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I am fortunate to have not experienced such a problem.
Perhaps a starting point could be discrete enquiries to establish whether the behaviour is directed towards only Reddant or if this tenant is more widely known to be a pest. Especially if the latter, the committee might delegate one of its members to have ‘a quiet word’ about appropriate and respectful behaviour. That discussion could include reminding the tenant that it is almost certain that their tenancy agreement includes a requirement to comply with the rules of the Owners Corporation. Such rules generally include a catch-all requirement that residents must not interfere with the use and enjoyment of the common property by other residents – any sort of non-trivial annoyance and harassment is covered. The ‘quiet word’ might include advice that further inappropriate behaviour could become grounds for a rule infringement notice (or whatever the term is in other states) that would be served on both the tenant and the landlord and that this could put the tenant’s tenancy at risk.
I agree with ‘Talk to a lawyer’.
I suspect that the remedy might come from common law or other legislation, not specifically strata legislation. The OC is one ‘legal person’ who has done something that had an adverse effect on another person (you).
I think you would be greatly helped by having some sort of expert report that documents and demonstrates the effect of the portico on your unit, even if you think it is all pretty obvious. I have the impression from a few visits to the Tribunal that they very much prefer having a sworn expert witness who can provide technical advice. They don’t seem to like nearly so much well reasoned and evidenced arguments from non-experts, even if those non-experts are intelligent and the technical matter is not ‘rocket science’.
I would also assume on the face of it that it was not obvious before that the addition of the portico would have any adverse effect on any unit but it was an obvious benefit to the owners generally. IE I think it can be assumed that there was no malice involved. However, that should not mean that there should not be some sort of compensating remedy now that it seems there was a detrimental effect to you.
… I get to make all the decisions without referring to others input…
I would advise making sure that you communicate well with the other owners so they know what is going on or at least demonstrably could have known if they had paid attention. It would only take one noisy person to accuse you of poor behaviour and you might find yourself wanting some allies who know you have been doing good things responsibly altruistically etc.
You might want to think about succession planning too for when you get tired of doing it all. Perhaps a new owner can be recruited to the committee and trained up.
OptusJo mentions having a manager. I once asked our manager (who was very good) what would happen if we could not form a committee (a few of us were feeling a bit fed up at the time). Her response was that she would continue to run things but would call a general meeting every single time a decision was needed about anything. She said she would keep doing this till the OC got fed up with it and got its act together and formed a committee.
…Be careful to keep the committee in good communication as well in case one member goes rogue and contacts other owners with misinformation of planned works…
Yes. I have seen that happen too.
Just another point that some people don’t realise: if the committee isn’t happy with what the strata manager is doing with their delegated powers, they can take them back just by holding a committee meeting and agreeing to do so.
Agreed and even if they are generally happy with the manager, a committee might prefer to do some particular task themselves on some particular occasion, in which case they can tell the manager ‘Thanks, but we’ll handle this one ourselves.’
I have informed the Strata Manager who receives numerous complaints from her weekly about neighbors watching tv, parking, using fans in laundry, etc
This at least demonstrates that it is not just you she is complaining about, from which you might be able to take some comfort. If the residents of other units do not think the general noise levels in the building are unreasonable, it would seem that it is her expectations that are out of line.
I have certainly encountered a few people who seem to think they should not ever be able to hear any sounds from their neighbours, which is an unreasonable expectation in high or medium density living. I suggest that you just have to try to ignore your neighbour having done what you reasonably can do to minimise disturbance.
How much the committee does and how much is delegated to a manager can vary from one place to another. Where some or all of the functions of the office holders are delegated to a manager, the duty of the office holder is to satisfy themselves that those functions are being carried out properly. For example, as a treasurer, I don’t have to do the banking, liaising with auditors or keep the accounts but I do regularly look over the accounts on-line to make sure that various expenses have been charged against the correct lines of the budget and that there is no income or expenditure that differs from what I expected. I prepare a draft budget for the committee to consider before it recommends it to the AGM for approval but I know that many places leave that to the managing agent as well.
If it is clearly part of your lot as shown on the strata plan, then that is that. You have exclusive use of it if you want to exercise that right. However, you might well still need permission to erect any structures such as a fence on the boundary. Is your lot unique or are there others that similarly have a larger bit of land? Have those been enclosed and, if so, how? Without seeing your situation, I would expect that it would be reasonable for the OC to require you to match the style of other fences rather putting up any other random style if you want a fence. What about planting just a few bushes and paving in a way that is enough to indicate the public vs private areas without an actual structure like a fence?
Since there are only 18 units, I think the idea of a volunteers roster has merit. I agree that strata insurance usually includes cover for volunteers. Make it formal by having the committee minute who has volunteered to do what. To make people feel like all are doing something, you could suggest that people who are not up to taking their turn to put out the bins could volunteer for something else such as making tea and cakes for the bin volunteers on some periodic social occasion. You might get one or two who don’t want to be involved at all. They just get to free-load on the rest of you who are doing something for the community and you have to live with that.
