Dear Editor:
Re: Mayor's million-dollar condo for sale, The Record online, Nov. 20.
Ms. Hope's piece highlights the features of Mayor Wayne Wright's "stunning,""opulent" $1,099,000 condo but did not reveal a dirty little secret.
The evidence suggests that Mayor Wright's condo, like approximately 20 per cent of others in the Tiffany Shores community, have been expanded without the extra habitable area being factored into unit entitlement figures used in calculating monthly strata fees assessed to all owners. For instance, Ms. Hope writes that the mayor's suite is 2,100 square feet in area, yet the official unit entitlement is 147 square metres, or 1,582 square feet (rounded). Using these figures, strata fees for the Mayor's suite are being assessed on about 75 per cent of the actual habitable area.
The result of these irregularities: The almost 80 per cent of owners without expanded suites are highly subsidizing strata management/maintenance costs for the enlarged suites, like the one Ms. Hope wrote belongs to Mayor Wright.
Is the mayor responsible for the irregularities and inequity issue? No. Should the mayor have known about the issue? Probably, yes. The information is available to all owners. Does the mayor and/or other owners of the suite benefit financially from the irregularities and resulting inequities? The evidence suggests, yes.
Planning for a Supreme Court lawsuit is currently underway should the irregularities and inequities for all suites at Tiffany Shores not be voluntarily corrected in the near future. The outcome could serve as precedent for other condo owners.
Steve Hales, by email
