Opal Tower: How off the plan will now be off the table
Sydney’s off the plan apartment sector was already facing the headwinds of oversupply and a credit crunch, but now there’ll be understandable hesitation before buyers sign up to buy after the Opal Towers nightmare, writes Jonathan Chancellor.
- Interim report finds tower still needs ‘significant rectification works’
- Former Premier John Fahey demands Opal Tower answers
Property markets don’t like uncertainty.
And the interim report on the cracking issues affecting apartments in Sydney’s Opal Tower failed to help.
It let down not just the frustrated owner occupiers and tenants, but Sydney’s entire new build apartment industry.
The investigation ruled out extreme weather, poor quality materials and those initial suggestions it had something to do with the foundations.
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It instead pointed to the hob beams and the precast concrete panels that rest on them.
Every anxious off-the-plan buyer henceforth will be asking questions about hob beams, a hitherto unknown building term to the masses.
The report of the independent engineers isolated the probable cause to localised structural design in the complex proud of its innovative garden design incorporated within the high-rise floors.
The high-rise was called “unique” given this design.
The shocks of the Christmas Eve cracking will continue for years beyond the dramatic evacuation, possibly until the blame and liability is finally sheeted home.
There will be an immediate drag on the sales in other newly built apartment blocks.
Buyers will understandably be very nervous.
The lay person, and potential buyer, will wonder just how could an impressive-looking high-rise that had satisfied many planning authorities, including the Sydney Olympic Park Authority, Auburn Council, the NSW Department of Planning, and the Building Code of Australia, have such a structural problem more akin to the third world than Sydney.
The off the plan apartment sector was already facing the headwinds of oversupply along with dampened valuations and a credit crunch, but now there will be understandable hesitation before buyers sign up to purchase.
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