#28837
excathedra
Flatchatter

    I like to think of by-laws as a guide to how things should be done to facilitate living in a community rather than a collection of ‘don’t’s.  The model by-laws do no cover the car parking issues described in earlier posts.  Accepted standards of civilised behaviour should stop offenders, but clearly there are people who do not live according to these standards.  

    In my submission to the review of NSW strata legislation, I suggested “Something that cannot be legislated in detail, but would be desirable in some sort of preamble to the Act, is an expectation that occupants observe not just the letter of their Scheme’s By-laws, but also the spirit of those that are (or should be) intended to facilitate living at close quarters and sharing facilities.”  I appreciate that “spirit of the by-laws” is subjective and open to discussion.  

    It would be good if a draft by-law could be devised starting with a positive statement that allocated parking spaces are intended for parking of standard passenger vehicles and that storage of other items must be limited and subsidiary to the prime purpose.  The dimensions of the spaces provide for doors to be opened and for people to have access to their vehicles, and it is unacceptable for vehicles to be parked in a way that will compromise this use of the spaces.

    Most civilised people will acknowledge this and behave accordingly, but unfortunately there will always be exceptions who will behave as they please in the absence of a by-law explicitly prohibiting what they are doing.

    I don’t have a ready solution, and perhaps there will never be one that works in all cases, but I hope this may start a discussion.