Some trees in the shared courtyard had grown so tall they were impeding some residents’ views. They weren’t supposed to grow that high; the wrong species had been planted originally. It was a divisive issue; those whose views were blocked wanted to remove the trees and replace them with a smaller, slower-growing species. However, most residents liked the trees and wanted to keep them; they were beautiful and had taken many years to grow.

Challenge

As with most condominium associations, there is no formalized method of polling owners other than the opportunity presented at the AGM. AGMs only occur once a year, many issues need to be dealt with quickly, and often only a minority of owners participate.

Holding a special general meeting is expensive and only viable for the most critical issues.

Decisions made in conventional situations often end with owners being divided, causing resistance. In addition, loud voices may dominate and have unfair influence.

Approach

The directors were faced with a polarized debate. However, it wasn’t necessarily a binary decision. The decision could be

broken down into a number of different sub-issues.

Which trees should be targeted? What interventions were possible? Over what time period should this take place? And – importantly – how much money

were people willing to spend on this issue? The budget for spending that year was nearly exhausted.

This information and more was gathered through an interview with one of the Strata directors. The options were identified, categorized into topics, costed, and uploaded into Ethelo. After being reviewed and approved by the directors, invitations (including unique access codes) were distributed by mail to all the residents.

Some residents owned or occupied more than one suite, which under the Strata bylaws entitled them to more than one vote. Ethelo was configured to reflect the different amounts of voting influence that each owner should have.