Strata rules too nazi! any advice?
 

so i bought a condo in Richmond that has some rules that irritates me. I am very tempted to blow my steam with the strata management but id like to hear your side before i regret making a move.

1. visitor parkings are limited to 4 hours and must have a visitor pass tag which we were only issued one. (so what now if i have multiple visitors?)

2. i just saw recently that people without insurance in their vehicle and parked in "their own" parking will be towed unless proper insurance has been put.

what bothers me the most is the 4 hour parking. Its not a mall or a business area so why have a limit? its like your putting a limit on how long a family or friend could visit you. The worst part is, its in a heavy commercial area so there is no parking on the side street. so where the heck are people suppose to park, especially the ones planning to stay late or sleepover?
to add to that, what if a friend got too drunk after the party? am i suppose to just tell him "oh, you have to drive home now cuz its only a 4 hour limit for parking"

lol i feel ya
i just bought a townhouse in coquitlam
read the strata rules and i was like ...:facepalm:


luckily i dont think theres any limit for parking at my place, and theres plenty of street parking as well:woot:

this is very typical in all strata building in the lower mainland. the insurance clause is basically a standard rule. As for the visitor parking hours, I think you can raise up this issue with the strata council and increase it to 12 hours. I believe that is a more reasonable time.

Well what bothers me is people who use the visitor parking as a second, extra, free spot in my building.

You should check with your stratta and find out what the cost of a second parking spot is? I found out in my building it's only $20/month and in times of year when we have high traffic at my place or if I have people staying with me I just snag a second spot for as long as I need it.

your lucky! my gf's car got towed twice and my friend's car once. it was so embarrassing and expensive too! if we had sidestreets here i would have left the issue alone and just make them park there but the closest actual residential area is 5 blocks away.

that is another problem. i have called strata and asked for a 2nd parking and i am willing to pay of course, yet the only thing they can tell me is "we dont have anymore parking available. maybe wait till someone decides to rent their space"....

UGH. Now THAT bites. Fortunately my building is full of seniors who don't drive so we don't have any great shortage of parking.

i have emailed our strata management regarding the issue and i asked if they can at least provide a solution. i sent the email on november 11, 2010 and till now i still have not received a reply back.

Definitely bring up the issue with the strata council. Do you know if your neighbours feel the same about this issue? I think the more people who have a problem with it, theres a better chance it will change.

join strata council :thumbsup:

im gonna do the same. lucky enough we get 2 visitor parking, and ample of street parking in burnaby..

this is a good idea. i have heard numerous tenants/owners frustrated with this issue. im gonna gather up these people and present it to council on the next meeting.

In the end though, the spaces will still be full they will just be full longer. I suppose the argument is this. "Since there is NO parking (as you have said) in the area why should 1 person be able to "hog" the spots when you have a whole building who should have fair access to the limited parking."
Now my question to you is... is the Visitor parking constantly full? If there are readily available spots for 75% of the time or more (empty) then I see no reason NOT to extend the amount of time per spot. However, IF the spots are full 75% of the time then a shortened time frame means more people have access to a spot more often during the day. Sorry to play devils advocate here but just trying to see both sides of the coin.
Another thing to possibly bring up is to possibly have the 4 hour parking from 9am to 9pm. This would address the issue of people spending the night or having to leave a car due to drinking or whatever.

Berz out.

Blowing steam does no good. Fact is, you should have read ALL the strata bylaws BEFORE buying - the seller and/or property management are REQUIRED to provide them, as well as (I believe) the past year's worth of strata meeting minutes AND the minutes of the last AGM, to any potential buyers... so you have no excuse for not knowing the rules, and having the option not to buy if you can't live with them.

As others have noted, this is not uncommon, especially in urban areas where space is at a premium. Tell your visitors to park on the street, carpool, or take the bus.

This is common as well. In fact, this is almost universal. It's a liability issue - if, say, your car catches fire and burns down a building or someone else's car, the strata could be on the legal hook if your car isn't properly insured. Storage insurance is cheap; just do it.

Nobody's putting limits on how long you can have visitors; it's a limit on how long each tenant has to share limited visitor parking spaces.

Think of it from the other side: how would you feel if there were no such restrictions, and your visitors couldn't find parking because the other tenants' visitors always had the spaces filled up all the time? Rules like this are meant to give EVERYONE a fair chance.

No, you're supposed to tell him to plan properly BEFORE coming over, because you already know there's a four-hour limit. As in, "You won't be able to park your car here overnight if you need to crash on the couch, so you should probably carpool, or come in a cab or bus."

Again though, none of this should be a surprise to you: you should have read the strata bylaws BEFORE purchasing, and not bought there if you thought any of them were going to be a problem.

Beyond that, as Tool001 suggests, if you really want a chance to change the rules, join the strata council.

It sounds like you didn't do your due dilligence before buying your condo.

Strata bylaws may inconvenience you, but as Soundy and Berz have mentioned, you have to look at the other side and understand why a specific law was made in the first place. That is the trade-off you make when you purchase a shared living space, as opposed to something detached like a house.

i did read the strata rules and the 4 hour parking limit was not in effect when i moved in. what happened is the original strata management defected and we got a new strata management change over. We were originally dealing with AA property but now it got changed over to Pacific quorum and thats where the rules started applying. So when i bought the condo those rules were not in effect.

