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…one block I know sent out a questionnaire asking owners …
The WattBlock site has several publications on EV charging in strata. Their long report includes a template for such a questionnaire, decision flow charts, and example by-laws for different situations. https://www.wattblock.com/publications.html
Concerns about over-stressing the electricty supply at some future date are not a reason for refusing one vehicle today. They are a reason for doing what you set out to do – have a plan for the future.
I would suggest that concern for exceeding the electricity supply for the building is not entirely unreasonable and care should be taken so that the first X% don’t take up the available capacity leaving the remaining 100-X% in difficulty. A common misconception among about-to-be EV owners is that they need more than an ordinary power point. Vendors of EVs often encourage charging installations of 32A or even suggest that 3-phase at 32A is needed. This is nonsense. I have been charging adequately on an ordinary 10A outlet for over a decade and it is sufficient. As car battery capacities get larger, the need for faster charging is lessened, not increased, because a half-full battery will still have more than enough range for local trips. Perhaps be a bit generous and allow a 15A outlet but I wouldn’t give more without being sure the building can handle the extra load of X units times 15A at peak time.
This is being a bit cautious because people would hopefully respond to retail tariffs that encourage avoidance of the evening peak through time of use or peak demand tariffs. Not everybody will be charging at once but the Australian Standard have this assumption included unreasonably for peak demand calculations.
My Hyundai Kona electric has over 400km of range so I routinely have it set to stop charging at 80% for better battery life and I only charge to 100% if planning a longer trip out of town the next day. I plug in every few days when it goes under 50% and rarely let it run low. An ordinary 10A power point adds almost 200km of range overnight. A 15A outlet, almost 300km. So, don’t let the early adopters gobble up the excessive capacity they might think they need.
If it is practical, re distance to meters etc., it is preferable to have charging points wired back to the individual units’ meters. It saves the OC having to find an equitable way to meter and share a common property supply. Supply from the common property can be done in various different ways according to circumstances but best avoided if possible to go back to the existing individual unit meters.
I could go on with plenty more detail but that is enough for now. Anyone wanting to talk through more detail is welcome to send a message via this site.
Hi,
I have been driving electric cars since 2009. I drafted the advice that the ACT branch of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association gave to our local ACT government on how we recommend that they implement their policy that all new strata developments must include electric vehicle charging. I also prepared the general meeting resolution on EV charging where I live in an older development.
To save me writing out a long treatise on EV charging for various circumstances, could you please send me a personal message via this site and then we could arrange to discuss? There are a few ‘if this, then that’ decision points and a few key concepts and potential misconceptions to get straight.
PS. There are more ambitious schemes whereby the OC sets up an ’embedded network’ behind a meter for the site. Then the OC can sell electricity to the individual units like a mini-retailer having its own large solar array and being able to negotiate a cheaper supply to the whole building. The retailer to the OC only has to read one meter and so off-loads a whole lot of admin to the OC. An embedded network supplying premises must comply with strict requirements of the Australian Energy Regulator.
I am accustomed to the ACT’s ‘class B’ townhouses where each unit’s roof is their own. The owners corporation (OC) can regulate erections and alterations to units and consider the appearance of the development but it can’t just out-right prohibit the installation of ‘sustainability infrastructure’ such as solar panels.
Is the roof configured so that each unit has a bit of ‘its own’ roof over it, even if it is common property as per Qld legislation? If so, I think it would be sensible for the OC to adopt a policy that each unit can be given permission to use the bit of roof that is over that unit but no more. It might be possible to pass a resolution for a by-law or rule or whatever Qld calls it that says that the individual unit owners can expect that subject to approval and over-sight of the details from the committee.
Perhaps the roof is such that each unit could reasonably and practically be allocated a portion even if it is not as simple as above. Then, a question would be: Could you have an array that looks like one big array but is actually a set of electrically independent smaller arrays, one for each unit? Whether that would work would depend on where your meters are among other things. An advantage of this is that each unit with a small system might be able to largely self-consume their production with their fridge, dishwasher, washing machine and other appliances set to run during the day. In contrast the OC might have almost no electricity consumption during the day. It might be possible to organise a ‘bulk buy’ whereby the owners who want to go in on it share the cost and the OC gets a neat uniform looking large array. I agree that you should leave sufficient space for each unit to be able to have an equitable benefit from the common property roof space at some point in future even if they don’t want to do it now.
If the configuration is a large blocks of flats with small roof space relative to the number units below, then it might make more sense to have one OC system that could offset the OC’s costs for running the lifts, corridor lighting, fans in the basement car park etc. Then every unit owner would benefit in direct proportion to their contribution to its cost.
In the ACT and possibly similar elsewhere, a special resolution is required to form a committee of more than 7 members. The reason for this is that more than 7 on a committee can get a bit unwieldy. I tend to prefer committees with about 5 members – large enough to get a variety of perspectives but small enough to get through business reasonably efficiently.
Another way to handle this would be to have a small committee, perhaps just three since you have to have a chair, secretary and treasurer. A general meeting could pass a resolution to direct the small committee that certain classes of decisions of the owners corporation have to be taken to a general meeting. You could have it so that general meetings are required to decide all but the most routine and uncontroversial matters. The rules about notice to all owners, distribution of minutes etc that apply to general meetings would then apply to most of the meetings and all owners would be entitled to attend and vote.
