The property is 3.6 hectares of Crown land in an area that is rapidly gentrifying and ARCCO is the tenant on the head lease from the state government. The site is home to various community groups and popular farmers and street food markets. The Bower is a not-for-profit organisation that takes donations of old furniture and other household goods and sells them back to the community, or gives them to vulnerable people, to reduce landfill. It also runs a repair cafe, where people can have household items fixed for free. Last week, Bower staff were locked out of the straw bale building at the back of the site where the organisation has been based for the past two decades, after The Bower was evicted by ARCCO for alleged breach of lease. The Bower's general manager Guido Verbist is pursuing legal and bureaucratic channels in a fight to reopen, and holding working bees to clean up the area outside the building this weekend. ARCCO chief executive Rosanna Barbero said The Bower was being evicted after requests to comply with building regulations and other matters went unheeded for several years.

Rosanna Barbero, chief executive of the Addison Road Community Centre Organisation in Marrickville. Credit:Caitlin Fitzsimmons Ms Barbero said ARCCO had a focus on compliance for a reason. "If we breach our head lease, the Crown can come in say, 'You've breached your lease. We're shutting the entire centre,' and 43 organisations with the stroke of a pen would be gone, and the community would be very upset at us," she said. Mr Verbist dismissed this as "scaremongering" and said it was the latest in a concerted campaign by ARRCO to try to get rid of The Bower. The issue behind the alleged breach of lease was that the Bower building needs a retrospective development application. The Bower has submitted reports from a structural engineer but the Inner West Council can't process the DA without permission from ARCCO. Terms of lease

Soon after starting in the job in 2013, Mr Verbist tried to get a copy of The Bower's lease and when it couldn't be located, he was advised to sign a new one. Mr Verbist claims ARCCO switched the terms of the contract between sending the electronic version and the hard copy, reducing the term from five years to two years, and removing the clause that acknowledged The Bower had constructed the building and was entitled to reduced rent. Loading The original lease was later found and reinstated after The Bower took legal action, he says. The Sun-Herald has seen copies of both versions. Ms Barbero said Bower staff were told the terms were different but they failed to check the contract before they signed. Tiered rent system

Then ARCCO tried to increased the rent, not only for The Bower but also Reverse Garbage, one of the original tenants with a 40-year history at the site. Reverse Garbage has a similar model to The Bower, but focuses on industrial and commercial waste that can be reused for arts, craft and DIY. ARCCO has a tiered rental system, where it determines a “market rate” and then tenants pay 40, 50 or 80 per cent of that. The Bower and Reverse Garbage must pay 80 per cent because they sell goods, despite being a not-for-profit organisation with a marginal business model, while service providers would generally pay a lower rate, including some small-time commercial operators and services with government funding. The Bower general manager Guido Verbist standing in front of eviction notices. Credit:Jessica Hromas In 2015, The Bower paid $15,579 a year and in 2018 it pays about $20,816 a year, according to both parties, but if ARCCO has its way it would pay more than $60,000 a year. But Mr Verbist said an independent valuation estimated the market value at $37,500 a year before any discount. “We have a second site in Parramatta where the site would usually charge $60,000 in rent and we get it for $10,000 – now that’s what I call subsidised rent,” Mr Verbist said.

Reverse Garbage, an organisation with a similar model to The Bower but focused on commercial and industrial waste, pays $69,566 rent annually for a bigger building. Reverse Garbage chief executive Naomi Brennan said ARCCO's proposed rent increases would make the annual rent $224,000 a year by the end of a new five-year lease. "We are in a building where it leaks copiously when it rains and the floor is collapsing. We've been asked to, and we have, moved off 25 per cent of our floor space earlier this year and we haven't received any reduction in rental as a consequence and we currently pay nearly $70,000 and they want us to pay considerably more," Ms Brennan said. "To classify us as a seller of goods as if we are a commercial organisation seems an unlikely classification. We are a not-for-profit, income-tax exempt, registered charity." Reverse Garbage has not been evicted but Ms Brennan said the rent demands put the operations at risk. Vision for the centre

The bigger issue is that the focus of ARCCO's operations has changed. ARCCO is also a not-for-profit organisation but originally, its role was as custodian of the site and it operated largely as a property manager and landlord. Loading But ARCCO's current strategic purpose gives it a dual function, and the centre runs its own award-winning programs, such as a food pantry to combat food insecurity in the community and a social-enterprise cafe. “We’re the neighbourhood centre of Marrickville but we’re broader than that – we work on environmental, cultural, arts and humanitarian programs and we see ourselves as permanently here and associated with the site,” Ms Barbero said. The new constitution adopted at the AGM last year changed ARCCO' from a manager of the site to one with a charitable purpose, including "practical relief of food shortages", and "empowerment of socially and economically disadvantaged individuals". The Sun-Herald has copies of both the old and new versions.

ARCCO's financial reports show big increases in wages, administration and program costs, while spending maintenance has stayed stable. A number of tenants complained to The Sun-Herald they were paying more rent and ARCCO had the boomgate income from weekends, but there were as many potholes as ever and the internet didn't work properly. Loading "They have in my opinion a conflict of interest," Mr Verbist said. "They're good programs but that's not the point. Given the new mission they've given themselves, they have to look for income streams. "All the people who approved this change of constitution are one by one going to be the victims and forced to leave their own buildings, because they need more wealthy or commercially driven organisations to pay these higher rents.” Ms Barbero said there was no conflict and ARCCO is obligated to provide services to the community, but also had big fixed costs like insurance.