Condo Dwellers - Want to STOP bike thefts? | GTAMotorcycle.com

Condo Dwellers - Want to STOP bike thefts?

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I saw piece on the news that says most condo bylaws or the rules for condos only requires 15% of the owners to agree in order to change or impose a new bylaw.
It takes 51% to change the condo board members.

What if you sent a letter with some signatures with an idea for them to convert 1 parking spot into a "room" with a secured door and camera inside the room.
Park the bikes in the room (secure your bike with loops on the wall/floor) therefore it is harder to steal, place a key fob on the door and alarm so if someone tries to break in, alarm is triggered to security also. Keyfob entry tells us who entered the room and when.
Camera inside the room allows bikers to see if another biker damages a bike and if a theft occurs, aid to see the face of the thief.

The bikers using the room can pay $20/mth for storage fees. Since most places do not allow 2 vehicles in 1 space, this is cheaper than renting 2 parking spots also.

I suggest you get a simple letter from the insurance company and police if possible that advises the board this is a good idea to prevent theft and deter crime and their cooperation would help in the manner.

Position it as keeping the building and residence safer from crime that we must do something as doing nothing equals promotes crime.

Just an idea...maybe draft a group form letter here for others to use.
 
How many bikes could you get into one parking spot closed off by walls on all sides, that aren't encroaching on the other parking spots?
 
Baggsy said:
How many bikes could you get into one parking spot closed off by walls on all sides, that aren't encroaching on the other parking spots?
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How would I know, that depends on the building.

I think 2 parking spots close to a dead area of "unusable parking space for cars" can hold 8 bikes 4 on each side parked like the way you would park on the street, wheel back nose facing the street.
 
Not many. You would have to use at least 2-3 spots. Pillar to pillar. Also the only way to do this without increasing every tenants condo fees is if the reserve fund (if tenants agree to it) is running a healthy surplus (doubtful).

Not to mention you are now losing 10k (prob more now due to current market prices) a spot in sales. $20/month would never fly. Last time i rented a condo parking spot i was paying $120/month (2013)

I'm not saying this is impossible, you are just going to need more than 15%

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Cool idea, but as others have said, the financials are bleak. If you were doing a single spot, I doubt you could fit more than two bikes in. Parking spots are in the ballpark of $20,000+ each (and unless this happened on a new build, where are you going to steal spots from?) and then constructing walls/door/cameras/keyfob entry isn't cheap (and do you think the 95% of condo residents without bikes would want to pay to build this room?).

My guess is if you could get the spots (which I still think is the biggest obstacle), riders would be in for ~$150-200 a month each to try to pay off the expense of building this room. Again, this is another situation where insurance is cheaper and better (who's to say that one of the bike owners doesn't clean out the room? There are tons of bike thefts on camera but very few recovered bikes).
 
GreyGhost said:
Cool idea, but as others have said, the financials are bleak. If you were doing a single spot, I doubt you could fit more than two bikes in. Parking spots are in the ballpark of $20,000+ each (and unless this happened on a new build, where are you going to steal spots from?) and then constructing walls/door/cameras/keyfob entry isn't cheap (and do you think the 95% of condo residents without bikes would want to pay to build this room?).

My guess is if you could get the spots (which I still think is the biggest obstacle), riders would be in for ~$150-200 a month each to try to pay off the expense of building this room. Again, this is another situation where insurance is cheaper and better (who's to say that one of the bike owners doesn't clean out the room? There are tons of bike thefts on camera but very few recovered bikes).
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Agreed, and $20k is pretty much the minimum you would find anywhere around the GTA for a parking spot. When I was shopping around for condos, areas north of the city (last year) were ~25k in Richmond Hill and ~40k in North York.

Not only would they have to sacrifice the tens of thousands of dollars for the spot, but building it and maintaining it to accommodate 2-3 bikes? 100k worth of parking spaces to accommodate 10-15 bikes?

51% of residents is a long shot to care for bike owners that make up 4% of our road's population, not to mention many people don't like motorcyclists with the stereotype that motorcyclists are reckless and ride like idiots.

