Having sat on the consultative committee established to provide advice and guidance on the transition to digital survey plans, OCN made a short submission outlining the benefits of the reforms for strata title purchasers.
11 October 2021 Almost four in 10 new apartment buildings in NSW have serious defects, costing an average $331,829 per building to fix, a new survey has found, although resolutions are rare. The Owners Corporation Network, which represents apartment owners, welcomed the survey results. “As the peak body for residential strata owners, the Owners Corporation Network strongly supports research into the incidence and impacts of serious defects,” said chief executive Karen [...]
7 October 2021 The NSW Short Term Rental Policy de-regulates housing and residential zoning to accommodate the growth of Airbnb. It makes no distinction between a free-standing home and a high-density apartment community. The commercialisation of strata assets brings with it unpredictable and significant risks and costs for all Owners and increases the burden on Strata Committees and residents. The strata legislation must now address these unresolved policy issues before the [...]
5 August 2021 It has a whiff of narcissism about it – “go on, tell me how great I am” – but NSW is about to introduce a voluntary star rating system for new apartment building projects. It’s a slow-burn strategy to eventually freeze the worst players out of the market, but it has been welcomed by owner advocates such as Karen Stiles, executive officer at the Owners Corporation Network (OCN), who says [...]
20 September 2021 As NSW moves towards 70 – 80 % vaccination problems are arising in residential strata complexes about unvaccinated users’ access to shared strata facilities. To reduce the risk of a Delta outbreak, we are asking the NSW Government to a make clear and unequivocal statement that future public health orders will apply to facilities in all settings, including residential strata and community title schemes. > Read letter to [...]
7 September 2021 Apartment residents could be hit by the most draconian COVID-19 laws ever produced by the NSW Government, which is able to lock down entire unit blocks when just one person tests positive to the virus. The police also now have new powers to patrol buildings, quiz everyone living in – and visiting – apartments for their names and phone numbers, and order them all to take COVID tests. [...]
10 AUGUST 2021 OPINION As an experienced respiratory physician at a major western Sydney hospital, I am gravely concerned about the NSW government’s ineffective response to the Delta outbreak. As it has overseas, the pandemic is disproportionately affecting low-income migrant populations with insecure jobs. NSW is almost certainly on the precipice of a massive deterioration. Contact tracers are overwhelmed, with reporting of infection hot spots lagging by days. The whole strategy [...]
OCN MEDIA RELEASE: 28 JULY 2021 Executive Officer at Owners Corporation Network, Karen Stiles said the tool will take the guesswork out of buying an apartment in NSW. "The last thing prospective owners need is to spend their life savings buying into a problematic building, but in the past consumers have had to rely on the developer's word that the property is a safe and sound investment," Ms Stiles said. "This tool [...]
29 JULY 2021 Home builders will get a rating of one to five stars based on how shonky their work is, in a move aimed at restoring confidence in Sydney’s new builds and leaving dodgy developers “nowhere to hide”. Minister for Better Regulation Kevin Anderson said the new ratings system would end the days of people moving into defective apartments. Owners Corporation Network executive officer Karen Stiles said the move would [...]
21 JULY 2021 OCN made a short submission calling for the same standard of conduct to apply to Conveyancers as applies to Lawyers. The current regulatory framework lacks the rigour to ensure appropriate protections for consumers. > Download PDF
Owners Corporation Network
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email [email protected]
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
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Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to [email protected]
