Travels etc.

This post is a follow up on the earlier article  Development Application for Strata Common Wall . Residential owners corporation reached out to surveyor and found out deposited plans that show the boundary is face of the wall on the commercial strata side. That means the applicant (commercial strata) submitted development application without consent from the owners of the wall. This was pointed out to the Council and the applicant as follows: " Section 78A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) provides for the making of a development application (DA) subject to compliance with the requirements of the regulation.  Clause 49 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 (NSW) (regulation) mandates that a DA needs to be either made by the ‘owner’ of the land affected by the DA or any other person so long as the owner has provided consent in writing. DA Number was made by Applicant_Name and the owner specified is Proprietors of St...

There is a building that is constituted by Residential strata (28 units) and Commercial strata (2 offices and 2 retail shops). Residential block and Commercial block face each other and have got shared walls between courtyards as per following figure: Commercial Strata decided to enclose their courtyards (Courtyard 1 & 2 on the figure above). Enclosure would increase existing shared walls by 60 cm. Their floor level is lower therefore from their side it is about 25% increase, but from the Residential side it is about 40% increase: Commercial strata owner sent a proposal for wall increase to Residential strata. Residential strata had a meeting and didn't consent to the proposed enclosures. A letter from Residential was sent to Commercial with "No" for proposed enclosures outlining the reasons. Part of the proposed structure will encroach to private property - residential owners' courtyards. Therefore written consent from the owners of either common wal...

Buying and managing a strata unit is a challenge sometimes, but the things can be worse if the property is located near an unscrupulous commercial tenants/proprietors. In some cases this is aggravated by local council. Here's an example of an issue that came up second time in two and half years. The council approves commercial operation (cafe) in a place that was not designed for this purpose. It is a mixed development that consists of a commercial shops and a residential strata: The building doesn't suit for a loud business, food serving business, bar or liquor serving business for a number of reasons: 1. Close proximity of the residential units 2. The design of the building that doesn't allow commercial food preparation and serving of patrons in the courtyards or when the shop doors are opened, because all odours and noise go inside the building and echo into all the units facing those commercial shops. 3. There is no waste management facility for commercial ...