Goodbye lawn, hello concrete

Hello All,

I came home from work and noticed a large amount of the common property lawn outside a nearby villa has been removed and the area prepared with formwork for concrete.

The lot owner and son, both fairly intimidating characters have been parking their cars in front of their garage and this adjacent grassed area since they moved in last year. 

Last year as Secretary of the SC I approached them about not parking on the lawn as it was damaging it. I explained that they should be parking in their garage and that extra vehicles should be parked on the street as should their visitors vehicles. Unfortunately nothing improved so I asked our strata manager to write to them warning that the next step would be the OC issuing a notice to comply.

I had a motion to issue a notice to comply included for our AGM.  I also got quotes for bollards to stop the parking on the lawn and presented this motion at the AGM. I provided photos of the cars and the damaged lawn at the AGM however after a heated debate both motions were rejected by the majority of owners. The villa owner also attended the meeting and was rather hostile saying there were more important issues than parking to worry about – totally ignoring the issue of the damaged lawn.

Most owners have numerous vehicles and park on common property in front of their garages, which the majority of our OC have decided isn’t an issue when it causes no damage and doesn’t impact anyone else. However now we fast forward to this week and the grassed area has been dug up.  No OC meeting held and no approval sought for this land grab.

I have sent an email to the Strata Manager advising that this unauthorised work is currently occuring and that if the OC chooses to ignore the proper process for dealing with this issue I will be taking the OC to Fair Trading. I have received no response, how long should I wait and what should I do next?

After four years I chose not to sit on the SC this year.