Apartment owners may soon find themselves able to insert extra units into their blocks, create car parking below and add penthouses on top to bring in extra revenue and dramatically increase the value of their homes.
As a result of a little known “renewal” clause in imminent strata law changes coming into effect on November 30, it will be much easier for them to organise to redevelop their buildings themselves, in partnership with a developer, or to allow a developer to completely upgrade their blocks.
“This opens up so many possibilities for apartment owners,” says Sydney apartment owner and businesswoman Catherine Lezer, who is also a director of the independent not-for-profit Strata Community Australia.
“It’s about proactively managing the value of your apartment asset. Before, it was difficult to organise and to finance. Now both are possible.”
The new legislation includes a clause that allows just 75 per cent of owners in a building – in place of the current 100 per cent – to vote to make sweeping changes. Since it’s rare that every owner will ever agree to anything, this amendment is seen as potentially revolutionising the apartment world.
Already, there’s been a number of inquiries from buildings to financiers Lannock Strata Finance about taking out loans to pay for ambitious, and possibly hugely profitable, redevelopment plans, particularly for older crumbling small buildings in the eastern suburbs, inner west and lower north shore.
More relaxed height restrictions and floor space ratios, coupled with vastly improved building techniques, will allow more homes to be built in the same footprint or on sites where higher, larger blocks would today be allowed in what’s now being seen as a redevelopment bonanza for apartment-dwellers.
