Newcastle City Council will inspect former councillor Aaron Buman’s Adamstown boarding house on Wednesday morning after closing his other two over fire safety concerns.
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The council last week rejected a development application seeking to formalise Royal Standard House in Victoria Street, Adamstown, as a boarding house.
A council spokesperson said on Monday that the DA refusal would not affect the “day-to-day operations of the premises”.
But the spokesperson said the council would inspect the site as part of an ongoing compliance program for boarding houses and “evaluate what regulatory action, if any, may be required”.
That inspection will take place on Wednesday morning, leaving Mr Buman concerned the property, which houses 58 men, could be shut down.
The council closed his boarding houses in Carrington and Mayfield in October over unauthorised works it said had created fire “death traps”. It said at the time that Mr Buman had not been co-operative in trying to make the properties compliant.
Mr Buman admits his boarding houses include unauthorised structures but disputes that they are dangerous and believes the council is running a vendetta against him.
“They hate my guts. I get that,” he said on Tuesday. “This is all about Aaron Buman: nothing else. But they fail to factor I offer 155 beds across this city, and 83 of them are closed as it is.”
Mr Buman has been operating the Royal Standard as a men’s boarding house for 11 years, and over that time he has bought up two adjacent houses to expand the property.
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It is the largest of his three boarding houses and includes four main buildings and six cabins on what is now a 2000-square metre block.
Mr Buman said a council fire inspector and two planners had inspected the Royal Standard in March last year and asked him to lodge a DA to formalise its use as a boarding house. He lodged the application 14 months ago.
The council’s notice of determination last week rejecting the DA said the property did not meet requirements for parking, fire safety, heritage, disabled access, room size, communal living rooms, open space, solar access, drainage, storm water and water efficiency.
“That DA has sat on an officer’s desk, and then lo and behold it’s refused without asking for any additional information. Nothing at all,” Mr Buman said.
“Twelve months they’ve had my fire stuff. They’ve expressed no concerns.
“This is a massive, old site. I get that. But they’ve seen it; they know it. They’ve asked for their reports, and never once have they asked me to do anything.”
Mr Buman wrote an email to councillors on Tuesday afternoon imploring them “show some humanity” in light of the impending inspection.
He attached to the email a fire safety report from 2017 which revealed a litany of concerns with the Adamstown boarding house, including the use of non-compliant “timber cubby houses” for accommodation.
He wrote that the council had “never responded” to the report.
He told the Newcastle Herald that the timing of this week’s inspection, six days before Christmas, left him feeling the council was “devoid of any empathy”.
“It makes you wonder what they want to do for the homeless in this town.”
He said the council had “all the information in front of them” to make a decision on reopening Mayfield and Carrington, something he hoped would happen by Friday.
Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
