Are you experiencing any of the following:
These symptoms require immediate attention. You should call 911 immediately.
In light of the current world-wide Coronavirus pandemic where people are feeling vulnerable, it should be pointed out that having some sort of system in place may have helped several people in our building who suffered severe medical problems and did not receive help in time. When single people (no matter their age) close their doors behind them, there is an automatic vulnerability factor if they are not in daily contact with a family member, neighbour or other friend.
Suggestions:
People already look out for their more vulnerable neighbours; this is simply taking concern to a more effective level.
Last fall we had an upsetting incident. A resident found a homeless person sleeping in the hallway outside the laundry room. The resident reported it to the substitute caretaker. While making an effort to politely encourage the homeless man to leave, the caretaker was attacked and severely bitten to the point of drawing blood. The homeless person then left the building. The lesson to be learned from this incident is to call the police — 911. Do not involve anyone else.
Thankfully there have been no pipe leaks for months. If you see a spot forming on a wall or ceiling, call the building manager day or night and call the building plumber in that order. One resident did this late at night a year ago, and it prevented big damage to other suites and the building. The resident did not wait until morning which made all the difference.
Residents of the building need to be reminded — do not put grease down your drains. Our building, unlike most, does not clean drains every few years. Grease plugs the drains, and then it backs up into suites at a lower level. This occurred recently creating an unbelievable mess of grease and waste water throughout one owner's suite. Put grease in a can or wait until it solidifies then wrap the grease in newsprint for the compost. If you create a problem by flushing grease down the drain be prepared to pay big to clean it up.
Another related reminder — do not flush paper towels or “flushable” wipes down the toilet. Despite the name, these items are not flushable and will cause problems for our wastewater system.
We received notices in 2020, one was about the increase in insurance and the other was concerning the budget.
The insurance industry is going through tremendous turbulence. The industry structures its insurance fees based on global claims. With Australia on fire last winter, coupled with floods, fires, hurricanes and devasting storms on the planet because of climate change, it is no surprise that insurance rates are rising. The Condominium Home Owners Association (CHOA) reported that hundreds of multiple family residential buildings in the lower mainland cannot get insurance because they have been rejected by insurance companies. Some of the reasons: too many claims in the past, and/or the building has not kept up with its maintenance and capital projects, therefore the building financially cannot withstand necessary repairs.
We in Lancaster Gate have been very fortunate. While many buildings have had insurance increases of 100-300% and even higher, our building's increase is $20,000 which accounts for $20 of the $30 increase to our maintenance fee. The remaining $10 covers inflationary increases to maintain the building. We can expect more and more claims being shifted to suite owners rather than being covered by building insurance. So... if water leaves your suite causing damage elsewhere in the building because of your negligence you better have sufficient insurance to cover the damage — not only of your suite — but also those other affected people and the building itself. That is the trend that is now occurring.
It is important to note that the building's budget for 2020, (our General expenses), shows a decrease in management fees, salaries and benefits.
The 2019 Annual General Meeting was held on June 24 2019. The next one will be midsummer — watch for notices in the building and on the website. The date will depend on when the pandemic ends.
The minutes of the 2019 Annual General Meeting are available here. The committee sent a letter to management about the three plumbing motions mentioned in the minutes. Soon after, the building changed plumbers.
Every condo or apartment community has rules. This is necessary to avoid or at least mitigate disputes and disruption in community living. Everyone should read the new document published November 2019. Thankfully, this is a compilation of the rules instead of having a bunch of notices stapled together.
In the new edition of the rules and guidelines there is some very good advice on safety and security that applies to all of us. The forms necessary for rentals and the recycling requirements are also included and hopefully will be followed.
Most of the rules are typical ones you would find in a strata corporation building. The biggest complaint we have heard is over the $100 fee for moving in and out. This is also typical and a rule found everywhere. It is actually a very low fee, considering that repairs are often needed after moving furniture or appliances in elevators.
Our leasehold contract, clause 6(a) is as follows: ‘...rules shall include a restriction on children under the age of 15 years residing in the building...’ Of course, this is no longer applicable since nowadays Human Rights Laws forbid age discrimination in housing, among other things. Likewise, the rule prohibiting signage in the window has a caveat: denying election signs in windows during elections is also unlawful.
In the spirit of constructive critical support for the rules, we need to say they are unenforceable with respect to fines because the fines are not listed for each offence, nor are there fines for each category, only a statement that there are fines. Therefore, who can decide the number or amounts of fines for each infraction without being arbitrary? It cannot be done, and will result in a future court/tribunal ruling that apprehension of bias exists and/or the penalty amount is arbitrarily decided. That is why in our society every law has a penalty amount attached to it.
