Recent News
A Zetland family who want to install child-safety netting in their apartment have been told they must clear a series of legal hurdles and outlay thousands just to lodge an application.
It is just a matter of time before individual unit owners will be asked to pay multimillion-dollar damages if a child falls from their apartment building, the head of a strata industry body says.
It took Claudia Fernandez's three-year-old daughter Paloma seconds to pull a toy chair out to the balcony, climb on it and look over the railing. Fortunately, Ms Fernandez saw her daughter before a disaster could happen. But the family, which owns a two-bedroom apartment in a Zetland high rise, has been refused permission by the owners' corporation to install child safety netting.
Tenants should be allowed to attend owners' corporation meetings to give renters a much greater say in how their strata buildings are managed and maintained, tenants' groups and strata experts have said.
The chance to participate in the most profound changes to strata law since its creation 50 years ago is open to the public … or it could be just more smoke and mirrors in an area of governance that historically has preferred obfuscation over enlightenment.
As anyone who has moved from a house to an apartment will tell you, there's a huge difference between living in your own free-standing Emoh Ruo and sharing a building as part of an attached community.
The main problem with collective living is governance. Buildings need to be managed, and the management is provided by a group of owners elected by annual meetings of the body corporate (a flash name for all the owners).
A Sydney lawyer is planning legal action against the people he claims caused his disease: the smokers, body corporate and the strata management company.
NSW Fair Trading has issued a safety alert following a Coroner’s report into the death of a young security guard who died from carbon monoxide poisoning from an enclosed gas pool heater in a strata unit block.
The guard was patrolling a gym area with an unflued gas pool heater which was designed for external use. The heater had been enclosed, leaving it without adequate ventilation. As a result, carbon monoxide was trapped and travelled into an area where the guard was located.
Fair Trading is reminding all property managers, builders and gas fitters of the need to ensure adequate ventilation of gas pool and spa heaters.
Gas needs fresh air to burn cleanly and to get rid of dangerous exhaust fumes and surplus heat. Without sufficient ventilation, gas heaters can produce dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide can overcome people without warning and kill.
If you have concerns about the safety of gas heaters on your property, you should close down the gas heater immediately and contact a licensed gas fitter to arrange an inspection.
Safety steps
- NEVER enclose gas pool and spa heaters designed for outdoor use
- NEVER allow a ventilation source to a flued appliance to be closed eg. via a roller door
- NEVER allow exhaust fans or ducts to cause back draught to the gas appliance
- ALWAYS ensure that flues terminate outside away from windows
- ALWAYS clear dust and debris from inside the appliance and flue after construction
- ALWAYS ensure there is ventilation at both high and low positions for better air circulation
- ALWAYS have your gas pool and spa heaters serviced once a year by a licensed gas fitter.
For more information, go to the NSW Fair Trading website about Gas pool and spa heater safety.
Clover Moore MP has reintroduced the first of a series of bills for strata reform to the NSW Parliament.
Developers are often the barometer of what the market demands, so when you see new residential projects sporting solar panels, vegie plots, bicycle racks, grey-water systems and generous green spaces, you know there's been a marked shift towards more ecologically sustainable design.