› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Parking Peeves › Surveillance in the Common Parking Area – Who Pays? › Current Page
There are a couple of issues here and while I think there are mechanisms for splitting the payment – the affected owners could club together to buy the equipment and the OC as a whole could agree to install and maintain it – but I think any such move undercuts the whole principle of strata as a community.
I can understand people not wanting to pay for things that don’t seem to benefit them in any way but where do you draw the line? If the roof leaks, should only the people on the top floor pay for repairs. If there’s a flood, should it only be those on the ground that have to pay? Or maybe the people on the upper floors (but not the top) should have their contribution to the insurance premiums reduced accordingly.
I assume the increased levies affected the other owners too so this shouldn’t be about how much everyone is paying. Opportunists thieves will very quickly work out where the CCTV cameras are and find a workaround – hoodies are a favourite with the young folk. They may decide to move on to the next easiest place to rob cars undetected. Hey, inside a garage would be great!
Surveys have shown that security is one of the top three reasons people buy into or rent in strata. Spend a little money wisely and you increase the value of your homes.
Whale is right on the money with his suggestions of improving the security of the whole building and any “not our problem” attitude is going to come back and bite you because it will become your problem as soon as thieves realise it’s easier to break into your property than your neighbours’ cars.
If it were my complex, I’d be pushing for a by-law to prevent people from exiting and entering the building via security doors. And I would buy and install one camera to catch the culprits who do so. A “processing fee” on top of the CTTT fines would mean your security would not only be massively improved, the cameras would pay for themselves.