Strata Living in a Dysfunctional Society

There have been some recent posts on that well-worn topic of improper carparking and strata-imposed parking fines, and it’s been suggested that Owners Corporation’s (O/C) have been given too much autonomy to create and register any By-Law that they choose in an effort to guide the behaviour of Residents.

I don’t entirely disagree, but that “autonomy” is limited by the fact that such Special By-Laws have to be properly discussed and resolved by a clear majority (>75%) of Proprietors at a General Meeting, they are subject to an appeal to the Consumer, Trader, and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT)   and they can’t be in conflict with any Commonwealth or State Laws.

Once those hurdles have been negotiated, the matter of whether this limited “autonomy” is necessary, and if so why needs to be addressed?

I shall address the “why?” first.

On the basis of my personal experience, one of the main people-problems within Strata Schemes relates to the fact that there are increasing numbers of people within Australian Society who are quite simply dysfunctional. When these people live in a stand-alone dwelling, there’s a degree of physical space between the neighbours and themselves which acts as a buffer to the impacts of their chosen lifestyle, but that’s not the case when these people choose or need to live within a strata community.

Instead of leaving excess rubbish on their own property these people leave it around the common property, instead of parking their excess vehicles in their own yard they choose to park them undercover in any vacant carspace, and whilst loud music and voices have limited impacts upon neighbours when they reside in stand-alone dwellings, that’s not the case in a strata community where the neighbours are the thickness of a poorly insulated wall away!

So just as Governments deem it necessary to create Laws in an attempt to manage the behaviour of the increasing numbers of dysfunctional people within Australian Society, O/C’s find it necessary to create Special By-Laws for precisely the same reasons.

Is this approach necessary?

Frankly I wish is wasn’t at all levels, but with regard to a strata community that by its nature comprises a microcosm of the broader society, it seems that when people won’t talk to each other and/or those who are spoken to respond with belligerence, an O/C has no choice but to create its own “laws” in an effort to guide dysfunctional people along a better path, and to give that O/C the basis for initiating action/s in the CTTT and through the Local Court System against those who choose to persist with dysfunctional behaviour.

I sincerely wish that there was a better way (I’m now off my soapbox).