leif – with regard to all maintenance items that you’ve written to the Strata Manager about, you need to follow-up in writing to advise that under Sect 62 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act the Owners Corporation (O/C) has an absolute responsibility to property maintain the Common Property (door locks, garden lights), and that if they don’t do that within 14 days you’ll be lodging an Application for Adjudication Orders to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) in an effort to compel them to do so.
Neither the Strata Manager nor the Executive Committee can authorise changes to the Common Property, and whilst I doubt that a swapping door locking mechanisms from key lockable to latching only would constitute a “change”, the removal of door locks altogether IS a matter that can only be decided by the O/C at a General Meeting, where ≥75% (not 100%) of those in attendance would need to agree.
I believe that the matter of the fire doors and stairs is relevant, not only to the security of the building but also to the correct operation of the emergency fire exit system, where as your building was constructed in 1971 the requirements of Ordinance 70 of the NSW Local Government Act (1919) would have required all the fire doors to be self-closing and latched (not locked) to exclude draughts, and for the O/C to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the stairs are kept unobstructed.
Clearly, the consequences of the changes that the Strata Manager has (improperly) arranged to the fire doors could permit a draught to be created within the stairwell thereby allowing any fire to more easily spread to/between individual levels, and allow the people who now gain access to “camp” there and obstruct safe passage – and as Jimmy pointed none of that will matter to anyone until there’s a fire that spreads more quickly due to open fire doors and fleeing residents’ access is obstructed.
I’m loathe to suggest that you involve Council, but as you’ve apparently made an approach already, I think you need to follow that up in writing to request that their Officers undertake an inspection of the fire stairs and the entry / egress doors to access compliance with whatever standards applied at the time that the building’s original Certificate of Occupancy was issued, and to convey that information to the O/C in the form of a Fire Safety Order.
As an Owner, compliance with any Council Order will cost you also (via your Levy Contributions), but I guess that’s the price of safety and security!