It's simply bad business for the guys up top if it's a pre-constructed condo.

It's wishful thinking that the general public actually cares about motorcycles/motorcyclists. The general public doesn't even realize that motorcycle theft is actually an issue.
 
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Sorry, just trying to point out the potential weak spots, so that you can beef up the proposal. One space sounded very small. You could probably get six bikes into 2 1/2 spots, but a good scale diagram would show if that's true or not. Another issue would be with security. In most cases, security is there to settle down normal non aggressive people. Outside criminals is kind of beyond their job description. Like my little brother said when his supervisor asked him what he'd do if the place he was "guarding" was robbed. His response was "Ask if they needed help carrying out the loot?" So that aspect might also need some work.
 
I'd agree with Grey in that you'd be looking in the $200/month+ range for an enclose room on CCTV to store your bike in. I'd much rather just pay for insurance, save the $2400/year, and when/if you bike ever gets stolen/vandalized, you'll have tens of thousands of dollars saved to fix it after your insurance payout.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but there are not a lot of bikes worth paying $2400/year to store. For example, *your* $4000 2014 Ninja 300 isn't worth pay to store as in a two years you would have spent enough money on storage to buy a new one, and there is no way your are loosing a bike every 2 years, so even that's being generous.
 
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for the love of God ppl
each person would pay $25+ per bike space max 8 spaces...most buildings do not have more than 8 bikes at a time, first come first serve
$25 x 8 = $200, oh look spots paid for.
They ALREADY have CCTV they would be adding 1 more camera to the system.

You are missing the point. DO SOMETHING! Crime is bad for ALL in the building.
You tell the people that we need to do something to prevent crime (ppl are on board with that).
Their property value goes down with crime statistics showing their building as unsafe vs. a modest investment and better image.
They have bicycle lockers...hmmm how did that ever happen.

I bet if 3 cat ladies said they needed a spot for their cats to exercise they would get a spot.

OR

keep doing the same thing and bitching when your bikes keep getting stolen and your insurance rates keep going up
up to you, easier to do nothing, it's natural human response.
 
-D- said:
for the love of God ppl
each person would pay $25+ per bike space max 8 spaces...most buildings do not have more than 8 bikes at a time, first come first serve
$25 x 8 = $200, oh look spots paid for.
They ALREADY have CCTV they would be adding 1 more camera to the system.

You are missing the point. DO SOMETHING! Crime is bad for ALL in the building.
You tell the people that we need to do something to prevent crime (ppl are on board with that).
Their property value goes down with crime statistics showing their building as unsafe vs. a modest investment and better image.
They have bicycle lockers...hmmm how did that ever happen.

I bet if 3 cat ladies said they needed a spot for their cats to exercise they would get a spot.

OR

keep doing the same thing and bitching when your bikes keep getting stolen and your insurance rates keep going up
up to you, easier to do nothing, it's natural human response.
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Not sure that you're really getting that ~$200/month is what people rent their (1) spot for a bit of side-income, it's not the value of the spot.

That is not including the construction of the room + maintenance of it. Who would pay the construction of it? The wiring for the cctv, wiring for the fob/lock system, a decent door (remember it has to be a secure door).

Those 8 people definitely won't cover the costs unless they're paying ~$200/mo each.

It's great that you're trying to find a way to "fix" condo bike thefts, but in the end, money talks and there are other (cheaper) alternatives.



People are having a hard enough time understanding that throwing large cardboard boxes down the garbage chute causing blockages and leaving garbage in the chute room stinking up the room/floor (that they live on) at my condo. Maintenance will eventually go up due to the amount of time people are called in to clear the blockage, but they don't care.
 
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8 bikes in a single spot seems pretty unrealistic... Do you want people moving your bike to get theirs out? Unless I'm not understanding what you're getting at...
 
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I don't get why condo buildings don't simply have individual locked garages assigned to each unit.
 
