Air Apartment residents enlist help of Batman and Robin in cladding fight

Residents of the Greenhill Road complex have been embroiled in a dispute over the cost of replacing flammable cladding.

A trailer featuring superheroes is outside Air Apartments, where residents are fighting the community corporation in court over $17m in cladding replacement work. Picture: Supplied

Superheroes Batman and Robin joined the fight to help residents of the luxurious Air Apartments facing astronomical costs to replace flammable cladding.

Apartment resident Sylvia Holzapfel said a trailer featuring the superheroes was to raise awareness of the financial stress facing some residents and the lack of help they’ve received.

Owners have been hit with cladding levies ranging from $90,000 to $450,000, depending on the size of their apartment, and must pay within 12 months.

Superhero’s Batman and Robin are joining the fight to help residents of the luxurious Air Apartments facing astronomical costs to replace flammable cladding.

Ms Holzapfel said residents were unable to get finance and had not received access to a state government loan scheme created to help cover the cost of cladding removal.

“This is about getting the state government loan that’s been promised (to residents) since the middle of last year and it’s nowhere to be seen,” Ms Holzapfel said.

“For some people their bill is half a million, for others it’s a quarter of a million.

“People are very distressed. We’re all in our late 60s, 70s and 80s and the people are getting sick from the stress, seriously sick.”

Air Apartments. Picture Mark Brake

A trailer parked outside of Air Apartments, with some residents fighting its community corporation in court over $17m of cladding replacement work. Picture: Supplied

Work has started to remove the cladding, despite a civil dispute launched by penthouse owners Lissi Whyte and Lance Vater whose company Kursace Air bought a penthouse in the Greenhill Rd complex for $3.9m in 2007, against the building’s community corporation.

Lissi Whyte outside of the Air Apartments. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The couple want the corporation’s $17m contract with construction company Duratec declared invalid as unnecessary and improperly authorised expenditure.

They have asked the District Court to order the corporation to handover the Duratec contract, receipts for all payments to Duratec and all quotes before the contract was signed.

In court documents, Kursace Air argued such expenditure was not required and had not been properly authorised by apartment owners.

A response, lodged by the apartment’s corporation, denied the contract process had been mishandled and said it should not be ruled invalid.

It also listed communications from the corporation to owners, and information that had been made available about the works at various times.

“The trailer is saying ‘this is about the contracts, this is about the bank receipts, this is about transparency’,” Ms Holzapfel said.

“The management committee won’t give the contracts up.”

A previous sign outside the Air Apartments. Picture: Mark Brake