Herb garden on Common Property

@the dish said:
A resident would like to build a herb garden, at their expense, on a section of the garden, which is Common property, and has said all residents could access it. 

Plans haven’t been submitted to the EC but I would be grateful for feedback about this.  

If this would be for the benefit of all owners, IE anyone could pick a few herbs, it would not be an exclusive right granted to only one owner or a subset of owners. It would not (in ACT jargon) be a ‘special privilege’. Consequently, I think the EC could approve this in the same way as it could approve some other minor change to the landscaping (say, extending a garden bed and planting some extra bushes). In that case, I don’t think by-laws etc would have to be drawn up, for example. It might be characterised as just gardening, a generous owner offering to plant some different plants and look after them for the benefit of all. If, later the owner moved on or lost interest in herbs, then planting something else is not likely to be a significant problem. 

On the other hand, if the area of land involved would be a substantial part of the common property or a non-trivial change to the present use and arrangement of the common property, then the EC should consider putting it to a general meeting. This might be the case if you have only a small area of common property so the herb garden would be a substantial part of the total. It might also be the case if the garden were proposed to go in the middle of an access route or otherwise have an effect on present uses of the common property. 

Anecdote: Our rules (ACT speak for by-laws) adopted in the 1970s, had provision for areas of common property to be set aside for growing vegetables etc and divided into plots and allocated to unit owners. The rules also specified that the use of a garden plot would be lost if the unit owner did not tend it properly. IE we were set up to have a community garden. It was established and used for a while into the 1980s but then was turned over to growing trees and grass. A few years ago, some of us proposed using some of our sinking funds to reestablish the community garden (on an an open area near the original garden) as allowed for in the rules with the main expense being a possum-resistant fence. We had plenty of volunteers who would have set up the plots. The area involved would have been less than 1% of our total area of common property. Some owners challenged it before it went to a general meeting claiming that it needed to be considered as grants of special privileges to individual owners who would use the garden and that would (in the ACT) have meant an unopposed resolution. The Office of Regulatory Services agreed with the alternative view that it was not a special privilege since unit owners could lose the use of a plot if it were not looked after in accordance with our rules and anyone could be given use of the plot. In that sense it was more like the tennis court or the playground: we can’t have everyone using those all at the same time but they are available to anyone who wants to use them. In the end the ordinary resolution failed by a small margin after some owners ran a campaign in opposition suggesting that a veggie garden would be an eye-sore, a hazard to children, a source of nuisance noise and all sorts of other ludicrous things.

@the dish said:
…but plans were requested as the person was vague on details.

That is often the way. People have a lovely idea that would be great to implement. However, they don’t do the work that is needed to make it happen.

With any change, other owners who have no particular interest in the proposal will need to be convinced that it will work out OK. Otherwise they will be very susceptible to scaremongering if a small minority decide to campaign in opposition to the proposal. [Luke-warm support and fierce opposition to any change, as Machiavelli observed]

In any case, the EC has a responsibility to make sure that it is clear what it is that it might be approving, even if it is broadly supportive. Indeed, especially if it would like to see a herb garden go ahead, it would be wise to insure against anything going wrong and killing the idea by making sure it has the details in hand.