20 August 2021 Karen Stiles, OCN Executive Officer, interviewed by Channel 10 News on why residents need to know if someone in their building is Covid-19 positive. Watch the clip:
18 August 2021 Listen to Karen Stiles, OCN Executive Officer, interviewed by Steve Price on Australia Today about Covid-19 & strata.
16 August 2021 Increasing lockdowns across Sydney have created a problem for apartment residents and the cleaning companies servicing them – there are not enough workers to meet their buildings’ daily waste and sanitation needs. Havencab has 400 workers in apartment buildings in central Sydney including the 68-level GreenlandCentreonBathurstStreet. But, not designated as authorised workers, 120 were grounded in lockdowns of the south-western suburbs and a further 80 with last week’s [...]
15 August 2021 NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has begged people to stop visiting family and friends as hundreds of extra police begin patrolling streets from Monday in an unprecedented effort to slow rising COVID-19 case numbers. Dr Chant delivered one of her most sober messages of the pandemic on Sunday as NSW recorded 415 new cases, starkly warning: “I cannot describe my concern level if we do not drive [...]
3 August 2021 Jane Hearn talks with Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams on their weekly podcast. Jane starts discussions at 3 mins 30 sec. Flat Chat Podcast > Link to podcast
29 July 2021 At least two Wollongong apartment complexes have now been touched by COVID-19. Management of the Parq on Flinders buildings sent an email to residents and unit owners on Wednesday evening, advising them that there was a confirmed case of COVID-19 in one of the towers and the resident was in isolation off-site. Illawarra Mercury Natalie Croxon > Link to full article
28 June 2021 The peak body for real estate agents in NSW has quit an expert panel advising the government on the industry as a stoush between the minister and agents escalates. Real Estate Institute of NSW chief executive Tim McKibbin says the Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson, has created a panel for “pointless engagement” as a “ruse” for consumer protection. Nigel Gladstone Sydney Morning Herald > Read [...]
27 June 2021 The lockdown on a major Sydney apartment tower has been eased after a mass testing of almost the entire population of the block unearthed no more positive COVID-19 cases. Now the 500-plus residents of the 40-storey Kings Cross building Elan are back under the same stay-at-home orders as the rest of Greater Sydney, with just the one infected person and five other close contacts all self-isolating. “Pretty much [...]
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]
