New Student Accommodation Council

THE Property Council of Australia has launched its new Student Accommodation Council, with inaugural president in Anouk Darling and inaugural executive director in Torie Brown announced.

The division of the Property Council has been established to represent and advocate on behalf of the growing purpose built student accommodation sector, which has seen 31,000 purpose-built student beds with an estimated value of $9.3 billion over the last five years.

“Today’s launch represents a coming-of-age for our sector – and firmly asserts our position as a growing and maturing asset class,” said Darling.

Of the 123,000 purpose-built student beds across Australia, the 10 founding members of the division account for 50,000, valued at over $20 billion.

With the founding members including Campus Living Villages, Cedar Pacific, Iglu, Journal Student Living, Student One, UniLodge, Wee Hur, Dwell, Scape and Yugo.

Brookfield has also made a recent move into Australia’s student accommodation sector with the acquisition of a development site opposite the University of Melbourne.

While Plenary was recently announced as La Trobe University’s preferred partner for its $5 billion transformation of its Bundoora campus into a thriving city in Melbourne’s north.

The division will focus on bringing in increased domestic and international capital to the sector, while building relationships with the tertiary education sector and tackling tax and lending frameworks.

“Students thrive in the Australian education sector and thanks to our members, increasingly have access to high quality purpose built communities to support their learning journey,” added Darling.

Darling was made CEO of the country’s largest owner and operator of purpose built accommodation in 2020, with Scape currently coasting more than $7 billion in AUM,

With Darling also serving as a non-executive director for boards including Enero Group, Discovery Holiday Parks and Macquarie Telecom Group.

While Brown has previously worked as the acting executive director of the Property Council’s capital markets division and deputy executive director of the South Australian division.

“It’s such a privilege to be leading the Student Accommodation Council from the outset, as the industry welcomes the return of international students now borders have reopened,” said Brown.

Brown most recently worked as a senior advisor to South Australian Premier, Steven Marshall, having also served on the board of the Adelaide Business Hub and as vice president of the Adelaide YWCA.

“I look forward to creating strong partnerships with universities, advocating strongly for the sector and highlighting the benefits for students, their families, the tertiary education sector and the Australian community as a whole,” concluded Brown.