Strata (non)Party wants your votes

With the NSW election looming, we thought we’d take a look at what the various parties have planned for strata residents.

First up, there’s a new strata party, although officially it’s just a group. You have to register a political party a year before a vote so there will be just the letter H on the Senate ballot paper, indicating the group who wish they could be known as the Strata Party.

I’m guessing the Strata Party’s policies will be pro-apartment resident, but by the time you read this they will apparently have a website up and running at strataparty.org.au.

In further non-Party news, Sydney’s incumbent MP, Independent Alex Greenwich has told Flat Chat that if he is re-elected, he will promote a Bill to deal with overcrowding and illegal short-term lets.

Greenwich’s Sydney seat contains the largest concentration of apartment buildings in the state so good luck to him on that.   You’ll Greenwich’s other policies on this website.

The government’s policies on both over-crowding and short-term lets – leave it to the local councils –  have been spectacularly inadequate.

Actually, that sums up the government’s performance on strata generally, with law reforms delayed for years but pro-developer restrictions on defect claims pushed through at warp speed. The “issues” on their website (nsw.liberal.org.au) don’t mention strata or apartments, so judge for yourself.

So far, Labor’s take on proposed strata law reforms is that they’re against the proposals to allow 75 percent of owners in old strata blocks to force the others to sell their homes for redevelopment.

However, their policy documents (act.nswlabor.org.au/policy) say nothing about apartments, while the cover of their housing policy pamphlet is a picture of McMansions. Hmmm.

The Greens’ website (nsw.greens.org.au) doesn’t say anything about strata directly, but they do want to keep rents down and give tenants more rights (and more than half of strata residents are tenants). However, if you dig deep enough you’ll find that they too are against illegal short-term letting.

So is this H Bloc, Strata (non)Party, a good idea?

Who woud you prefer to hold the balance of power in the Senate; strata residents, religious extremists or people who kill animals for fun?