Are owners corporations required to provide accessible parking for residents?

Should an owners corporation provide an accessible parking space for disabled residents, or allow them to use the visitors’ disabled space if no resident space is available?

I am a disabled resident with a valid disability parking permit. Our building has a visitor car park with one accessible parking space, but I’ve been told I’m not allowed to use it because it’s for disabled visitors only. The problem is that the sign doesn’t clearly state it’s for visitors, and there are no accessible parking spaces allocated to residents.

Is the owners corporation required to provide an accessible parking space for residents, or at least allow me to use the visitors’ disabled space when it’s vacant?

Do they need to provide a disabled spot for residents as well, or allow me to use the spot they claim is for visitors if it remains vacant?

Answer: An owners corporation is not required to provide lot owners with a designated disability compliant car space (nor any car space).

Visitor spaces are usually (but not always) required to be provided as a condition of a planning permit and form part of the requirements that permitted the development.

If the planning permit requires that certain spaces be used for visitors, then the owners corporation is not able to re-allocate those spaces to lot owners, etc. The purpose of visitor spaces is to reduce the car parking burden on the street. An owners corporation is entitled to make rules about the use of car spaces.

An owners corporation is not required to provide lot owners with a designated disability compliant car space (nor any car space). Car spaces are generally purchased with the lot and comprise common property. It is unusual for an owners corporation to control car parking that is anything other than designated visitor spaces.

Phillip Leaman
Tisher Liner FC Law
E: ocenquiry@tlfc.com.au
P: 03 8600 9370

Source:This article has been republished with permission from the author and first appeared on the LookUpStrata website.