Is Strata really Anti family ? And, do we care ?

If strata is the future of Australian housing [which everyone says it is], then it must accommodate families unless it’s to become a national nursing home sector.

But is strata actually family-friendly? Or is the opposite true and that it’s anti family?

We wrote about that in the Daily Post Are Strata Buildings Child and Family Unfriendly? in 2021.

But, thankfully, some really smart people have now researched, studied and written about the issues in the research paper The Regulation of Families with Children in Apartments by well-known strata academics, Sophie May-Kerr, Hazel Easthope and Cathy Sherry focus on the experiences of families with children who comprise a growing cohort of strata building residents and build on existing research that documents families’ experiences of poor design, to recognise the role regulation plays in shaping a sense of home.

Their thoughts cover 3 main areas:

1. Social regulation in strata buildings in interactions between individuals who influence each other’s behaviour.

2. Self-regulated behaviours that have developed in strata buildings

3. Institutional regulation of family-centric activities in strata building through rules, by-laws, and other laws.

By adopting narratives of parents raising children in apartments in Sydney, they argue that social norms, neighbourly interactions, and laws or rules interact to enforce codes of behaviour that impinge upon family life and that these things have important implications for the well-being and inclusion of families within strata title and owners corporation compact city agendas.

So, if you care about the future of strata and families, this paper is worth reading and considering.

You can read the full research paper here

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