How Archi-QS Allocated Shared Building Costs Across Five BMC Members in St Leonards
- Service: Shared Facilities Schedule and Cost Apportionment Schedule review
- Project address: 558 Pacific Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065
- Project type: Mixed-use, three-tower development held under a Building Management Committee (BMC) structure
The job at hand: With 637 apartments, a commercial tower, 24 retail premises, a supermarket, a public library and a public car park above ten basement levels, this development has an unusually varied mix of uses. The BMC members share infrastructure, but they do not use every facility in the same way.
We were engaged to independently review the shared facilities in the Strata Management Statement and prepare a revised Cost Apportionment Schedule for the BMC that reflected how the building operates. The review was supported by a site inspection, a schedule of areas, and a documented calculation breakdown for every method applied.
The challenge: one building, very different patterns of use
The scheme is one of the more complex BMC structures in the Sydney market. Five members with entirely different operating profiles share the same infrastructure.
The existing schedule grouped facilities into broad line items and applied blanket methods. This approach did not always capture:
- who could access a facility
- how often they used it
- when they operated
A mismatch like this is one of the most common reasons BMC members dispute their cost apportionment.
The library and public car park, for example, have operating hours and access arrangements that differ substantially from the residential and commercial parts of the development.
For the BMC, the task was to establish a clear basis for allocating each shared cost across members with different needs.
Reviewing how each facility works
We inspected the building with the building manager and security manager, examining access controls, operating hours, egress paths and servicing arrangements. We then checked which members benefited from each facility rather than accepting the schedule at face value. Where the position needed further confirmation, including the library lot’s basement access, we verified it directly with Council.
We then unbundled the composite items and assessed each facility on its own merit:
| Facility | How the review was applied |
|---|---|
| Fire systems and egress | Hydrants, sprinklers, hose reels, extinguishers, warden phones, emergency call points, detection and emergency lighting were assessed separately. Each fire stair was allocated according to the members who would use it for egress. |
| Lifts and other vertical transport | Lifts, escalators and travellators were reviewed individually instead of being pooled into one cost item. |
| Facilities with different usage patterns | Where benefit could not be measured by area alone, we applied assessed benefit methods that combine each member’s operating hours with a frequency of use ratio, so the allocation reflects how often and how heavily each lot draws on the facility. |
The outcome: a Cost Apportionment Schedule the BMC can follow
We developed more than 50 distinct apportionment methods for the scheme. Each was supported by a schedule of areas and a documented calculation breakdown, giving the BMC a defensible position it can rely on.
The revised Cost Apportionment Schedule sets out the reasoning behind each line item and shows how its apportionment was calculated.
It gives BMC members a clearer view of their share of the building’s costs and a documented basis for reviewing those costs as the scheme operates.
Managing a mixed-use scheme with shared facilities? Contact Archi-QS to discuss a review of your Shared Facilities Schedule and Cost Apportionment Schedule.