Merry Christmas everyone, and look at our lights

It's a pleasant surprise to see how the restored grain elevator is lit at night, and the facade of the old flour mill also comes up well. Quite a landmark now.

This photo also shows how few people have moved in - only one northern apartment occupied.

Early Harbour Mill impressions

From Graham:

Elana and her friend have been living at HM for a few nights and they love the place. The apartment is finished in a high standard, and the people we have met are friendly. Seems like a good mix of age and ethnic origins to make for an interesting community.

I've been surprised how few people have moved in. It was busier with removal trucks today, but many people seem to be leaving it until after Christmas. The car park is eerily quiet.

After receiving delivery of some new stuff and a bit of old, the apartment is looking great. Here's a late afternoon shot of the living room, with its good-sized balcony.

One aspect that is seriously annoying is that the access into Darling Harbour by wheelchair is still blocked and has been for many months. I'm complaining at the highest level of Lend Lease.

I met with Lend Lease two years ago when they won the tender to rebuild the Convention Centre, Exhibition Centre and Entertainment Centre. They absolutely assured me that wheelchair access from Pyrmont via the lift into Darling Harbour would remain open at all times. Yet it has been closed since September, due to Lend Lease inserting four steps into the route to the lift while they undertake the changes. They might as well have built a mountain. I have been in constant contact with them and they make false promises every week on when the new bridge (without steps) would be completed.

And today they told me of further delays, and they would not be on the job again until 6 January 2016. Thanks a lot. That makes access to Darling Harbour for work and Christmas and New Year festivities very difficult for anyone in a wheelchair.

I plan to buy some shares in Lend Lease to attend the AGM and give the Chairman a piece of my mind for their disregard of disability access rights.  

And to make matters worse, access to the light rail via the lift will also not open until after Christmas, although nobody at Ceerose knows why the council will not sign off on the new lift.

So while it's great to be in for Christmas, the access issues are compromising the experience, and we're learning that taxi drivers often have a lot of trouble finding the building.

The storage room and storage boxes

Too much excitement at the likelihood of settling this week to worry about trivial matters such as the storage boxes, but we will need to make a decision soon.

What am I talking about? Underneath HM is a large storage room, where people can put their bikes and maybe other stuff, as shown below. So what? (besides the fact it may quickly become untidy).

Well, there are only 66 storage boxes and 136 apartments, and Ceerose has not attached them to any apartments. Who should have them? It's not fair if people just start grabbing them. The body corporate will need to decide an allocation technique, but we could start the conversation.

Most people will want extra storage space. I think the fairest system is for people to bid for them, with all the proceeds going to a sinking fund or a credit to our strata fees. If they are worth say $200 each a year, that would be $13,200 towards the cost of running the building. Any other suggestions?

Or fair enough if the only thing we all care about is actually settling, moving in and Christmas.

Strata Plan is registered

Some good progress.

I spoke to the Land & Property Information (LPI) office and they showed me how to navigate their site. They also confirmed the strata plan was registered yesterday.

This is how anyone can check the progress:

1. Go to LPI website: http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/#a

2. Click the Online Shop box in the middle of the home page.

3. From the list on the left select 'Document and Plan Status' (tenth item down).

4. Insert the document number, in our case SP92496.

5. And there is our document which currently says:

You can see the Document Status is 'Undergoing Folio Creation'. This means they are currently creating the Certificates of Title, which they started yesterday and it normally takes three days.

They will update the status on this page so anyone can check it, but the LPI person said it should be ready by Monday (yes, we've heard that before!). She said everyone she speaks to wants to be in by Christmas.

So it seems all official sign offs are in place and it's now the procedures of certificates and banks we need to wait for. Without 'counting our chickens', should be on for next week!

New fences and bollards installed

We have a new security fence near the south-east corner of HM, protecting access to the eastern garden and offering better security to the apartments on the ground floor. It should also reduce the amount of graffiti on the expressway wall.

Surprised to see bollards installed at the top and bottom of the driveway along the southern side of HM. I guess that confirms we will be driving up and down Jones Street because there will be no through way to Jones Lane (although I think the garbage truck will come this way).

There is a new timber fence along the southern boundary. The old fence belonging to the terrace was falling over and thankfully, Ceerose did not just patch it up - they covered it completely.