Fishing from Swimming Pool on a Riverfront Property

It would be a lot easier to ban fishing from common areas by the use of a rewritten by-law.  There could indeed be health and safety issues and there may also be aesthetic and ethical issues with the idea of live fish being pulled out of the water and killed and gutted, especially in front of children.

I wouldn’t pussyfoot around this. A communal swimming pool area is no place for people to be river fishing.  Within reason, the owners corp has the right and responsibility to control what happens (or doesn’t) on common property.

For instance, you could theoretically pass a by-law banning the use of barbecues on balconies because of the smoke and smell that goes into other residents homes.

Check with a strata lawyer but I don’t a ban on fishing from common property would fall foul of the “unreasonable, harsh or discriminatory” test.

By the way, I was going to say that I doubted very much if there were regulations that prohibited people from fishing from shared swimming pools but then I found this NSW Government fact sheet which under “Prohibited” says you can’t “use any methods (e.g line fishing, traps, nets, bait collection) in closed areas.”

But that seems to mean areas  of waters and rivers that are closed to anglers and other fishers for seasonal or stock protection reasons.

The motion would stand up if it was specific.  “No use of fishing equipment that has fish hooks attached, or any other method, including spear guns, that might present a potential physical danger to the residents and guests using the pool” would do the trick. That way you are reducing the risk, not banning the behaviour.

Of course, your angler’s arguments are spurious and ridiculous.  Swimming backstroke naked would be banned for all too obvious reasons. It’s not about the behaviour, it’s the effect on other residents in a communal space.

All the chairman needs to do is reiterate the conditions that allow him (or her) to rule the motion out of order.  However, I can’t see how any of those conditions would apply.

The comment that it would be like banning backstroke, is irrelevant.  Banning “bombing” in the pool might be closer to the mark, or taking glassware into the pool area – these are innocent pursuits on their own but with potential health and safety implications.

This may be an occasion where a quiet word before the meeting may be the best approach.  If the chair thinks the by-law is wrong, he should explain why to the meeting then let them vote.  The fact is that yes, you can take this to a higher authority – Section 232 is all about disputes between the owners corp and owners, and section 245(5) says this:

An application to the Tribunal for an order authorising a motion for submission to a general meeting may be made by any person who, at the time of the application, could have applied for the order to which the proposed motion relates.

I’m not entirely sure what that means, but the main point is that the chair should allow the vote to go ahead if only because not doing so is going to lead to a lot of unnecessary strife. If the anti-anglers are in a sufficient majority, and they are thwarted on a dubious technicality, then there is no way the matter will end there and the ensuing strife will cost the scheme financially and in its community spirit and cohesion.

If the by-law is “incompetent” under strata law, then it can be allowed fail at the registration stage. But declaring a vote on it “out of order” is highly dubious, undemocratic and unnecessary and will fast-track the scheme to a world of pain.