27 March 2020 Apartment buildings teeming with residents staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic have experts warning of "cruise ships on land". It's prompted an urgent call for government guidelines on Australian strata properties to prevent high-density outbreaks of COVID-19. Channel 7 Christine McGinn > Full article on Channel 7
20 MARCH 2020 Apartment residents across Australia are angry that their buildings could be turned into high-risk viral hot-spots, as Airbnb hosts offer self-isolation packages to returned overseas travellers. Airbnb hosts globally are reeling after a dramatic downturn in visitors due to travel restrictions and an Airbnb decision to waive cancellation fees for stays booked up to April 14 and possibly beyond. As a result, some hosts are compensating by offering special [...]
OCN MEDIA RELEASE: 20 March 2020 The Owners Corporation Network is the independent peak consumer body representing apartment owners in NSW. There are over one million people living in apartments in NSW. “Airbnb Hosts” are offering “self-isolation” packages to return travellers who are booking 14 day stays in residential buildings, instead of going home to their families” OCN Director, Jane Hearn, said. “The Prime Minister introduced 14-day mandatory quarantine for [...]
19 MARCH 2020 With the introduction of mandatory self-isolation for returning overseas travellers, OCN became extremely concerned about the new phenomenon of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms promoting apartments in strata communities as isolation rentals. OCN wrote to the NSW minister for better regulation, Keven Anderson, calling for urgent action under the Public Health Orders to prevent this risk to permanent residents. OCN noted that unlike the regulated serviced apartment [...]
19 MARCH 2020 With the introduction of mandatory self-isolation for returning overseas travellers, OCN became extremely concerned about the new phenomenon of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms promoting apartments in strata communities as isolation rentals. OCN wrote to the NSW Premier calling for urgent action under the Public Health Orders to prevent this risk to permanent residents. OCN noted that unlike the regulated serviced apartment sector, Airbnb and other platforms [...]
19 MARCH 2020 With the introduction of mandatory self-isolation for returning overseas travellers, OCN became extremely concerned about the new phenomenon of Airbnb and other short-term letting platforms promoting apartments in strata communities as isolation rentals. OCN wrote to the NSW minister for health, Brad Hazzard, calling for urgent action under the Public Health Orders to prevent this risk to permanent residents. OCN noted that unlike the regulated serviced apartment sector, [...]
19 March 2020 NSW Premier - COVID-19 Quarantine Threat to Strata Living 200319
12 Mar 2020 A £1bn fund to help strip combustible cladding from homes in privately owned tower blocks is “a huge step forward”, but likely to be too little and would still leave thousands of people in financial and safety limbo, leaseholders said. Leaseholders in blocks with ACM and other kinds of combustible cladding have faced soaring costs for mortgages, insurance and interim fire safety measures. Some have put off having children [...]
10 March 2020 With the introduction of government bills to force change, now is the time for quality market participants to back an overhaul of the state’s construction industry and rebuild customer confidence, argues the NSW Building Commissioner. The NSW government’s Design and Building Practitioner’s Bill (D&BP) and the Residential Apartments (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Bill (RAB) will face the NSW Parliament in coming weeks. Since the publication of the Shergold [...]
23 February 2020 Residents of flats in Greater Manchester who are facing huge bills to replace flammable cladding have told of “anxiety so extreme I can’t function” and feel they are members of “generation stuck”. A survey carried out by the Greater Manchester High Rise Task Force found 53% of owner-occupiers in tower blocks had been hit with increased service charges after the Grenfell Tower fire. One resident said their monthly [...]
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]
