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[Jimmy-T]

Misused e-bike and e-scooter batteries pose a real danger in homes, but how can strata schemes regulate their use to safeguard residents?

[See the full post at: Fatal inaction – call for e-bike strata regulations]

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[gmcevilly]

Thanks for this article. What happened to this initiative you reported in 2023?

E-bike battery by-law and webinar on the way

also here is some info from Fire + Rescue NSW, not that this solves the problems spelled out in your article
https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=9426

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[strataownersalliance]

We completely disagree with the SCA and any organisation supporting effectively banning an appliance. An ebike.is a plugin appliance like any other household appliance and they are critical to sustainability.

The anti owners stance while unsurprising from the SCA is truly puzzling from other organisations who should know better that governing appliances is clearly outside the powers of stratas around Australia and so it should be.

The regulation of appliances is not the place of strata and is clearly under a consumer affairs or fair trading remit.

We absolutely do not support this position which so clear overreach.

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[Jimmy-T]

gmcevilly wrote:

Thanks for this article. What happened to this initiative you reported in 2023?

Good question.  OCN has become very corporatised these days.  So there will be lots of discussions about what could and should be done in strata, but as for action?  Your guess is as good as mine. They don’t communicate with us – unless they want us to promote one of their events – so we can only assume that they are forging ahead with whatever it is they are doing.

One of the problems with the multiple strata conferences and seminars that seem to be everywhere these days is that they rarely every come up with any tangible results from their talking shops.  Discussing issues is good but for once I would like to see one of these bodies come out and say “we have discussed the issues and taken a vote and we demand the government does X, Y and Z.”

Maybe they did – if so, they didn’t tell us or anyone else in the media.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

We completely disagree with the SCA and any organisation supporting effectively banning an appliance. An ebike.is a plugin appliance like any other household appliance and they are critical to sustainability.

The SCA and other strata organisations are in a tricky position regarding e-vehicle.  We know that there are dangers from the misuse of batteries and we know that the owners corporations and bodies corporate have almost no power to regulate how you use the appliances in your home until they cause a problem outside your home (loud music and smoke drift being common examples).

However, the owners as a group have the right to create by-laws that govern the use of common property.  And by the way, this is your neighbours and other owners, not some remote body of faceless men and women.

So what, for instance, would prevent a super-majority of owners from passing a by-law that forbade residents from charging their e-vehicles from common power sources, parking them on common property or even moving them across common property?

Apart from the general principal that a by-law can’t supersede superior laws (FYI, most laws are superior to strata law) Section 139 of the NSW Act says by-laws can’t be create or stand if they are “harsh, unconscionable or oppressive”.

Now, the biggest by-law flip in recent years was when the Appeals Court of NSW decided that blanket  bans on all pets went too far because they didn’t allow for exceptions.  When the fur started to fly over all that, what was overlooked was that reasonable restrictions on pets were still allowed – e.g. if there was a valid reason for them.  The chair of the committee having  concerns about barking dogs was not a valid reason, for instance, because there were already ways of dealing with nuisance animals that didn’t require the banning of all animals.

So would a ban on moving your e-scooter through or storing or charging it on common property be considered “harsh, unconscionable or oppressive” by anyone other than the scooter owner? Critically, would that be the view of a Tribunal.

The building in which I live has a ban on anything other than a registered motor vehicle being parked in our parking spaces. That rule, intended to discourage people from leaving junk in their parking spaces, has meant I have been told not to park my road bike in the space under my storage box.  It certainly felt harsh to me but it wasn’t something over which I would go to the barricades.

What would happen if an Owners Corp banned e-vehicles from being moved through common property, including passageways, lifts and lift lobbies? In the essentially adversarial system set up for strata, e-vehicle owners could  wait until they received a notice to comply then challenge it at a tribunal.

No doubt the OC would hire lawyers to fight the case, as might the scooter owners and you never know, it could go all the way to the Appeals Court, as the pet issue did. You are looking at several hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the time a resolution is reached.

The only alternative is for one side or the other to give way – not because they think they are wrong, but because they can’t afford to prove they are right.

And that’s what I think is motivating the SCA-QLD position.  They are saying to politicians, give us something that will protect communities and stand up in a tribunal.  They are not telling their members and their members’ clients to pass by-laws that might fail the three-pronged litmus test anyway and in fact seem to be trying to avoid that.

The transport, storage and charging of e-vehicles is going to be the big battle in strata this year and the bad news for their owners is that there are considerably fewer e-bikes and e-scooters than there are dogs and cats in strata.

