Clover Moore speaks Strata to Managers …

Last Friday, 13 August, Clover Moore (the Lord Mayor of Sydney and NSW Member of Parliament) spoke to managers and others at an ISTM Briefing Seminar.

Whilst discussing the challenges facing Sydney and the city’s plans of deal with them she revealed some interesting information about developments affecting strata stakeholders and said that she believed that in Sydney ‘apartments are an attractive and desirable living option’.

Firstly, she discussed the new Local Environmenttal Plan (the legal document that governs land use and development) for the Sydney City local government area. 

A new LEP will be exhibited for public comment soon.  It has been designed to implement the Sydney City plans for the future (Sustainable Sydney 2030) and according to Clover Moore “long established planning norms are being revisisted”.  And, because BASIX sets an overall environmental standard that is lower than Sydney City’s objection the new LEP will give 10% bonuses on floor space to developers that meet higher environmental standards and require other facilities (like bicycle parking, car sharing, etc) to be included in new developments.

Secondly, she told us that her private members bill for reforms of strata laws was taking longer than possible and would have to be undertaken in stages because she was not able to get parliamentary counsel to draft the bill in full. 

So, stage one of her proposed will cover the less controversial things and include –

• objectives to be included in the act about what the strata scheme should be doing
• notification to owners corporations of any development applications in the building and a specific right to object
• defining the chairpersons role and introducing a code of conduct for the role
• regulating general processes better
• unspcaling the requirements to disclose connections by executive committee members
• upscaling the obligations of strata managers to disclose relationships
• strengthening the document handover obligations on developers

Apparently the draft bill has just been finished and is being reviewed by her staff and Makinson & d’Apice (the lawyers assisting her on the reforms).

Thirdly, when asked about car clamping and why it was not legal she said that we are too obsessed with cars and we should challenge the importance of the car by coming up with more creative solutions for transport and more options for people that lessens the overall problem. 

In other words, if you have a problem with parked cars … get rid of all cars.  You gotta love it.

Finally, Clover Moore was completely non-plussed about any criticism of the new cycle-way simply saying it was just another viable transport option for residents and workers that wasn’t going to suit everyone.

So, in my view, she presented an informed and intelligent commentary on Sydney’s future and how she sees the issues best addressed.

More power to Sydney …

Francesco …..