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I received a letter from the Strata Manager advising that I had been reported as having parked my car in the visitor car park.
No EC meeting has been held at which such reporting could have taken place by individual member(s) since the last AGM at which I resigned from the EC.
The contents of the letter are of a general nature and refer to the by-law which states that “An owner or occupier of a Lot must not park or stand any motor vehicle on common property except with the written approval of the Owners Corporation”.
If individual EC members have the right to report to the Strata Manager and, as a result of such report, the Strata Manager acts as has happened in my case, then all owners and/or residents are clearly open to bullying by such individuals.
The by-law quoted refers to common property which includes visitor car parking.
In our Strata Plan all but one garage are small single garages and no other storage space is available to owners/residents. Besides the car (which just fits in) there are 7 bikes and helmets plus 2 bogey boards and 4 collapsible chairs hanging on the walls, plus a lot of other items sitting on shelving. When our 6 grandchildren come to play each Thursday after school I have to leave the car in a visitor car space across my garage to access whatever it is we need.
The same happens when I need access to anything stored in my garage at other times.
My question is: what do other Owner Corporations do whose members have the same or similar predicaments and whose by-law on parking is the same or similar to ours?
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The By-Law that you have referenced is the standard By-Law #2 provided in Schedule 1 of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act (1996), and which most if not all Strata Plans have adopted to prevent people like you from regularly using visitors’ car spaces illegally.
If your Plan’s Strata Manager receives sufficient complaints from Executive Committee Members or indeed from any Owners about a person regularly (like every Thursday) using visitors’ car spaces illegally, then they’re entirely within their rights to issue that person with an advisory letter, and depending upon their delegations under their Agency Agreement with the Owners Corporation (O/C) that letter could be followed by a formal Notice to Comply, where monetary penalties can be applied.
You regularly parked in the visitors’ carspace, right? So how is a general advisory letter about that bullying? Rather, it’s merely an O/C complying with its legal obligations to enforce compliance with its By-Laws. If Owners don’t want a parking By-Law enforced, then they can vote to repeal that By-Law at a General Meeting, and parking anarchy will likely result in you and other Owners not being to access the garages at all!
So unless you’ve got deep pockets, I’d strongly advise you to either seek the written consent of your O/C to park your vehicle in a visitors’ car space during specific times on specific day/s, or park your vehicle on the roadway whenever you need to access the items stored in your garage.
Not the answer you wanted I’m sure, but that’s how it is!
100% agree with Whale, and being told (in writing) that you are in breach of a by law most certainly is not bullying.
@Whale said:
If Owners don’t want a parking By-Law enforced, then they can vote to repeal that By-Law at a General Meeting, and parking anarchy will likely result in you and other Owners not being to access the garages at all!
!
I totally agree with Whale except this bit.
The Visitor Parking bays are a local council requirement for the development to go ahead. The Owners CANNOT change the use of the Visitor parking bays without the council agreeing to it in writing.
The bylaws have to comply with ALL higher laws, council, city state or Commonwealth and if they conflict with any of these the bylaws lose.
I agree this argument hasn’t been tested at an adjudication in NSW (that I can find anyway) but I believe that any individual could take an offender to adjudication and win using this argument (even if the EC had granted the offender permission to park in a visitor parking bay).
Kiwipaul – that part of my post was somewhat facetious and was not suggesting that the visitors’ carspaces be removed, but rather that the By-Law that prevents residents from using them be repealed. Nonetheless you’re correct, in that an over-zealous Council could get their bureaucratic nickers in a knot if the required numbers of visitors’ carspaces weren’t available for that purpose.
Totally agree Whale.
But this shows you how to take action against anyone who is abusing the visitor parking bays even if it’s EC members that have voted to give themselves parking rights to the Visitor parking bays.
@Whale said:
Kiwipaul – that part of my post was somewhat facetious and was not suggesting that the visitors’ carspaces be removed, but rather that the By-Law that prevents residents from using them be repealed. Nonetheless you’re correct, in that an over-zealous Council could get their bureaucratic nickers in a knot if the required numbers of visitors’ carspaces weren’t available for that purpose.Too right – allowing residents to use Visitors Parking means it’s not visitors parking any more. If the number of VP spaces has been stipulated in the Development Approval, any by-law allowing residents to park there would be unsafe as it is contrary to a superior law (local council planning laws).
It’s all well and good for us to use visitor spaces on an ad hoc basis but it leaves us vulnerable to abuse when one owner takes a neighbour’s 10 minute shopping drop-off as an excuse to park their second or third car overnight.
I can’t think of any circumstances where ‘written permission’ to allow a resident to park temporarily in visitors parking which has been established in planning approval has any validity at all. It’s nice to have a bit of give and take but as anyone who has lived through parking Wars will attest, it’s a slippery slope.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
The original post says that a letter was received from the strata manager, not that a notice to comply was received. I believe that before a notice to comply is issued that a meeting of the EC should be held. However, if someone complains about a breach of by laws to the strata manager, then they can send out a letter.
A lewould from the SM would be a formal way of letting a resident know that they are in breach of. Having this formal record would facilitate taking any further action if necessarythe attempts have been made to advise the resident of this breach so they can stop doing it. To get a letter about a breach is not bullying.
I too have a garge where my car just fits in because of all the stuff stored there. I have two choices when I need to get/do something. I can park on the street or get rid of the stuff. Just like everyone elose in the complex.
At a recent Christmas Function I spoke with a former colleague of mine who now works with NSW Planning & Infrastructure, and took the opportunity to briefly discuss her Department’s Policy with regard to visitors’ carspaces in Strata Developments.
She advised that the Department was only concerned to ensure that the carpark design, such as its turning paths, driveway widths, and ramp grades, meets the Australian Standards, and that visitors’ carspaces comply with Guidelines that relate only to the means to calculate the numbers of such carspaces to be provided for in the design, and not how they’re used post completion of the Development.
Give the extent of Strata Developments in the pipeline, the Department has (or will) mandate a range of controls for Councils and Private Certifiers to follow in yet another State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP), which will of course include carpark design and the minimum numbers of visitors’ carspaces to be provided.
Interestingly, my former colleague made reference to the fact that in order to comply with open space ratios, some Developers were lobbying for Strata Developments with no off-street visitor parking at all, and on the other extreme a strata owners association whose title she couldn’t recall (after all, the Function had been in progress for a couple of hours) was suggesting that parking areas for Resident Owners and for short-term Residents (i.e. tenants?) should be segregated.
No doubt parking with remain one of those 3 “P’s” that are the bane of Owners Corporations, but from what my former colleague informs me NSW Planning & Infrastructure has no interest in how the visitors’ carspaces designed into Strata Developments are used post completion of the Building, and I’d suggest (but not deny) that most Councils wouldn’t either so long as the numbers required under the SEPP and as reflected in their Development Control Plans, now as low as 0.2 visitor carspaces per Lot, is complied with at the time of approval.
So it looks like By-Law 2 will become surplus to the requirements of Owners Corporations in many new Strata Developments, because there won’t be any visitors carspaces!
@Jef said:
…If individual EC members have the right to report to the Strata Manager and, as a result of such report, the Strata Manager acts as has happened in my case, then all owners and/or residents are clearly open to bullying by such individuals.
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When our 6 grandchildren come to play each Thursday after school I have to leave the car in a visitor car space across my garage to access whatever it is we need.
The same happens when I need access to anything stored in my garage at other times.
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How can this be bullying when you are the one in breach of the By-law?
The problem seems to be that you feel you are exempt from the rules because you are using your garage for storage. This is exactly how things break down in all strata complexes – lack of respect for others. Maybe strata is not suitable for you.
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