Sue Williams is back in the Flat Chat Wrap co-chair this week as we discuss the proposed Dodgy Developer Database announced by the NSW government last week.
Sue reckons it can only be a good thing to get all that information but is concerned that it might all be too complicated for ordinary owners to understand.
Jimmy points out that he doesn’t think it will ever see the light of day, and even if it does, ordinary people won’t have access to it to begin with, and will eventually only get to see it if they pay.
“Outrageous!” says Sue. “We pay for these things through our taxes.’
In any case, Jimmy says, it will be like the East Coast Fast Train line plan that gets trotted out at every election … a great idea that never gets out of the too-hard basket.
One group of people who Jimmy thinks will be all over the proposed database (if it ever eventuates), apart from the council and state planners for whom it is apparently intended, will be the banks and other mortgage lenders.
‘Imagine,” says Jimmy, “You want to buy a unit off the plan, you have the deposit, a great credit rating, solid employment and your mortgage lender looks at the database and discovers your proposed developer has a poor rating. Result? The computer says no!”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” asks Sue.
Another problem will be any large, high-profile developers with a poor customer service record. What are they going to do when they discover they only have three stars when their direct rivals have five or six? Lawyers at 12 paces, probably.
Elsewhere, we discuss whether it is reasonable to expect parents to tell their kids to play quietly on common property.
One building in Sydney’s Western suburbs has threatened parents with $1100 fines for breaking the schemes noise by-laws by allowing their kids to play noisily on common property.
As more families move into strata, is it fair to expect kids to be seen and not heard.?
And Jimmy asks if his bike is technically a “roadworthy vehicle”. He’s been pinged for parking his bike in his parking spot which, the strata scheme’s by-laws say, can only be occupied by “roadworthy vehicles”.
Now, he doesn’t particularly want to park his bike there – it’s usually in the back of the car ready for the next ride. But this does illustrate the angst and confusion that can be caused by a badly worded by-law.
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This is now being discussed in the Flat Chat Forum