Question: Can a committee introduce a by-law to regulate resident and visitor parking that restricts parking to one car per unit?
In our 1970s unit complex, each unit has its own garage. Additionally, there are 12 open parking spaces located at the back of the complex, which operate on a first-come, first-served basis, with no reserved spots.
The committee is considering a by-law that would limit each unit to one car, remove visitor parking, and treat the garage space as the unit’s only allocation. Can the committee introduce a by-law like this?
Answer: Before making by-law changes to regulate parking, the owners corporation should check if there are any visitor parking requirements.
The owners corporation could pass a by-law to regulate residential common property and visitor parking allocations for the proper management, administration, control, use and/or enjoyment of common property and to more fairly and equitably manage parking. However, before doing so, they should check the building’s development consent to determine if there are any visitor parking requirements.
This post appears in Strata News #761.
Leanne Habib
Premium Strata
E: info@premiumstrata.com.au
P: 02 9281 6440
The answer for the first question on this page is not really answered. We have the similar situation, one resident parking space to share among three lots and two bona fide visitor parking spaces. Frequently, the resident parking space is used by a tenant, sublet by unit 2. If that space is taken by unit 3, the tenant of unit 2 is using one of the visitors parking spaces, sometimes also a genuine visitor of unit 2 is using the remaining parking lot. In summary, as it happened, all three parking spaces are used by unit 2. The have been friendly approached, that at least one of their visitors, needs to park in the street, but this is disregarded.. Not creating bad blood, what would be an amicable solution?
Hi P:etra
Thanks for your question. I have provided a comment here: NSW: Q&A How can a small strata resolve parking disputes when one lot uses all the spaces?
We have a problem with our visitors car park being used by on of the owners, grown up children. We live in a Cul de sac, which gets busy in the evenings, and the mother and owner in our building insists we hand over a empty visitors space to one of her children nightly. I might add these grown up children speed in our complex and we fear a accident or head one collision. We have issued letter, after letter, and now have now issued a form 10, ( Qld) which resulted in more speeding and occupation of a visitors spot. We have five visitors parking spaces for fourteen residents, and each residents has two parking spaces. Does she have the right to take over a parking space if there is not much parking in the street, and the Police have advised us they cannot stop dangerous driving on private property.. We are at our wits end, what to do next. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Hi Annie
As you are dealing with QLD Legislation, you would be best to look specifically at our QLD articles.
This Q&A should assist regarding speeding:
QLD: Q&A Enforcing and Policing Speed Limits on Private Roads
And here are our articles about parking issues in QLD strata:
All Articles about Parking QLD published to our blog
I read the above and thanks to the contributors. I didn’t see an answer for visitors who park in the visitor parking in excess of the time allowed and who are not residents. This is the problem in our building. We don’t have a building manager and you don’t know who they are, you cant clamp or tow the vehicle. You cant activate any restricting devices or in the case of our building restrict exit. I don’t think you can stick notices to their windscreen either that cant be easily removed.. We cant hold the resident or owner who they are visiting responsible.
Hi Ross in Manly
You many find the Q&As in this article useful – NSW: Q&A How Do We Stop the Abuse of Visitor Parking Spaces? as they deal specifically with visitor parking.
I refer to the post from Philip Colless,
Passing a bylaw giving the OC power to disable or restrict access devices (fobs and remotes) that are used to facilitate breach of a bylaw.
There have been a number of cases where this has gone to the courts vis a vis
The fundamental right of any lot owner to have access to their lot extends to common property including shared facilities and a carpark.
This is demonstrated in Cheung v Owners Corporation No 1 501391P (Owners Corporations) [2019] VCAT 598,
In Lim v Owners Corporation PS714612M (Owners Corporations) [2018] VCAT 1995A, the tribunal reaffirmed that the fundamental right of any lot owner is the right to have access to the lot. Any right of an owners corporation to compel compliance with its rules must yield to those fundamental rights and except in the case of an emergency, an owners corporation is not entitled to de-activate the security fob or key of any subsisting lot owner or any subsisting occupier of a lot.
Given the responses it certainly apparent that the current system for dealing with these issues in strata – whatever the state – is not effective. I encourage each of you to approach your local member (state politician) to give this their attention – the squeaky wheel get’s the oil- not just once – but make it a monthly thing – and encourage all whom you know who are also bothered by this practice – to likewise write to the same member.
I word of caution regarding the use of CCTV – check what signage is required to notify people they are being taped – either with a lawyer – or local police station. You don’t want egg on your face for also being found to be doing the wrong thing.
You sound like a complete nightmare to have in a strata complex and i sure hope all owners and tenants are aware you have access to the CCTV equipment that was installed on common property.
I solved this some time ago. I installed 32 CCTV camera around the building so I can clearly track people parking cars in the visitors car park right to their door in glorious high definition colour. You may not need that many cameras to achieve the same result, but that’s the tracking you need to get a record of so there’s no doubt. Once a perp has been ID’d I have the strata send them a letter warning that this is not allowed, and all the related by-laws listed. They then go on to warn that the next time they do this will be met with a NTC and the rather tedious ramifications for this, and the recommendation they cease their miscreant activity to avoid all this happening. It does the trick. I always save copies of the CCVT movie vision of their break from car park entry to unit door, just in case it’s needed. fortunately they don’t re-offend so we only get one breach per resident, that is until the next resident, usually a young person, mostly male, tries it on. I’ve been chasing these type off the visitor car park for many years and have heard all the comebacks. I just smile. As someone once said… never argue, just restate.