Thanks very much Sir Humphrey but I did exactly as you suggested. I wrote a simple, clear, unambiguous Motion – That a Bylaw be drafted to prohibit illegal parking in Visitor Spaces at … – followed by a detailed explanation in an explanatory statement. I’ve had enough experience now not to poorly draft a motion for an agenda.
OK. In that case I can’t see any reason for redrafting. I agree with JT that your motion should be put as you drafted it or they should discuss their proposed rewording with you and you could agree to their suggestions or not.
It would be legitimate for the meeting to pass a motion to amend your motion but only if the amendment is within the scope of the original motion and does not alter its nature. Eg. An amendment to your motion might add a time frame if you had not specified that or authorise the committee to spend some amount to have the by-law drafted by a relevant expert.
If it is your unit area as shown on the strata plan, then no, there is no reason why the area should be treated as common property. There are mechanisms to grant exclusive use of parts of the common property to individual unit owners but I am unaware of the converse. In principle, I guess, a unit owner could lease a part of their unit area to the owners corporation but I have never heard of that happening.
I would think you could renovate your garden including this corner and the owners corporation would have no recourse if its path was blocked. However, I suggest you don’t just go ahead without discussion.
I’d suggest writing to the OC giving generous notice of your plans to use this area so they can re-route the path.
If a motion includes “lots of advice”, then perhaps it was poorly drafted. A motion generally has to be in a form that clearly directs someone to do some thing. Eg. “That the Owners Corporation must do X when Y occurs”.
A chair could decline to put a motion to a meeting if it is not competent to unequivocally direct someone to do some thing. The chair could also rule that the motion should not be put because it would require something that would be inconsistent with the relevant strata act or other legislation. The reasonable thing to do would be to come back to you explaining the deficiencies in your motion, as they see them, and to suggest how you might reword them to be a motion that could be voted on.
Where detailed explanation is required, that can be in an explanatory statement.
Would this be a solar PV system on the roof of an individual townhouse or on the common property of a block of flats? If the latter, I’d suggest that the limited roof space of a block of flats would be better off used for a communal purpose owned by the Owners Corporation rather than given over to one owner. You might want PV or a roof garden or a BBQ area with potted palms or solar preheating for the hot water system.
I assumed the poster was talking about an owner wanting their motion on the agenda for a general meeting, not a committee meeting.
Normal meeting procedure includes that a motion proposed by one person should be seconded by another member. If a person proposes a motion and nobody seconds it, the chair is entitled to decline to put the motion up for a debate and a vote and to move on with the meeting agenda.
The point of seconding is to establish that at least one other person wants the motion to be put to the meeting. A seconder is usually someone who supports the motion this is not required. A seconder is just someone who believes the matter should be debated and voted on. This could be because the seconder thinks the issue should be put to a meeting to demonstrate its lack of support.
If the serial motion proposer has no seconder, the chair is entitled to refuse to put the matter on the agenda for the meeting.
BTW. Some time can be saved at meetings by dispensing with proposers and seconders for motions put on the agenda by the committee. If the committee has decided to put those motions on the agenda, it is obvious that at least two people supported the motion being put to the meeting.
I don’t claim to be fully up to date on this. My understanding from reading a few years ago is that you need to look at a tax ruling on strata income. It is readily available but I don’t have it at my fingertips.
Some sorts of income is taxed at the level of the OC, which pays at the company tax rate. Levy income is not taxed because the levy is money paid by the owners to the owners corporation in proportion to unit entitlements and the sum of the owners in proportion to unit entitlements is identical with the composition of the owners corporation ie. this is our money that we are paying to ourselves.
However, a third class of income is taxed at the level of the individual owners. I suspect that renting out common property wall space for a billboard would be in that category. For that income, the OC would have to tell the individual owners what their share by unit entitlements is out of the total income and then the individuals should declare their portion on their individual tax returns. Consequently, a unit owner paying a low marginal tax rate might benefit more than a person on a higher marginal tax rate. Since there would probably be little or no costs involved to the OC, the differential benefits might not matter – everybody gets something, which is better than nothing and it costs you nothing. If the income-earning thing required a substantial investment out of OC funds first, then differential benefits, not in proportion to unit entitlements, might be a problem.
I assume that Victoria, like other jurisdictions, requires an Owners Corporation (OC) to have a Sinking Fund Plan (SFP), usually for 10 years
…that assumption is incorrect. In Victoria only a prescribed (read large) OC needs a Sinking (Maintenance) Fund. … And in Victoria, villa stratas, as described by the OP, usually have very little common property. Often just the driveway. … So why the levy hike? I think there might be a bit more to the OP’s situation?
Where I am (ACT) in townhouses, our biggest single sinking fund item is resurfacing our roads. We have a mix of private roads and a public road through the site. When local govt. resurfaces the public road, we have had the contractor do our bits too. It is hard to predict when that will happen. Perhaps the OP’s driveway needs redoing or the OC has anticipated that it will need resurfacing some years from now? In any case, if there is a sinking (maintenance) fund for this OC, and it has a budget (whether for one year or a longer plan), that must have been agreed by a general meeting so there should be some justification given, which may or may not be a reasonable justification. I suggest the first stop for the OP is to ask when the rise in levies was approved and what documentation was presented to the general meeting that approved it.
While your manager might be careful to say they don’t provide ‘legal advice’ because they are not a lawyer, it is ridiculous that they can’t just answer your reasonable question, ‘What do people usually do?’ That should be entirely within their area of experience and expertise to answer.