Strata buildings in the Southlands catchment

Where the Southlands catchment reaches

A catchment is drawn around a school; a neighbourhood is drawn around everything else. This one covers one of Vancouver's local area.

• Dunbar-Southlands54

A catchment is not a verdict on the building

Every address above is inside the same elementary school boundary and that is the only thing they have in common. Two towers on one block can be a decade apart on their envelope, a hundred thousand dollars apart on their reserve fund, and one special levy apart on what the next two years cost an owner.

In Vancouver strata packages we routinely see: special levy history tied to envelope, roof, or balcony work in 1990s–2000s buildings; CRF balances that look healthy on paper but are below the contributions recommended by the most recent depreciation report; ongoing or recently resolved litigation between owners and council (read every Section 35 record); short-term-rental and pet bylaws that have changed materially in the last 3–5 years; and insurance deductibles for water damage that have crept up significantly since the 2020 commercial insurance hardening.

Looking a building up is free. Add its strata package — minutes, financials, depreciation report, Form B, bylaws — and the reserve fund, the levy history and the litigation come back as findings, each cited to the page it came from.

Building intelligence, in three parts

The building, the neighbourhood around it, and its own documents. The building is free and needs no account — its facts were already public.