But there is one spark of hope – thus far no insurer that we have heard of has told a strata scheme that it’s going to increase premiums if there are e-bikes and scooters in the building. Insurers have highly paid staff who assess the real risks to buildings in financial terms and if they don’t see a quantifiable risk, then anti-e-vehicle by-laws could be seen as harsh and oppressive.

 

 

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[strataact]

Where does the line get drawn?  Is it only  lithium ion batteries, or all rechargeable batteries, irrespective of chemistry?

And if it is all , are strata dwellers to be banned or restricted in recharging laptops,  mobile phones, cordless drills, ipads, torches and the myriad of other devices containing rechargeable batteries.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataact wrote:

And if it is all , are strata dwellers to be banned or restricted in recharging laptops,  mobile phones, cordless drills, ipads, torches and the myriad of other devices containing rechargeable batteries.

In the building next to ours, someone dropped an electric razor down the garbage chute, the battery broke and it started a serious fire. We are never going to get L-ion batteries out of homes but we could require apartments to have L-Ion fire-proof blankets or provide them as a safety measure.  They do exist and cost between $100 and $150.

BTW, I reckon there are more fires caused by barbecues than e-scooters but try getting them out of apartment blocks.

And did you write “myriad of” to annoy me?

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

No strata in Australia can create a rule or govern appliances which are plugged into their own unit. That’s not tricky. That’s just a fact.

That’s obvious but avoids addressing what by-laws can be passed. What is tricky is that the hysteria that you describe could push OC into making “all or nothing” decisions.

Here’s another fact for you – owners corporations can pass by-laws to govern the use of common property.  My building has a by-law that says you can’t charge your e-bike or e-scooter on common property (a such as your balcony). You have to do it inside your apartment.

There seems to be hysteria on both sides and the less calm and sensible discussion there is on these issues, the more likely it is that sooner or later a strata scheme will decide to not allow any kind of e-vehicles on any part of common property and that is when the real fight will begin.

The NSW fire department has told our OC that there is “no safe place” to charge e-vehicles in an apartment building. Our strata committee is clinging to that like it isthe word of God, partly because purely technically it’s true if they mean a battery fire can start anywhere and spread eventually.

The dumb thing is that we have a bicycle room that is effectively a solid concrete box where e-vehicles could be charged, their charging monitored and the risk of fire spreading seriously mitigated.

But no, the fire God says “nowhere” so we have a by-law that would probably fall over the first time it was challenged and which I’m pretty sure is ignored anyway because you can’t see what’s going on every balcony.

That’s what’s tricky – the gulf between the theory and the fears it fuels, and the realpolitik of strata.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

We have had lithium ion batteries for 30 odd years. Why are we trying to govern something which has no proven risk above generic noise level now?

You seem to be taking the POV that I am against you because I’m stating facts.  Here’s a fact – I own and use an e-scooter and I live in an apartment.

Regarding your point about how long we’ve had L-ion batteries, it’s only recently that we’ve had batteries big enough to propel humans at considerable speed and in the current numbers in our homes. It’s also only recently that people have died in fires caused by L-ion batteries.  Nobody as far as I know has been killed by an exploding Sony Walkman.

Conspiracy theories about who is behind this and why help no one.

Fact 1: L-ion batteries, when they are misused, damaged or mishandled, can cause fires.

Fact 2: The fires caused by Li-ion batteries are different because the chemical reaction releases oxygen which sustains and increases the ferocity of the fires, which often also involve explosions. Apartment block water sprinklers will make little or no difference – they can literally burn under water.

Fact 3: People have died in fires caused by L-ion batteries.

Fact 4: There are many more of these large batteries in our homes than there ever have been and there is no control over where they come from, how safe they are and how they are handled.

OPINION: If we can’t address and consider the facts, we should expect the other side of the argument to do so either.

By the way, I’d love to get a link to one of the many cases you referred to where people have been allowed to store things in their car space when their by-laws say they can’t.  I’ve never heard of this but I don’t know everything.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

They cant possibly call themselves independent advocates while continuing to take “sponsorships” from the same industry they claim they are advocating for owners on.

Well, we are as guilty as anyone of that here at Flat Chat.  What we try to do is separate criticism of the elements in the industry from biting the specific hands that feed us.  And we try to promote the positive aspects of their services too.

That said, there have been occasions where I have cancelled sponsorship from companies with whose philosophies I disagree. And there are some companies which, if their sponsorship was the only way Flat Chat could survive, I would shut the website down.