As far as answering the questions, 80% of the visitor parking spots are usually free but that is because of the rules in effect and they are very strict about it. The tenant supervisor told me they tow about 15 cars a day ranging from past 4 hour limit to no visitor parking decals and etc. When there was no parking rules, there would definitely be less parking space but it was never an issue of not finding parking.

i have suggested to strata before that maybe they can exclude the rules for people with visitor pass decals since we are only issued one. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a decal when you are still bound by rules of limitations but that is just my take on it.

As for making friends aware or let them be prepared, well i understand what your saying there Soundy but see it from my view as well. it is a great inconvenience for my friends, and anyone really if they have to take the bus or transit rather than the convenience of their own car. You dont exactly tell your friends that your having a party at your place and tell them "oh guys, take the bus or walk to my place cuz you cant park here more than 4 hours" i guarantee you your party will be more quiet than a library. I get the idea though but it is of great inconvenience to both parties.

This is then, why you should go to your strata meetings. Vote our the current property management group (they work for YOU not you for them) and get someone who will work for you.

This is the bitch of living in a strata regulated building though. :(

It sounds like the current management company are doing their jobs. A strata bylaw cannot be changed unless the strata owners vote to change it. The law had to have been in place before you moved in; the previous company just didn't enforce it.

If your view was shared by other strata title holders, then I'm sure the council would look at it. Until that happens, your opinion is just one voice. Sorry, but that's just the way it works. (I live in a strata building too)

That's what parents' basements are for - to have parties.

Like Tapioca says, strata bylaws cannot be changed unless approved by the council, so either the bylaw already existed and wasn't enforced (which non-enforcement of bylaws would be a good reason to get rid of your property management company), or the bylaw was brought in later... but again, could only have been done with the approval of the council. The management company can't make these charges arbitrarily.

Sure it is, but having all the visitor parking filled up constantly because there are NO limits is also an inconvenience. It may not have been a problem RECENTLY, but chances are that it was at some point, which is why such a rule would have been created in the first place.

QFT. It's just like any other level of politics: if you want a say, you have to get involved. Join the council, or at least go to the meetings and vote on proposals and rule changes. A strata is the purest form of a democracy: every owner gets a vote that counts just as much as every other owner's.

That doesn't mean you'll always get your way, of course, but if you don't participate and make your wishes known, you have no room to complain.

:IDL:

point taken. thanks for the advice and suggestions guys. it was starting to really frustrate me to the point of blowing my steam on them but good thing i didnt. looks very immature and gets me nowhere.

Sounds like some stiff ass rules. My friend lives in a BBY condo complex, so her dad got pissed tired of the visitors pass rule and it's a hassle having to come out and give them the pass to put inside the car and then go inside.

So he started making photocopies of the pass and laminating them to give to friends/family members. Now it's easier for their friends to come and park their cars and display the pass without the hassle of having to always come out to hand them a pass to put on the car display.

Strata= worst thing that haPPENED TO multi housing...

Rules and regulations are riddiculous,fines are unjustified and its 100% BS
...i hate i pay 200$/mo. for Maint.

We usually don't even go to strata meetings, it's all about the old folks bitching and moaning with each other. What a unproductive waste of time.

Maybe you should do something to MAKE it productive, rather than just sitting in the background?

Ummm... you do understand, that those rules and regulations have to be voted on and passed by a majority of owners and/or their proxies? They can't be just arbitrarily instituted? Obviously not everyone who owns there finds them ridiculous.

Part of the reason for those rules is to maintain the overall look of the property and thus maintain your property values. Without them, your neighbor could decide to paint his whole unit a bright purple with orange trim, create a flower garden out of old bathroom fixtures (someone in our complex did this once), let his garbage pile up outside (there seems to be one owner that does this every few months around here... a couple are repeat offenders)... all things that then lower YOUR property value.

And those maintenance fees have to cover a lot of expenses: landscaping, snow removal, driveway line painting, building maintenance (things like annual gutter cleaning, basic repairs to exterior parts like siding, vents, decks, flashings, etc.), annual fire alarm/sprinkler inspections and repairs, outdoor lighting, the electricity for outdoor lighting, insurance... in some areas, it also goes for garbage/recycling collection... all those things that keep the place looking good that just get taken care of without your having to worry about it.

After every AGM, as an owner you should receive a full statement of where your maintenance fees are going... try taking a look at it sometime.

And as above: if you don't like how things are handled, JOIN the strata council and DO something about it.

OH MY GOODNESS. I know which building you are in. I moved out in July. I said to myself if I bought a unit there, I'd be so pissed. It was loud and full of mainland students having late night parties. I probably called the cops around 6 times total in the year I was living there. (sorry if it was you, i have a kid)

Anyhow the patrol "police" are volunteers from the building, and have shifts to check out the parking once a while. I know that because my friend who also lived in the building got towed 2 times - it was actually his fault for parking in the guest area, but he confronted the old guy. I know what unit he lives on. =) He actually wrote a bunch of nasty notes to me about my stroller being in front of my door (folded up). Anyhow he had nothing to do so he was STRICT and called the towing company quite frequent.

Its most funny that there are so many cars down in the parking lot with no insurance. Did that NSX on P2 ever get insurance? Tell your friends to park at Lansdowne mall. And your visiting relatives to park at #9 restaurant so its not standing out like a sore thumb. I really feel for you.

in the mean time, why don't you shuttle them to/from there if they need to stay longer