Can you charge an EV at Breakfast Point?
For most apartments here, no — and not for reasons the new laws fix.
The car spaces beneath most Breakfast Point buildings have no electrical supply at all. Not limited supply. None. And where there is power, it usually isn’t individually metered, which means charging a car draws on common property and every other owner pays for it.
This apartment is the exception, and there’s a specific reason why.
What the law actually says
NSW introduced a statutory right to charge. In outline: an owner serves a written installation notice on the strata committee; if the committee doesn’t respond with a reasonable written objection within three months, approval is deemed granted. EV charging is classified as sustainability infrastructure, so it needs only a simple majority rather than 75%. A by-law that unreasonably prohibits charging has no effect, and an owner who thinks an objection is unreasonable can apply to NCAT.
That’s a genuine improvement. But note the word reasonable.
Absence of electrical supply is a reasonable objection. The right to charge doesn’t oblige an owners corporation to build infrastructure that was never there, and it doesn’t make running a new circuit from a distant switchboard through common property cheap or physically straightforward. Installations in Sydney strata buildings typically run $2,500 to $6,000 before you account for supply upgrades.
So the law helps the first person in a building with capacity. It does very little for the fifth, and nothing at all where there’s no supply to begin with.
Why this apartment has power in its garage
Our apartment’s ducted air-conditioning condenser sits in our garage. It runs off our own meter, not common property — which means there was already a circuit from our apartment to our own car space, installed when the building went up in 2006.
That’s why we could add a charger, and why almost nobody else in the building can. We didn’t get permission that others were refused. Our lot simply has an electrical run to the basement that theirs don’t.
What’s installed
- Type 2 charger — a BMW Wallbox. Type 2 is the Australian AC standard, so it charges any electric car sold here, not just a BMW.
- Dedicated circuit, with its own fuse and switchover.
- Individually metered. You pay for your own charging. No argument with the owners corporation about who’s using what.
- Approved by the strata committee, in writing.
What this is worth
Electric vehicles are forecast to reach 30 to 50 per cent of new car sales in Australia by 2030. If you own one now, or expect to, the practical question when buying an apartment isn’t whether the law permits a charger. It’s whether the building can physically carry one.
Here, the work is done, approved and metered. You plug in on the day you move in.
Come and see it
Inspections by appointment. One of us will show you through, and we’ll answer anything — including the things that aren’t on this page.
Or email directly: hello@spyglasshillbreakfastpoint.au
Or call: 02 9099 4489