the tendering process.
Councillor Joe Natoli asked if there was a way of simplifying the process.
“I think every one of these that we’ve had in the last five years has gone through this same process where the market may be a bit soft, we can’t get a tender to be interested,” Cr Natoli said.
“We have to go through a formal process, bringing it back to council, and then go through this formality.
“Is there any way that we can approach the government about streamlining this, because there’s two choices: we either go back out to tender or we go back out to market. Or we just don’t do anything and leave the property.
“Should that just be an automatic process, a tick and flick and just notify the minister? I just think there’s a lot of formalities that we could avoid if we could find a much more streamlined process.”
Brad Poole, senior property officer at the council, replied that the legislation surrounding the disposal of council properties was written in a way to ensure fair and transparent dealings, although the process was sometimes “a little bit onerous or ill-fitting”.
“We have made a submission to the Queensland Government’s red tape review. Hopefully, they can look at that and streamline the process,” he said.
