Draft report - Review of rents for communication sites on certain Crown land - July 2024

In December 2023, the Minister for Lands and Property asked us to conduct a review under section 9 of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal Act 1992. The Terms of Reference ask us to recommend a fee schedule which is simple and able to be easily implemented by the responsible land management agencies. We are asked to update current rents based on a sample of a minimum of 500 data points that are representative of the geographic diversity of Crown land sites.

We have been able to obtain representative sample of more than 500 private market leases throughout NSW. Our sample represents approximately one third of identified leases in NSW that are used for communications purpose and had commencement dates from 2020-21 onwards. We analysed the data (using statistical regression analysis) to consider the effect of density classification (i.e. Low, Medium, High density or Sydney), and other key characteristics of the site (i.e. airspace, rooftop) and whether the lessee was a primary or co-user.

We used the results from our regression to recommend the draft fee schedule shown in the table below, which also shows the current fees. We have found that market prices are lower than the current fees in all density categories.

Proposed and current rental fees ($2023-24, excluding GST)

We are also proposing to recommend:

• The density classifications remain the same from our 2013 review
• the price uplift policy for sites in National Parks continue reflect the opportunity costs of development occurring on environmentally sensitive land
• this uplift not be extended to other sites on Crown land, including state forest land, as it will add complexity when implementing our proposed fee schedule
• each rooftop site to pay an additional $3,821 per year as well as the relevant density category
• the 50% discount for co-users continue and to extend this to primary users deploying small cell technology
• the proposed fees are to be escalated by 3% per year, consistent with current market practice
• the proposed fees are to be independently reviewed in 5 years’ time.

We are interested in hearing from stakeholders on these draft recommendations and findings. Submissions will be open until 12 August 2024.