House Rules for new projects
Every strata development runs on a set of by-laws. Somebody has to write them, and on a new project that is a document of sixty-odd pages that has to hold up in front of owners, a developer and a tribunal.
A House Rules document is the rulebook a building is run by. It sits under the Strata Management Act and turns it into something a resident can actually follow: what a parcel may be used for, how somebody moves in, what happens when a unit is renovated, who pays for what and by when, and what the management may do when none of that is observed. Get it right and most disputes are settled by pointing at a clause. Get it wrong and there is nothing to point at.
What goes into one
It is not a page of do's and don'ts. A completed set runs to sixty-odd pages and works through the whole life of the building: definitions and interpretations, the application of by-laws and additional by-laws, occupancy and permitted use, moving in and moving out with deposits and operating hours, letting a parcel out, registration of residents and access cards, renovation and alteration, refuse disposal, car parking and vehicle access, fire safety and emergency procedures, maintenance and repairs, the maintenance fund and credit control, and the management's rights when a rule is broken.
Then every facility, one at a time
The longest part is usually the facilities. Each one needs its own rules, because each one fails differently: the multipurpose hall and court, the pool and the kids' pool, the playground, the gymnasium, the jogging track, the BBQ area, the sauna and steam rooms, the surau, the library, the yoga deck, the sundeck and sky deck, the reflexology area, and the assembly point. Booking, hours, supervision of children, guests, liability, and who cleans up afterwards.
Nexus Taman Pertama, Kajang 2 Parkland Residence and Laman Segar Hijau are all complete.
The three sets
Residensi Neksus Taman Pertama, developed by MKH Development Berhad, beside the MRT station on Jalan Cheras in Kuala Lumpur. A complete set of by-laws and additional by-laws.
Kajang 2 Parkland Residence, developed by Parkland. Written alongside the vacant possession handover.
Laman Segar Hijau, developed by Lim Seong Hai. A complete set, finished alongside the landscape Bill of Quantities for the same development.
Bills of Quantities
The same job produces the other documents a new site needs before it can spend money properly. A Bill of Quantities breaks a works package into priced, itemised lines so that every tender is quoting the same thing. The landscape BQ for Laman Segar Hijau runs across the ground floor, two lower ground levels, Level 6 and the facade creepers, split by tower and by zone, with the preliminaries, the planting medium and the mulch priced separately, and every plant, shrub and pot listed by species, specification, size and count.
That level of detail is the point. A contractor cannot quietly substitute a smaller specimen or a cheaper pot when the line already says what it is, and the management committee can see exactly what it is paying for.
Why it sits under business development
These documents are written before there is an operating building to write them about. They come out of the same stage as tender assessment, management proposals, budgets and operational forms: the work of getting a development ready to be handed over and run, rather than the work of running it.