It is good news that finally the rules are in one package, instead of a bunch of papers that have been stapled together over 12 years. Hopefully there soon will be another edition, which addresses the concerns raised here.
The LGTC made a submission to the provincial government when they asked for submissions on housing rentals. It can be viewed on the BC Government's Rental Housing Task Force website, look for Lancaster Gate Apartments.
Some leaseholders have complained that they never received a leaseholder's contract. All the leases are the same. We can send you a copy if you contact us at the Lancaster Gate Tenants' Committee email.
The new Langaster Gate Rules and Guidelines can be found here.
Over forty leaseholders attended the July 6 annual general meeting. The minutes will be presented at the 2019 Annual General Meeting.
Residents should be reminded that feeding birds is illegal. All levels of government have made laws against the feeding of wildlife. It is against the building rules. Most people have fed wildlife at one point in their lives. Sailors call the leaving of birds on board decks ‘luck’. Having this luck dropped on you is not lucky — just yucky!
At the 2017 EBLA annual general meeting the EBLA President asked two members of the Lancaster Gate Tenants Committe (LGTC) to join their executive. In the year following, we attended one executive meeting, which, after many months our LGTC called and hosted at Lancaster Gate. It was only a meet and greet meeting without any contention but it became apparent months later, there had been many meetings of EBLA executive to which the two Lancaster Gate members were deliberately not invited. Confronted with this fact, an EBLA Executive member told the assembly at the December 2018 annual general meeting of EBLA, that we were not invited because we might oppose them or words to that effect. Because of this, our two members declined a nomination because EBLA is not a proper oranization, it is just a private club.
The Condominium Home Owners Association has said in the past the biggest gripes and disputes in community living arrangements are over parking. This is no different in a leasehold building especially when there are fewer parking spots than suites. The whole situation is unfair. For example, there are three leaseholders with two-bedroom suites; one leaseholder has three parking spots in the garage, one has a single parking spot, and one has none. There are other suites with no parking spots. Residents have contacted the LGTC complaining that someone is parking in their spot because there is no visitor parking!
The Lancaster Gate Tenants Committee's name and jurisdiction can be found in your leaseholder's contract. We have an annual general meeting for the leaseholders to discuss building issues, offer ideas for improvements, and have elections by secret ballot.
The current committee was formed in 2017 when there was no full-time caretaker and there were many complaints. We still have many concerns but the building is doing much better now. The concerns are still over leaky pipes, parking and garage door exiting during a power failure, as well as access for all to view the front door with a TV. The LGTC meets every month.
We rely on donations. I meet with the building manager once a week. Please come to the next Annual General Meeting if you own a suite and please consider seeking a seat on the executive committee. We should all take a turn participating on the committee so we can keep abreast of what is happening in the building.
The Lancaster Gate Leaseholders Meeting will be held Monday, July 9. Please contact us for details about place and time.
Agenda: reports, discussion, and elections.
Please be on time to register, as we need to start on time in order to get through the agenda.
Owners need to be reminded that when you move in, or your rental tenants move in, forms need to be completed. If you have a renter in your suite you need to fill out a K form and give it to the building manager. You must do this every time you have a new renter. If you are a new owner or existing owner or renter and your personal contact information has changed it is up to you to supply this information to the building manager. You can slip this information through the mail slot at #105, which is the ground floor office.
Keeping this information up to date is critical in case of a building catastrophe. For safety reasons, among others, it is important that an up to date record of who resides here is maintained. Failure to do so can also result in fines. And of course, there are no short term rentals — which means no BnB types.
It has been quite a year dealing with all the leaks and floods in the building! It is absolutely critical that all owners keep their faucets and supply lines up to date. After ten years of use the risk of failure increases dramatically, then wall valves can become stuck and are unable to be shut off.
If you have not kept up the maintenance of water faucets and supply lines in your suite and a leak occurs damaging other suites you can be held responsible for paying the building insurance deductible of $10,000. In the last three years we have had several large floods in the building. This will continue unless something is done.
If nothing is done and we continue dealing with one flood and leak after another the costs will overtake us. An insurance broker contacted this writer to update suite insurance and wanted to know the amount of our building insurance deductible. Apparently many older buildings have not re-piped their building and the leaks and floods have seen their building's deductible insurance rise from $10,000 to $50,000 and more.
