Lot Appearance – Not in keeping with the rest of the building…

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone can clarify some points in regards to the standard by-law for the appearance of a lot. The 17(1) bylaw states “The owner or occupier of a lost must not, without the written consent of the owners corporation, maintain within the lot anything visible from outside the lot that, viewed from outside the lot, is not in keeping with the rest of the building”.

• What defines “not in keeping with the rest of the building”?

I am currently a tenant on a second floor which has a front-facing balcony with railings. To generate some privacy bamboo screening was placed on the inside of the rails and were promptly requested to remove it the next day.

There is currently a balcony below which has a permenant yawning installed which is commonly pulled down and a balcony above which has some brown lattice woodwork in addition to covering their balcony with potted plants.

We responded that others have items installed which provide privacy for those balconies. The bamboo matches the yellow of the concrete foundations of the building, and I offered to change to a different colour or material to match the railings (brown).

Unfortunately these suggestions were shot down in a manner that seemed fairly aggressive; that the OC disagree and request immediate removal and will pursue this through the Office of Fair Trading and CTTT. They ignored the offer of changing colours etc.

The screen has since been removed and asked for further clarification on what is acceptable, which they responded that no alternative type can be installed but would only accept potted plants. Thus, what defines keeping with the rest of the building…

• What defines a “building” and can a physical building span two separate Strata Plans?

This is related to the above context and explained further below. Using example numbers, the unit we're a tenant of has a street address of 1A Pretend St. It shares common grounds with the street address of 1 Pretend St (Same pool, gardens, driveway, parking etc). The council has 1 and 1A Pretend St as different lots. The building itself is logically split in to three blocks (A, B, C and D) with blocks A and B being addressed as 1 Pretend St and blocks C and D as 1A Pretend St. All blocks are physically connected but have their own entrances and lifts so you can't enter block C and walk via the building to block A.

We're recently had verbally explained to use via the real estate that 1 Pretend St and 1A Pretend St are under two different strata plans and committees. 1 Pretend St allows the bamboo screen discussed previously with quite a few units using them, but 1A does not. These buildings are identical and since they are physically attached would there be a valid argument that having bamboo screen is in keeping with the rest of the building?

Thanks for reading this lengthy post and appreciate your responses. Let me know if I just need to suck it up and deal with no screening.