High-density strata title communities comprise a growing new form of local democracy.
The various components of these increasingly popular apartment and townhouse communities, including the executive committees elected to preside over them and the strata managers responsible for supporting the administration of the community, are often in the news. So too are the developers that build them.
The news is often negative, including various sorts of commercial malpractice, bullying and conflict between owners.
These communities provide a terrific introduction to the pros and cons of local democracy.
Strata title properties are ones in which the title is divided between a number of units, as small as two and as large as several hundred. The growth of medium and high density living in all Australian cities means that more and more people are living cheek by jowl in such communities.
One in five Australians may now live in strata title schemes. One estimate for NSW is that there are 60,000 schemes, including 600,000 units and many more individuals.
Not only must such people manage relations between themselves and their own properties, but they have to jointly manage common property such as the buildings, gardens, hallways, and parking spots, not to mention pools and spas and community living rules.
These modern style communities are just like old-style villages and towns. They include just as many people as many small towns dotted around Australia. But relations are more intensive. For the owners and tenants of strata title schemes this is where their lives meet politics and democracy. Their scheme becomes more important to them than most contact with local, state or federal government.
Surveys show that whatever the level of democracy, citizens exhibit similar characteristics. These include limited knowledge and interest, suspicion of office-holders, assertions of self-interest and communication difficulties.
In strata title democracy many participants know one other personally and live side by side. Strata titles also have a number of special characteristics, such as absent owners and transient tenants, making democratic processes more difficult. Often the tenants outnumber the owner occupiers.
But the characters of wider Australian democracy are evident in strata title democracy. These include the good citizens, the articulate, the disadvantaged, the petty dictators and the squeaky wheels.
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