The cost of re-piping the building would be incredibly expensive. Building management is considering another option — the HYTEC Water Managenent System. Information on this can be found at Hytec's website. We have very soft water in Vancouver and this causes a lot of pin hole leaks. Adding minerals found in hard water apparently seals the leaks and suppresses heavy metals in the water such as lead, etc. While all of this is government approved and has a proven track record, some people are reluctant to accept anything added to the water.
The Lancaster Gate Tenants Committee (LGTC — official name of the Lancaster Gate Leasehold owners executive committee) attended the English Bay Leaseholders Association (EBLA) general membership meeting last November. Two LGTC members went onto the EBLA executive
Two LGTC members met with the local MLA last October and discussed housing issues with respect to leaseholds.
At the 2018 April EBLA executive meeting we received information that was very troubling with regard to leaseholds. It has become apparent that we are fortunate to have the lessor that we do have, but if the ownership of Lancaster Gate transfers to another lessor we may face trouble. We received reports from other leasehold buildings that are having serious problems with new lessors. Elevators not being fixed, raising fees astronomically which are not to repair or update but to extract money from the titled leaseholders. Also, another lessor keeps the leaseholder owners tax grants instead of forwarding them to the owners. The EBLA had documents about a lessor-gouging owner for window replacement to the tune of $40,000 for each one-bedroom suite. It seems some lessors are trying to drive leaseholders out of their condos. This can happen when a developer or other company buys a building in order to seek an enormous profit through redevelopment. Vast swaths of blocks on Davie, Alberni, and other streets are to be torn down for re-development
The provincial government is having hearings on housing. We are registered to make a presentation.
We still have disclosure on Lancaster Gate building finances, insurance, and other matters. Some West End leaseholds have no transparency. All leaseholders need to have an arbitration system instead of having only the costly and time-consuming courts to resolve any leasehold disputes.
Renters have the Residential Tenancy Act and Strata Freehold owners have the Strata Property Act and both these groups have access to arbitration, which is less expensive than the courts to resolve disputes. Leasehold owners in the private domain (that is us) have at present only the very expensive courts to rely on when there is a dispute. We can find no decision in law or any legal language that would allow leaseholds such as ours to use the existing residential arbitration tribunals. We have conflicting opinions about the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT — created to resolve disputes within the Strata Property Act) having the jurisdiction to determine if our types of leaseholds are covered.
West End Community Centre (870 Denman Street) services include a fitness centre, ice rink and many art, music, and fitness classes at reasonable cost to people of all ages. Check them out here.
West End Seniors Network at Barclay Manor (1447 Barclay Street) provides services to seniors aged 55 and over. Movies, computer support, health education and support services are only a few areas of programming they offer. More information is available here.
Gordon Neighbourhood House (1019 Broughton Street) provides programs for families and singles, such as After School Childcare, two thrift stores and a weekly summer produce market from their farm. For more information visit their website.
The wrong stuff is still being deposited in the recycle bins. Although instructions are posted on the lids of the blue bins, some residents are ignoring them. The same holds true for the green bins, where plastic bags, wraps, cups and containers continue to be found.
Confused about what goes where? An easy to use visual guide can be found here.
More useful information can be found in Metro Vancouver's How-to Guide for Food Scraps Recycling.
Many leasehold owners of Lancaster Gate (lessees) came together in June of 2017 to form a committee. At the founding meeting the Election of Officers took place.
This establishing of the Lancaster Gate Tenants' Committee is in accordance with clause 8 of our Contract with the lessor (or owner) of Lancaster Gate. The Contract refers to a ‘tenants committee’ meaning leasehold owners but not renters. However, we are all residents of Lancaster Gate and the ‘Lancaster Gate Tenants Committee’ (LGTC) will advocate for changes and improvements that affect us all. We will not be involved with a complaint or a dispute unless it involves a significant number of owners. All who have issues should direct them to the building manager. The Lancaster Gate Tenants Committee also would like to be given a copy of any complaints made by owners or residents, as this would be helpful to the LGTC.
We are producing this first issue of the LGTC newsletter to keep you abreast of issues in the building. Editions will be published whenever there is useful news.
Those of you who are landlords or are tenants of leaseholders may be interested in finding out about your legal rights, responsibilities and options. This information is readily available from the BC government Residential Tenancy Branch by phone at 604-660-2421 or on their website.
Building rules and regulations are posted in the display case by the mailboxes. Violation of the rules can involve disciplinary fines.