This week’s Strata Development Application being reviewed is the eight (8) lot strata subdivision of 11 Lombard Drive, Robin Hill.
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Where is Robin Hill
Robin Hill is a suburb of Bathurst, New South Wales. Bathurst is about 200 kilometres west-northwest of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Regional Council. Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and had a population of 36,800 as of June 2018.
The Development
This is new construction of an industrial warehouse estate, with eight (8) commercial units ranging from 150m2 to 200m2, with 13 car parks. The project manager and builder of this site is extremely experienced and specialises in this type of construction, so the end project is expected to be top quality.
To ensure the day-to-day operations of the site runs smoothly we are providing three (3) recommendations that will remove costs from the strata levies and also reduce the amount of friction and infighting between owners and business operators.
How to keep the Levies Low & Remove infighting
Our top 3 recommendations for keeping the levies low on this industrial strata development are:
Roller Doors – Exclusive use by-law
If you do nothing about roller doors in the by-laws, the roller doors will be common property, meaning that every owner will share the costs of repairing and maintaining each other’s roller doors. This is unfair because everyone uses their roller door differently.
To make this fair you just need an exclusive use by-law making each owner responsible for their own roller door, this doesn’t disadvantage anyone. It only benefits those who maintain and care for their roller door.
Signage – Exclusive use by-law & guidelines
Almost every business needs signage, and if you don’t define the signage rules you will have problems. There are a few specifics you need to consider and include when setting your signage rules
- How is it approved? Do you want the Committee to approve? I recommend setting the rules for where signage can be added, and allow people to install signage within those rules, without approval.
- Where is it allowed? Super important to define where people can install and what the maximum size can be. If your industrial building has a signage board on the street, make each of the signage areas exclusive-use and allocate them to each Lot, this means you will never have people fighting over signage space.
Parking – Allocations and Restrictions
To avoid fighting and issues onsite between, owners, tenants and customers allocate some of the parking to each lot. You may have restrictions due to your DA, but where possible allocate the parking.
It is also good to define the signage that people can install on their car park, eg painted on the floor, sign in front, ect. You can also define if bollards are permitted and how they should be installed and style to be used.
The management of parking is a preventative action that will dramatically reduce the number of disagreements within a development.
For more details on each of these recommendations and how they can fit your development, contact us.