Sections 29 and 30 of the UTMA might apply: “An owners corporation for a units plan may, if authorised by an ordinary resolution, enter into and carry out an agreement with an owner or occupier of a unit for … b) the provision of facilities or services for the unit (or its owner or occupier). … The owners corporation may recover the cost of carrying out the agreement as a debt from the person with whom the agreement was entered.” So, I think the OC could enter into an agreement that it will provide and maintain a hedge in a particular spot and pay some specified fraction of the cost if the owners of the two units that benefit more agree to pay the remainder of the cost. I think the motion should note these sections and use the wording to make it clear that the agreement is providing a facility (the hedge) that provides a service (improved privacy) primarily to the particular units.
Another option might be to grant a special privilege to the owner of the unit that wants the hedge on common property on condition that they install and maintain a hedge in the location. This would become an owners corporation rule (like a by-law elsewhere) that needs to be registered. It would take a 75% special resolution to create the special privilege rule (and to rescind it later if that is wanted).
If the EC is confident that the hedge would amount to a ‘minor use’ of common property by the benefitting unit owner and that ‘use will not unreasonably interfere with the reasonable use and enjoyment of the common property by other members of the corporation’, then it could approve by an ordinary resolution of the committee. Schedule 2.4 What is ‘minor’ is up for debate. I contend that it depends on circumstances. Eg. In one OC, a few square meters might be a trivial and tiny fraction of the common property. Somewhere else it could be all of the common property. In one place a hedge would not bother anyone but somewhere else it could be an unreasonable impediment.
…Three-phase power to their individual parking spots – higher cost, faster speeds, exclusive access? …
I would advise against a high powered, three phase supply to individual parking spots. Writing as someone who has been driving electric cars since 2009, I can tell you that people think they need high powered, faster charging before they get an electric car because they are still doing petrol-thinking. When you don’t need to go out of your way to fill up and spend many hours at home, you can quickly adjust to trickle charging top ups at home and find they are plenty. Hardly anyone needs high power charging.
I have access where I park to a single-phase 32A supply (7kW) but I can rarely be bothered to get my portable 7kW charge cord out of the car to use it. Instead I use the 10A (2.3kW) cord that I leave in our carport plugged into an ordinary power point ready to use. 10A can add about 200km of range overnight. [15A would add 300km. 7kW/32A single phase will fill any car overnight no matter how large or depleted the battery is. 3 phase is overkill for home charging.]
Marbles, if you would like to talk all this through by phone, you are welcome to send me a message via this site and then we could arrange a time to chat. Without talking, it is hard to know what level of understanding (or misunderstanding) the other person has. I could get a lot more technical or start a lot more basic. Depending on the details of your building, there are probably some options that can be crossed off the list pretty quickly, saving some potential for confusion.
On second thoughts, having sifted through pictures of all kinds of electric scooters, I wonder if we can get Marbles (the OP) to tell us what kind of scooter he’s talking about.
My impression of the original post was that the question was more about “How can we handle EVs in general that might come along later if we say yes to the scooter person?” So, it doesn’t really matter what sort of scooter it is.
… I also have to confess that I thought this question was about one of those trendy electric scooters we see around the city (or used to, before lockdown). I now realise I am simply too hip for my own good.
I made the same assumption but I have never been accused of being hip.
Here is an article I wrote for the ACT branch of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association. https://www.aeva.asn.au/retrofitting-electric-vehicle-charging-in-strata-properties/ Some of the details are ACT-specific but many points are relevant anywhere. The WattBlock report referenced in this article has step by step guidelines and advice for retrofitting in strata properties.
A key point is that what is the best solution for one OC is not necessarily best for another. One key concept to grasp is that people who don’t yet have EVs tend to think they need much faster charging than they really do. I routinely charge my car from an ordinary 10A power point and have been charging electric cars like that since 2009.
Another key point is that it is possible to do a staged roll out. At first, a few people could charge from ordinary power points without overloading anything. At some point, there might be enough cars charging that their extra demand is a problem for the building’s maximum load capacity. The key thing to understand here is that the building’s electrical supply was designed to cope with the evening peak. Outside a few hours of late afternoon to early evening, there will be more than enough spare capacity to handle car charging. There are various systems that can be installed in due course to manage load sharing and to avoid exceeding the building’s peak demand. That only needs to be put in place once a higher proportion of residents have EVs. For the first few, low tech solutions will be fine.
Owners will probably want user-pay. The best way to enable that is for each owner to have permission to run cabling back to their own meters. Then the OC does not have an extra admin burden. If that is not practical (eg. a unit’s distribution board might be many floors above the car), then a simple kWh counter in line with a power point might be enough.
NB. The strict regulations about embedded networks for electricity supply to units do not apply when the supply is to vehicles because vehicles are not regarded as premises.
This resource discusses EV charging more generally but includes a section on what ‘EV readiness’ looks like for new strata properties: https://electricvehiclecouncil.com.au/reports/local-government-resource-pack/
Feel free to send me a personal message to set up a phone call if you would like to talk about EVs more and better understand what is and is not really needed and pros and cons of different ways to accommodate charging. I can speak from over a decade of experience with electric cars as well as being an executive committee member through much of that period.