leif – I think one of us is confusing what’s prescribed under Sect 62 with what it is that your O/C and Strata Manager have decided to do, or more correctly not to do.
As I understood your posts, the O/C didn’t Specially Resolve anything to do with changing, altering, or not maintaining the Common Property; they’ve just decided on a course of action, at best by a simple majority vote at an E/C Meeting, and then implemented it!
So as a Special Resolution was not taken at the General Meeting and it should have been, you have the option to seek the assistance of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) to require your O/C to either convene another General Meeting to put a Special Resolution to the vote in order to alter, change, and/or not to maintain certain items of its Common Property (locks, lights etc) or to get on with properly maintaining that Common Property in accordance with Sect 62(1).
A Special Resolution does not require a unanimous vote to pass.
Similarly, if your O/C then succeeds in passing a Special Resolution to not maintain certain items of its Common Property and that decision would affect the safety of the building, then you can again seek the assistance of the NCAT to overturn that decision under Sect 62(3b).
As for the NCAT process, yes you’re correct in your conclusion that an arbitrator would need to be convinced that any decision of your O/C not to maintain its Common Property had an affect the safety of the building, but then from what you’ve described in your posts that shouldn’t be too difficult for you to prove.
I think you need to get on with it – you never know, the Strata Manager and E/C may concede as soon as they receive your written request for the Common Property to be properly maintained, and you may not need the assistance of the NCAT at all .