Hi all,
I would appreciate some advice on this. There is a new apartment block being developed next to door to my apartment. They have 2 levels of car park (ground & underground) with both using our apartment's driveway as right of way. We only have 14 units in our apartment but have about 18 car spaces using that driveway. However, the new apartment have about 30+ units with more than 40 car spaces.
Despite our protest, the council has approved the original plans (which had fewer car spaces and a proposed widening of the shared driveway). However, along the way, the plans seemed to have been modified without our knowledge and the driveway wasn't widened but the number of car spaces have been increased significantly. I'm not sure if the council need to inform the neighbours by writing of any changes to the plans. Anyway, now, we have 40 more cars using our driveway, which is only wide enough for 1 car.
Apart from the congestion, there's no traffic management in place for us as we have a blind spot. When we drive out of our underground car park to the shared driveway, we will not be able to see the cars coming out from the new apartment, and the builders are not keen to do anything to address the issue. It seems that we have to pay for our own traffic management solution, even though they are using our driveway and caused the obvious blind spot.
Is there any way we can stop the development even though the council has already approved it? We probably can't afford a legal battle but are at a loss at how to stop an impending accident blind spot.
Any advice is very much appreciated. Hopefully, I didn't post it in the wrong thread, but I was hoping if any legal minded person here would know the correct channel for us to try and solve this issue. My apartment is in Sydney, if that matters.
Thanks.
The first thing to do is to look at the title deed for the common property and see what the terms of the right of way are. The second would be to talk to the council and find out exactly what has happened and why
Thanks, crj. Where can I get a copy of the deed title? From the NSW planning office?
Hi Terry
How come you asked these questions?
– which state will you buy in?
– are you at risk of litigationThanks.
A copy should be attached to your contract when you bought, otherwise online search with land titles
Id say with the current "housing crisis" that Australia is experiencing you have bucklies of stopping the development, and the legal costs to try would be enormous.
I'd suggest petitioning your strata or local council, and suggest they put a give way or stop sign in near your driveway, so that the new residents have to give way to you. If this doesn't eliminate the blind spot then mirrors put in place to be able to see traffic may also help. You may find some or all of this (including traffic management on the private property, common driveway) is strata's responsibility.
At the end of the day the only way to get something done is to make a fuss about it until they decide that a solution to your problem is easier than dealing with constant complaints. The more residents – from both apartment blocks, that complain, the more likely something will get done.
Yes, my strata is all up in arms about it after we recently saw their driveway that they are almost completing. So far, after our letters of complaints, the builder has agreed to meet with us but I'm worried that they may drag their feet to solving the issue until everything has been completed and they go off, leaving the new tenants to settle it with us.
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