Thank you to community members who engaged on our Rooming House Policy.

We engaged with the community over a four-week period and sought community feedback about the proposed Policy and their experiences with rooming houses in Glen Eira.

Council adopted the proposed Policy at the Ordinary Council Meeting on Tuesday 3 September.

We received 34 pieces of feedback on the proposed Policy through the Have Your Say platform, emails and letters.

The feedback about the proposed Policy was broadly supportive.

Some respondents provided suggestions for expansions or changes to the Policy, however this input was outside the scope of the current draft Policy.

The quantitative feedback provided through the Have Your Say survey shows:

The engagement findings have been used to inform Council officers to finalise the Policy.

The Rooming House Policy Engagement Summary Report below, details the engagement data and findings in full.

The draft Policy focuses on educating rooming house operators to improve the standards of rooming houses and protecting the health of our community. It includes Council’s risk management approach, which targets rooming houses that pose greater risks to public health.

The draft Policy covers:

Rooming houses offer accommodation for low income and disadvantaged members of our community, particularly those who can’t access, afford, or sustain a tenancy in the private rental market.

A rooming house is a building where one or more rooms are available for rent, and at least four people live. They’re different from share houses because they’re run by a rooming house operator and there are individual agreements with each resident.

Council has a role in registering rooming houses and regulating them so they meet minimum standards under state laws.

Our 2019 Rooming House Strategy and Rooming House Working Group (formed with regulatory agencies and health services), responded to community concerns about rooming houses. Since then, we have seen positive change in the community, including fewer complaints about noise, amenity, and anti-social behaviour.

We are proposing a Rooming House Policy to embed the positive change the Strategy created. A policy is different from a strategy because it focuses on Council’s role and responsibilities moving forward, instead of actions over a certain period of time.

We’d like to hear your thoughts on our approach to managing rooming houses in Glen Eira. The opportunity for feedback is open until Monday 15 July 2024.

Feedback can be provided:

• online through the survey below;
• via email at engagement@gleneira.vic.gov.au; or
• via post to our Engagement and Insights team, Glen Eira City Council, PO Box 42 Caulfield South, 3162.