Permission for cat unreasonably denied and mediation costs

Hi All.

We got a notice to comply for having a cat in our unit without permission. It’s a house cat that is indoors 100% of the time, the nosey EC secretary spotted a bag of Kittie Litter in my garage one day and thats how we got busted. We are the owners of the unit.

The strata law that applies in my situation is option 2, you need EC written approval and it cannot be unreaonably witheld. When we purchased the unit, the strata report stated that there was no history on rulings involving pets.

The letter sent by the strata manager provided the reason “we dont want to set an animal keeping precendant”. This is despite the block having a communal pond with fish in it.

So I replied in writing and requested formal approval. I then telephoned a week later and was told by the strata manager that we were denied. I asked for that to be put in writing and for the reason to be given and he refused stating that he was not legally required to put it in writing and that the reason was given in the first letter (that they dont want to set a precedant). Is that correct? I couldnt find anything requiring him to deny my request in writing.

So I am now going to mediation and I believe their denial is unreasonable. I don’t expect to have any luck at mediation but in any case, is there any way for me to recover the costs of the mediation if the issue is resolved at that point?

I assume that if I have to go CTTT then I can apply for all my costs, including mediation to be paid by the other party?

If you have any other thoughts about my situation, I would greatly appreciate that too. To me it seems like an unreasonable decision but I am obviously emotionally invested here and may not be seeing the issue correctly.

Thanks in advance