Community Titles first step in delivering high quality, vibrant developments

Last week WA Parliament passed the eagerly awaited Community Titles Bill 2018. Community Titles will be a game changer for the property industry, primarily by allowing the flexibility to have one or more management bodies oversee the property within a strata development.

Community titles schemes are a new form of strata scheme where multiple sub-schemes can exist under an umbrella community scheme. Each sub-scheme has its own strata company and all the strata companies operate under an overarching community corporation.

This is ideal for large scale strata developments which may be delivered over several stages, and for integrated land developments and single strata buildings with a mix of residential, retail and commercial uses.

For example, in a mixed use situation where you have a multi-storey building with retail on the ground floors, commercial on the middle floors and residential on the top floors, you can have a principal management company that takes care of the building and common matters such as the lifts and foyer, while subsidiary management companies can be established for the retail floors, the commercial floors and the residential floors, giving much greater control to the respective property owners.

The new laws will be particularly influential with the rise of retail and activity centre redevelopments which are occurring around Perth that want to implement a mix of uses within the same precinct. Community title schemes will provide these developments a much more appropriate framework to assist in the delivery of these projects.

The new strata management framework will also assist in the ability to provide specialised housing, such as retirement living or disability accommodation in a mixed use development, as it will allow for a subsidiary management company to look after those specific sections of the property.

In the case of METRONET, Community title is a key component in the State Government’s push for more connected, integrated and vibrant precincts and individual development sites. It is critical to the success of METRONET and the associated METRONET precincts. Developers in these precincts will be able to deliver homes, community and commercial uses that are integrated and provide a high amenity environment where people can work, live and play.

Implementing the right legislative framework is the critical first step in assisting the property industry not only to meet urban infill targets, but to deliver high quality products that the market wants, expects and deserves.

Image: artist impression of Brookfield’s twin-tower Elizabeth Quay development which will benefit from the introduction of new Community Titles legislation.