OCN made a submission on the need to support the residential strata sector, which is lagging behind other household types in the clean energy transition. We recommended that the Committee: see Owners Corporations and Strata Committees as partners with Government; develop a coherent national strategy for the residential strata sector; adopt measures tailored to the strata environment.
28 SEPTEMBER 2023 There are almost 3 million apartments or townhouses around the country that have one thing in common: they're covered by a strata scheme. It means the people who own those properties pay regular strata fees to cover any costs related to shared space. Strata committees — elected volunteer owners — make day-to-day decisions about things like building maintenance, repairs, renovations and other big-ticket items. They're important decisions. But strata committees [...]
16 SEPTEMBER 2023 Recently, an ITC Lane Cove Chat reader asked if a Telco called GigaComm had contacted anyone living in an apartment complex about installing high-speed internet infrastructure in their apartment building. With over 50% of Lane Cove residents living in apartments, this was an issue worth investigating. So, what do you do when a Telco contacts your owners corporation with an official notice stating the Telco will be installing fibre and cabling [...]
13 SEPTEMBER 2023 With extremes of weather, bushfires and strained infrastructure on the way, is your building ready for a crisis to become a catastrophe? OCN is hosting Strata Matters with three panel sessions on how to prepare for any hard times ahead. Read more:> HERE
12 SEPTEMBER 2023 OCN spoke with Hilary Harper of Radio National 'Life Matters' about how to prevent conflict within a strata community and a strata committee. Listen:> HERE
31 AUGUST 2023 OCN talks to Sarah MacDonald about the high incidence of bankruptcy applications by owners corporations for unpaid levies. Listen:>
29 AUGUST 2023 The Business | ABC News Collapsed developer Toplace has been ordered to fix yet another defective Sydney building. Uncontrolled cracking has been found in the Kellyville apartment complex. It was the third Toplace development slapped with a rectification order in one week. Watch the full video:> HERE
25 AUGUST 2023 Major updates to NSW strata are being proposed, with working groups having recommended some bold regulatory reforms for the sector. Among the changes afoot is a recommendation to make the initial annual general meeting of new buildings a two stage process so that owners, especially first timers, cannot be railroaded into agreements that are not in their best interests, such as embedded networks [https://www.afr.com/wealth/personalfinance/howtostop-dodgymaintenancecontractsinyournewapartmentblock-20230801-p5dt3d]. Allied to the recommendation above [...]
OCN made a short submission on the draft Practice Standard for Professional Engineers, noting that this Practice Standard should also apply to all building consultants.
The OCN welcomes the opportunity to comment upon the Building Bill 2023 – Licensing Proposals. The OCN is one of, if not the most, important stakeholder in this area, but does not have the resources or paid staff or lobbyists that industry stakeholders have.
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.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
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]