Brian P said:
I don't get why condo buildings don't simply have individual locked garages assigned to each unit.
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I know of a few that have this, but they are in the minority. Even those ones have most of the vehicles in gen pop, they just have a few private garages within the public garage. The gen pop vehicles have bentleys, rolls, astons etc among their ranks, I don't know what is in the private garages.

I think the biggest problem is space. Currently two cars can swing their doors open into the common space between, adding walls probably requires at least an additional metre of width for every parking spot.
 
48Connor said:
8 bikes in a single spot seems pretty unrealistic... Do you want people moving your bike to get theirs out? Unless I'm not understanding what you're getting at...
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uhm you did not read what I posted on how to arrange the bikes
 
PLau said:
Not sure that you're really getting that ~$200/month is what people rent their (1) spot for a bit of side-income, it's not the value of the spot.

That is not including the construction of the room + maintenance of it. Who would pay the construction of it? The wiring for the cctv, wiring for the fob/lock system, a decent door (remember it has to be a secure door).

Those 8 people definitely won't cover the costs unless they're paying ~$200/mo each.

It's great that you're trying to find a way to "fix" condo bike thefts, but in the end, money talks and there are other (cheaper) alternatives.



People are having a hard enough time understanding that throwing large cardboard boxes down the garbage chute causing blockages and leaving garbage in the chute room stinking up the room/floor (that they live on) at my condo. Maintenance will eventually go up due to the amount of time people are called in to clear the blockage, but they don't care.
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No, they know what they are doing, they are being LAZY.

Have your building posts notices they will charge $100 per offense. They can check the cameras to see who is doing it.

As per my idea, like I said, a cat lady can get stuff done...pretty sure some bikers can too.
It's not about the $$$ it's about reducing crime and safety...focus on that...you know like how the cops have ppl thinking speed kills..think of the children my good man.
Crime is bad, we must act to reduce crime,we demand safe building. See how that message resonates and you do not even know what I am asking for...lol.
 
Brian P said:
I don't get why condo buildings don't simply have individual locked garages assigned to each unit.
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cost more to put the doors in...maintenance...fire hazards ???
they don't want ppl running meth labs or sex trades:D
 
Do what Halton Regional Police do.

Park an EMPTY marked police car near the entrance of the parking garage.
That might deter theft... At least until they figure out its an empty decoy car.
 
How secure are these condo parking garages anyway?

Not very by the sounds of it..
 
Hack said:
How secure are these condo parking garages anyway?

Not very by the sounds of it..
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There are 2 scenarios.

scenario 1

you drive in to door area and press a button or use a key fob to open the door
door opens and in you go, door stays up for a minute and someone can follow in behind
the thieves go and steal the bike then wait for someone to exit/leave the garage then follow them out

scenario 2

guard entry area
you drive up to front area with a guard house and tell them what unit you are there to see or follow in when guards not looking
go to door and follow someone in...the residents have a 2nd gate or door to enter after the main garage door...this is for the owners parking area (not visitors)
again, the van follows through to the owners area
then they simply do the same to reverse and exit

there is no real solution to stop people following cars in unless you create a holding space for 1 car at a time which is not practical (rush hour periods)

hence why I thought of locking up the bikes much like they created rooms for securing bicycles..they at the least have bicycle lock areas/walls
doing nothing will result in constant theft

I seriously doubt thieves will try to break into the bike room with an alarm going off and security checking the cameras or coming in person to the alarm.
They can then see who is in the bike room via camera...if looks crooked then call the police and keep the garage door from opening.

I wonder if you get a letter from the police and insurance company agreeing that this is a good solution to alleviate crime and therefore encourage the buildings to implement.
Now if building says no...can they be on the hook for being unreasonable/negligent care??? They will pay your deductible or entire bike. Someone would have to check with a lawyer.
 
Its not as easy as you think, the condo has to spend more money on building permit to add the room, then more cost on drawings and plans, and more room costs more money, also in addition money for the construction, it will cost them hundreds of thousands probably. That could be why condos don't bother dealing with theft of motorcycles, they all rely on your insurance company for your loss...
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