WA Research on Greening Strata Schemes

There's very little research available on strata and community title buildings to start.  And, there's even less on the environmental issues they face.

So, this study by Chiara Pacifici of Curtin University called Greening Strata Title Schemes in WA: Turning barriers into opportunities for individual owners toimplement environmentally sustainable provisions inexisting residential strata dwellings is a welcome addition to the knowledge and thinking base in the area.  Plus it has wider relevance and application.

In the study, Chiara Pacifici looks at the structural legal impediments that affect 'green initiatives' in strata buildings.  In particular, how the kinds of approvals required for most environmental upgrades in strata buildings by strata corporations or owners need three quarter (or higher) decisions and are therefore a lot harder to achieve.  She also considers how these impediments can be appropriately modified and suggests some law reforms.

Interestingly, the strata decision making problems identified in the study apply to other strata issues too - including climate change adaptation works.  So, the analysis and her ideas are a useful addition to our study of the challenges facing strata and community title stakeholders in dealing with climate change weather impacts.

Overcoming Strata Decision Making Barriers to Climate Change Adaptation

One of the issues this study has already identified is the existence of structural barriers to adaptation in existing building for climate change.

In most Australian states making the changes and upgrades to common property structures and acquiring the additional equipment needed to make 'green' improvements to the building is not included within normal repair and maintenance and will be classified as upgrades.  And, upgrades require higher level approvals. 

In most states a a special resolution (three quarter majority) is required but in the ACT and for South Australian community schemes where the upgrades costs more than $5,000, an approval by unanimous resolution is necessary.

So, environmental upgrades are harder to approve and implement than ordinary repairs - reducing the likelihood of them happening.  That includes many of the changes a strata building might need to make to adapt itself to improve its resilience to climate change weather effects.

But, one Australian exception exists in the ACT where the new (2011) strata legislation permits upgrades and additions for installation of sustainability or utility infrastructure on the common property with only an ordinary (simple majority) decision.  This facilitates these kinds of upgrades.  But the definition of “sustainability infrastructure” is limited covering only infrastructure and equipment that improves the environmental sustainability of the units or reduces the environmental impact of the owners corporation and the unit owners (including related utility service connections and equipment.).  The laws cite examples such as - solar panels, clotheslines, rainwater tanks.

But even these reduced approval thresholds may not apply to climate change adaptation work that is not also sustainability infrastructure.

You can read the relevant provision (section 23) here.

One of the recommendations we're likely to make in this study is to alter the definitions of what is within normal maintenance and repair to include works and equipment that improves climate change resilience and to reduce the decision making thresholds for that kind of work and equipment.

Innovative Insurance may Assist with Extreme Weather Losses

Our studies so far have revealed that insurance plays a critical role as the risk management default for extreme weather events affecting strata and community title complexes.  

But the experiences of many of those complexes in far north Queensland over the last 18 months also reveals that conventional insurance products and market forces can undermine that protection.  Plus, traditional insurance protections do not encourage or facilitate climate change adaptation.

So new thinking and ideas may be necessary to better deal with the climate change effects of extreme weather events for strata and community title complexes.

Complexitas is an Australian business that works with corporations and government in climate change risk management around the world to help reduce risks by focusing on risk identification, resilience and adaptivity.  In a recent presentation called Can Adaptation and Insurance be Sustainable Partners to Combat X-Events, Compexitas looked at whether the impacts of extreme weather events (a class of X- Events) can be diminished by use of insurance that does not rely on the proof of loss.

This involves something called index-based insurance for highly vulnerable communities and organisations where insurance cover and payouts are not based on proving loss but, rather, the occurrence of weather disasters.  

For instance, in Peru, where a defined group of weather–sensitive farming communities are now offered insurance that is not based on proving loss due to flooding rains but are given payouts at the start of an anticipated disaster season (based on climate mode information and predictability). They then have money to buy emergency seeds and to recover from any event that occurs in the anticipated extreme summer season.

This kind of insurance minimises the impacts of insurance sector failures that are usually caused by market (asset) problems, moral hazard and adverse selection and the inability to respond to and anticipate major shifts in climate and client behaviour.

It's an innovative idea that might be worth considering.  You can find out more by looking at the presentation slides here and reading text of the presentation here.

Wikipedia Information on Australian Climate Change

You've undoubtedly heard a lot about climate change by now.  But, to be a fair, a lot of the information is either too technically complex to understand, too biased (either way) and/or just media hype that is not sufficiently factual.

So, it's hard to understand things well enough to make your own decisions.

Since we live in the modern information age why not use Wikipedia (The Free Encyclopedia) to find out more?  

In fact, this page about the Effects of global warming on Australia is great introduction to the topic; outlining the key concepts, findings and some likely impacts in your part of the country.  And, if you want to find out more it includes links to other sites and many of the leading studies and reports.

Innovative Island Development for Rising Sea Levels

One of the less controversial predictions about climate change is rising sea levels which put low lying land at risk on inundation.

The Maldives is low lying (only about 5 feet above sea level) so it's particularly at risk.  So, Dutch development company, Dutch Docklands, is proposing an innovative development there.

It involves a floating private island, a floating 18-hole golf course (complete with underwater, see-through tunnels between holes), a hotel and convention center, 185 villas, and a further 72 houses on four ringed islands.  The islands are attached to the seabed with flexible lines, or retractable mono-piles, which allow the structures to move gently up and down.

It's a good example of the kind of innovations climate change challenges will promote and you can read more about it here.

Enquiry about Electrical Infrastructure

When extreme weather like floods affect strata buildings the electrical supply systems are at risk.

Now the Queensland Department of Energy & Water Supply have produced a discussion paper addressing two of the recommendations from the Queensland Flood Insurance Commission's (QFCI) Final Report relating to improving the resilience of high rise buildings located in flood hazard areas specifically focusing on electricity distribution network systems inside an electricity customer’s premises. 

The QFCI noted that substations located in basements of high rise buildings in the Brisbane central business district flooded during the 2011 floods, ceased operating and remained inoperative for lengthy periods of time. This caused major expense and disruption for many building owners and tenants,” said the Department of Energy & Water Supply.

To view a more detailed discussion on each of these recommendations click here to view the full paper and submissions are due by 31 August 2012.

And thanks Chelsey Blount from StrataBlogger.com.au for finding this.

ACT Leads the Way in Strata Sustainability

One of the difficulties already identified in the strata climate change research are structural legal impediments to existing strata and community title corporations adapting their buildings to be more resilient and sustainable.

Since the adaptation work is likely to be an upgrade to common property structure and/or involve new structures it needs approval by special (sometimes unanimous) vote of owners.  That can be difficult to obtain and places extra hurdles in the way of those improvements.

But the Australian Capital Territory has fixed that in its latest version of their strata title laws, the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011.

They've introduced section 23 called 'Installation of sustainability and utility infrastructure on common property' that lowers the decision threshold for installing (or approving onwers installing) sustainability infrastructure and utlitiy infrastructure to an simple majority vote.  Sustainability infrastructure include things that improve the environmental sustainability or reduces environmental impacts of the strata corporation and the unit owners like solar panels, clothes lines, rainwater tanks, etc.  Utility infrastructure includes equipment necessary for, or related to, the provision of utility services.

It's a great initiative that we're likely to see incorporated into other parts of Australia.


Francesco ...