Question: Can our owners corporation deny the installation of some sort of safety on a fifth-floor balcony? There will be a 2-year-old child living in the unit.
Answer: It will be the occupier of the lot’s responsibility to ensure there is no furniture or items stored up against the edge of the balcony to present a climbable hazard as for providing supervision to children.
This question often arises in the strata world, particularly when new parents move into a high-rise building and concern for their children is fresh and abundant. In NSW, the government enacted legislation that required all windows within a strata complex whereby the windows were above 2 meters from the ground below, to be fitted with window restriction devices. In 2013 the National Building Code introduced changes requiring all schemes approved for construction with openable windows above 2 metres, be restricted so that a child couldn’t open them. Due to the high number of falling instances in greater Sydney, NSW became the only state or Territory to make this retrospective to all strata buildings. These devices are designed as you may have guessed, to stop children falling from high-rise apartment windows.
Regarding balconies however, this is another issue. Balcony railings, balustrades and walls are built in accordance with the building code at time of construction. For example many buildings built in the 1980s likely do not have the balustrade heights we see today as the Building Code has been consistently updated. Regardless, unless unstable or a clear safety hazard, balustrades certified at time of build are compliant today and not required to be updated a significant number of these balustrades in the scheme are being updated.
With this information it is therefore likely that the building is already compliant if it has window restrictive devices and certified balustrades on balconies. This is the minimum requirement that the strata committee are responsible to ensure from a safety point of view.
On this basis, the strata committee may reject any other alterations to the appearance of the lot or scheme such as increasing the height of the balustrade, adding netting or panels to the balcony edge etc.
Whilst falling from a balcony is a danger, especially with children, it will be the occupier of the lot’s responsibility to ensure there is no furniture or items stored up against the edge of the balcony to present a climbable hazard as for providing supervision to children. With no climbable objects near the balcony edge, the design and building codes of balustrades should be adequate to prevent an accidental fall.
This being said, if there is a clear fault or defect with the current balconies, balustrade or windows, the Strata Scheme must have these rectified and made safe immediately.
This post appears in Strata News #571.
Dakota Panetta
Solutions in Engineering
E: dakotap@solutionsinengineering.com
P: 1300 136 036
Leave a Reply