Strata Community Association (WA) President, Catherine Lezer, was guest speaker at a recent meeting of the WA Local Government Association’s East Metropolitan Zone.
The meeting, hosted by the City of Belmont, was held in Cloverdale and attended by councillors and chief executive officers from the towns and cities of Bassendean, Bayswater, Belmont, Kalamunda, Mundaring and Swan.
Also there was WALGA president and Wanneroo mayor Tracey Roberts, the association’s executive manager for infrastructure Ian Duncan and its environment policy officer Gemma Cook.
Ms Lezer spoke about apartment and strata living and changes to the State’s Strata Titles Act, which came into effect last year.
She said councillors were most interested in how to get people to compromise and work together in strata, as well as how to terminate a strata title scheme.
Local governments are increasingly dealing with strata matters and it’s important they know as much as possible about strata laws, she said.
As part of the talk, Ms Lezer gave councillors information on the size of complexes in their areas. Only Kalamunda didn’t have large schemes over 40 lots, she said.
Further talks with councillors from other WALGA areas are likely.
WALGA president Tracey Roberts said the SCA (WA) presentation was well received.
“WALGA Zones often arrange presentations from organisations with activities impacting the Local Government sector so as to provide updates on current activity and emerging issues and to facilitate discussion at a regional level,” Ms Lezer said.
“The Strata Community Association presentation to the Eastern Metropolitan Zone was well received and generated a great deal of discussion.
“Topics included processes for dispute resolution within stratas and the new phone advisory service offered by Landgate, as well as the need for greater awareness amongst members of Council of Owners as to their legislative requirements under the Strata Act.
“Strata titles are on the increase and comprise half of new titles in the metropolitan area, so it’s great for Local Government Elected Members to have an opportunity to keep abreast of industry movements to help in their decision making on Council, as well as their conversations with members of the community.”
The information Ms Lezer shared with the meeting included:
Town of Bassendean had 2284 strata lots in 801 schemes in properties smaller than 10 lots, 311 lots in 21 schemes in properties of 10 to 20 lots, 146 lots in five schemes of 20 to 40 lots and 45 lots in one scheme with more than 40 lots.
City of Bayswater had 14041 lots in 4815 schemes smaller than 10 lots, 1512 lots in 104 schemes of 10 to 20 lots, 981 lots in 36 schemes of 20 to 40 lots and 2065 lots in 25 schemes of more than 40 lots.
City of Belmont had 7327 lots in 2087 schemes smaller than 10 lots, 771 lots in 58 schemes of 10 to 20 lots, 589 lots in 21 schemes of 20 to 40 lots and 2625 lots in 31 schemes larger than 40 lots.
City of Kalamunda had 2079 lots in 621 schemes smaller than 10 lots, 476 lots in 35 schemes of 10 to 20 lots and 124 lots in five schemes of 20 to 40 lots.
Shire of Mundaring had 722 lots in 222 schemes smaller than 10 lots, 161 lots in 11 schemes of 10 to 20 lots, 174 lots in six schemes sized 20 to 40 lots and 106 lots in two schemes with over 40 lots.
City of Swan had 6398 lots in 1860 schemes smaller than 10 lots, 1394 lots in 98 schemes of 10 to 20 lots, 914 lots in 31 schemes of 20 to 40 lots and 857 lots in 14 schemes of more than 40 lots.
As of July, there were 338,676 strata lots in 76,070 WA strata schemes.
WALGA is the peak industry body for local government in WA and advocates on behalf of 139 local governments.