The ideal situation would be if OCN was fully funded by the government – but then would they soften their approach to government policies. We live in an age where people expect everything on the internet to be free of charge and you have to be pretty nimble to navigate those waters and stay afloat without outside financial assistance.

But at least we’re not as bad as the Brisbane Courier Mail which once refused a paid ad from a consumer group because their property developer advertisers wouldn’t like it.

 

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

Strata needs to stay in its lane.

So do people offering false equivalences.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

Simply claiming that a 100% valid argument is a false equivalence because it doesn’t suit is not a particularly good argument.

Yes, but they weren’t “100% valid”. Comparing car fuel which does not spontaneously combust with L-ion batteries which can, is a false equivalence. Comparing fires that can be doused by water and foam with fires that can’t, is a false equivalence.

My point is that you are right – owners corporations can’t dictate what you plug into your electrical sockets. But they might be able to control what you do on common property, and if you can’t take your scooter across common property then you won’t be able to plug it in at home.

This is the time for calm consideration, not US Versus THEM battles. Failure to find a compromise is more likely to lead to a total ban rather than a free-for-all.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

That is literally not the scope or job of a strata. Way beyond a strata remit and purpose.

Fire safety is one of the principal responsibilities of strata schemes’ owners. That’s why they can demand entry to your flat to check your smoke alarm and insist that you upgrade it when necessary. It’s not the same thing but neither is it “way beyond”.

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[Jimmy-T]

I’m sorry but you are completely missing the point of the original article. It said: “Strata Community Association Queensland is now leading calls for urgent regulatory intervention, arguing that individual buildings cannot shoulder the burden of managing this crisis alone.”

You said, in many different ways, that this is something that can only be handled by Fair Trading or other government bodies, and not by strata schemes. It’s pretty much the same thing – except maybe you think there is no need for government intervention.

And my opinion is that I believe enough people in strata are concerned about this for them to start making bad decisions about what to do about e-vehicles. The facts about L-ion batteries are almost irrelevant – the perception is everything, especially when it comes to a vote at a strata general meeting.

And sure, maybe OCs will pass by-laws that can be challenged at the tribunal and in court – but why go to all that hassle if it can be avoided?

I actually think the risk is exaggerated and such risk as there is can be mitigated. But that isn’t going to happen  by cherry-picking facts and nit-picking debates.

For instance, I think I made it pretty clear that I was talking about damaged batteries spontaneously exploding. I never said, as you imply, that any battery has the potential to do so.

Owners corporations can control what people do on common property, including activities that are legal elsewhere, such as smoking, using bad language and dressing inappropriately (to name but a few).

Oh, and by the way, comparing trains in Victoria with strata in NSW is the epitome of false equivalence.  Actually comparing strata in Victoria with strata in NSW is a stretch too.  The reason nobody is even considering this in Victoria (if that is the case) is that there is no forum there for them to do so.  The media in Victoria is so wilfully blind to strata issues that they are almost culpable in the appalling state of affairs there.

So, we get it. You are pro e-vehicles. So am I.  But I don’t think “nothing to see here” is going to convince anyone. Consider this, more people have died in L-ion battery fires that have even been injured in flammable cladding blazes in Australia – and look what that did to apartments over the past few years.

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[strataownersalliance]

Jimmy-T wrote:

strataownersalliance wrote:

Simply claiming that a 100% valid argument is a false equivalence because it doesn’t suit is not a particularly good argument.

Yes, but they weren’t “100% valid”. Comparing car fuel which does not spontaneously combust with L-ion batteries which can, is a false equivalence. Comparing fires that can be doused by water and foam with fires that can’t, is a false equivalence.

My point is that you are right – owners corporations can’t dictate what you plug into your electrical sockets. But they might be able to control what you do on common property, and if you can’t take your scooter across common property then you won’t be able to plug it in at home.

This is the time for calm consideration, not US Versus THEM battles. Failure to find a compromise is more likely to lead to a total ban rather than a free-for-all.

Lithium Ion batteries do not spontaneously combust. That is 100% factually incorrect.

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[Jimmy-T]

strataownersalliance wrote:

Lithium Ion batteries do not spontaneously combust. That is 100% factually incorrect.

Congratulations. You picked up that on that one occasion I did not specify damaged or incorrectly handle batteries, but I did say “can” so pfffft!

Anyway, I am not going to approve another of your posts until someone else has commented as this has gone on too long with just two voices.

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