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Services can be offered through the body corporate structure. The recipients of these services may be the community at large, or individuals within the community. It is the services that make up part of the “lifestyle” marketing advantages. Services may be as diverse as the services that are offered in the wider community. The only restrictions would be economic restrictions.
The business model for the services offered through the community management system is unique.
The services can be a “community service” offered to benefit the community. Each service does not have to be commercially viable, as if a private businessperson offered it. For instance, a community recreation facility, like a gym, may be established because it is deemed that the amenity to the community from having an on-site gym is higher than the cost of running the gym. The gym is available to residents of the community to use at no charge, because it is common property. The running costs for the gym will be met from the body corporate budget.
The body corporate can be used as a vehicle to aggregate latent demand. This can drive down the cost of the service delivered to the owners or to increase the quality of the service received by the owners. Please see the broadband example of this principle.
The body corporate can be used as a vehicle to aggregate services. For instance, it may not be commercially viable to offer a community home maintenance service for doing lawns and gardens in individual homes, because only a handful of residents may wish to use the service. However, if the service is offered in combination with the public open space maintenance service, the same staff may be used. This would produce savings for both the body corporate (because the staff are being fully occupied) and the users of the service. A second example would be offering a convenience store and coffee shop / meeting place, through the on-site manager’s office facilities. By piggybacking these services on the back of the facilities used by the on-site manager, the services can become economically viable.
