Councillor Chris Harris

Chris Harris has dismissed the draft Strata Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 as falling well short of what is needed to provide adequate legislative protection for unit owners and long term tenants against unfair practices by non resident investors and developers.

The rapidly increasing number of people who live in apartments deserve more than the draft Bill is offering. Their apartment is their home and they want to have adequate control over their living conditions just like everyone else.

In a submission to the Strata Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, Clr Harris lists ineffective dispute resolution, barriers to the ability of executive committees to have building defects remedied and the lack of legislative assistance for executive committees to collect unpaid levies and sanction bad behaviour, as three major inadequacies of the present law. None of these shortcomings are addressed in the draft Bill.

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Councillor Harris is excited that a Greens initiative for the provision of car share spaces in the city has finally been adopted by Council despite the frustratingly long period of negotiation with the RTA.

It has taken a long time but it’s great news for anyone concerned with reducing the city’s car usage. The experience of car share schemes demonstrates that one car share vehicle will replace 10-15 privately owned cars so those 47 spaces will remove somewhere between 470 and 700 cars from city streets.

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