I am a resident of an apartment building located in NSW it has become increasingly difficult to find parking in the streets surrounding our apartment building this is due to the Hospital nearby most people do not want to pay the high fees associated with parking in the Hospital car park. I believe that the comments from Mary above suggesting that a
mix of car parking to both visitors and residents would be a possible answer to the problem.
I am not sure whether the Laws will allow but just an idea maybe the strata management for each apartment complex could rent out the spaces to the residents that are not allocated to visitors and therefore money collected from the residents could be used for the upkeep of the property.
In Qld, like Mary, our visitors parking is taken up by residents including one entire family. They all got a pleasant letter asking them to consider the bylaws, of no parking in visitor parking. All left except the entire family, and for daring to request it, they started speeding in the complex. Neither the police or council were interested, so we sent them a form 10, nothing happened, then a form 11, nothing happened, then we booked a court hearing, and the magistrate told them to move, and charged them 1,200 for court costs. Very expensive parking. For that, we suffered car damage, speeding, abuse, garden damage, still no interest from police ( no proof) nor from the Gold Coast Council ( no proof). But at least they have stopped the illegal parking, but at great cost to residents, as well.
We live in a strata complex of individual units in Queensland. There are 13 “Visitors” carparks throughout the complex. On any given night, there are approximately 10 residents’ cars parked in these visitor car parks. If we insisted on them being for visitors only, during most times in the year, I would imagine that most of these car parks would be empty overnight, as they are in the daytime when residents most likely are at work. Residents are given notices that they are in breach and told that and should park in their own carports or outside the complex and a majority of the committee have passed a motion that they will be towed (?unlawful) . Outside of the complex there is only 3 hour car parking and most on the road car parking overnight is taken by others who live, visit or work in the area (where there are many restaurants). At one Committee meeting, it was suggested that residents should not live in the complex if they need more car parking space than the complex has allocated to them. I am a fairly new resident owner and now Committee member and, after checking with the Council and obtaining information from the Commissioners’ Office, I have unsuccessfully tried to suggest to the Committee that we start the process of making an Application to change the mix of car parking to both visitors and residents after being advised that, if we inform residents as to the benefits of doing so, it would be very difficult, but we might obtain the 100% vote to make it achievable. I make this suggestion because residents’ needs can change from the time from when the bylaws were put in place in a complex such as ours which was built many years ago and I think most residents would find this an acceptable solution and moreover, adhere to what they had voted for. Surely, it is in the common interest and common sense to be adaptable to change when for the benefit of all residents and owners if they are all in agreement?
Hi Mary
Thanks for your comment and information. We have received the following response from Todd Garsden, Hynes Legal:
I think the problem the owner will have is that in Qld visitor parking allocations are normally required by the council development approval conditions – so even if you have 100% of owners agreeing to the change it still wouldn’t make it lawful.
I agree the usual channels are waffle, costly and take a very long time for any sort of action, if at all.
I lived in a strata that was about 5 minutes walk to the train station so we frequently had people parking in there despite there being a council carpark opposite the railway station. We frequently caught people parking and then heading off to the station or vice versa on their return. What a cheek!
We also had a resident who consistency parked in the limited visitor spots as he thought it his right and no amount of coercion from the OC or OC manager and threats of NCAT made any difference. He knew he couldn’t get towed or fined.
So here is my idea – although I’ve never actually done it before but I’m sure it would work if you think about it. Gently let down the tyre (tyres for repeat offenders) of the recalcitrant resident assuming you’ve asked them politely many times already to remove their vehicle. The inconvenience will be greater than the (parking) convenience. Problem solved!
ps. don’t get caught!
Our complex had trouble with a resident allowing its workers to use the visitor carpark to park their vehicles there all day while they went to work in one vehicle…..warning letters were ignored so tried the above approach and it worked a treat!
Hi Jane
So happy to hear the suggestion worked for your scheme.
Nikki
I am a building manager for a Pyrmont apartment complex with 8 visitor spaces. Despite all 76 apartments having one or two lock garages each, preventing residents from parking in visitors, or visitors parking too long, requires daily attention….
Admin: We thought this response was so good, we’ve included it in the original post above.
Thanks Phil!
I live in a small block of 4 units on the one level in NSW country town. Our driveway runs down past all the units ending just past the fourth unit, I am in number 3. The owner of 4 parks a big commercial van and a hatchback car on the (common property) driveway at the end near his unit. He uses his garage as a work shop for his motorcycle which subjects me to loud revving and other machine noise.
The owners on the other two units don’t live in their units permanently, and say they don’t want to vote to enforce our bylaws unless they are personally affected in some way. Our strata manager advised that the by law for the bike and machine noise can’t be activated as the owner is working in his own lot (garage). The parking has resulted in the death of plants in the garden and cut off my access and view to part of the garden. It seems in my case that by-laws are useless and I can no longer enjoy my home. I have been advised to arrange an NCAT hearing but I will need legal help to do this and I cannot afford legal help. I went to legal aid but they just referred me to legislation.
Any new advice?
Thanks
We received a comment on one of our other Parking posts a few days ago. Rather than have one of our fabulous contributors offer a reply, I thought we’d try something new and throw the question out to our Community (because we’ve got nothing)
The NSW law is waffle and it was foreseeable waffle.
You can only try an agreement with the local council for a strata parking area under section 650A of the Local Government Act 1993 and have the parking ranger hand out tickets like they are candy and it is Halloween.
If such an agreement is even appropriate to the situation.