Opal Tower residents forced out again as investigations begin into what happened
Hundreds of residents from the defective Opal Tower are being made to move out of the building again to enable “comprehensive investigations” into the cracked pre-cast panel. The builder cannot guarantee the residents will be allowed back in 10 days.
NSW
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Hundreds of residents from the defective Opal Tower are being made to move out of the building again to enable “comprehensive investigations” into the cracked pre-cast panel.
In a statement released this afternoon, the Tower’s builder Icon said all residents were being “being progressively relocated” over the next 24 hours to enable “comprehensive investigations to continue into the cracking of a pre-cast panel that occurred on Christmas Eve”.
They could be locked out of their units for at least 10 days. They will be given hotel rooms to reside as the investigations continue.
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It’s understood residents received an email 10 minutes before the meeting was called, leaving many unable to attend due to work commitments.
They have until 5pm on Friday to vacate.
Julian Doyle, state director of Opal’s builder Icon, said all residents needed to leave so the engineers could access all parts of the building.
“(Residents) need to leave now so we can investigate all parts of the building unobstructed, as quickly as possible,” he said.
“For us, (it’s about) getting the answer and determining what we need to do to not replicate what happened on level 10 and implement that as quickly as possible.
“The issue is expediency because, if we leave the residents in place, we’ll still be trying to get access to various areas of the building for the next three months.”
Mr Doyle added: “I can’t guarantee that the residents will be back in 10 days.”
WSP Australia and New Zealand chief executive Guy Templeton, the boss of the engineering firm, said specialised engineers needed access to determine the cause of the fault on level 10.
“The failure that occurred on level 10 is being investigated, that requires access into parts of the building because clearly it’s paramount that the structure is fully sound, which it is, I’m very comfortable standing here right below the building,” he said.
“But we need to be able to get access, there’s specialist engineers who will work right through the building and check out all the similar structures on all the floors. To do that, some panels may need to be removed, there may need to be concrete testing and in that situation there is people coming in and out of the building with equipment and that requires full access.”
Mr Templeton said they did not know what caused the cracking.
“The failure on level 10, it’s unknown as to the reasoning of the failure at the moment, that’s what the investigation is about,” he said.
Mr Templeton denied the building could collapse.
“The overall integrity of the building is sound,” he said.
An angry resident interjected the company’s press conference demanding answers.
“We have valuables in our apartments, we were asked to move all our valuables — it’s impossible,” she said.
“Ten days is just an estimation — so how long should we wait for a final result and can we have some fair treatment?”
Kabo Matlho who was one of the 51 residents affected has described his shock and horror at the handling of his apartment.
“I came back to my apartment quickly on Christmas Day and it looked like a war zone … my bed was taken,” Mr Matlho said.
“Now we have to stay at a hotel and the meeting today was poorly communicated because some people like me were at work.”
He said he first heard a loud bang just after 2pm on Christmas Eve before another one followed five minutes later.
“All I could think was I hope this building doesn’t fall,” Mr Matlho said.
“I couldn’t get back in for the rest of the day after we were evacuated and I had to arrange for a hotel in the city.”
Many residents were angry about the meeting that was organised today, with many not told about it at all.
Becca Delgerdalai lives on level 4 with her husband and young daughter.
She told The Daily Telegraph: “We were told at 2pm and the meeting was at 2.45pm but I was at the beach and came and found this all happening.”
“I have to leave by tomorrow 5pm and a hotel will be arranged and paid for.”
For Min, who owns a unit on level 31 with his parents, he hopes everything will be solved quickly.
“I trust they will do the right thing … I hope they do the right thing because I’m a lawyer and I don’t want to have to consider any legal options for this,” Min said.
“Now I have to also look at my options because I bought this place as an investment … not sure how that will work or anymore.”
* Additional reporting Derrick Krusche
INVESTIGATION
Two specialist investigators have been appointed by the NSW government to lead an inquiry into what went wrong at Opal Tower.
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts announced professors Mark Hoffman, the Dean of Engineering at the University of NSW, and John Carter, the Dean of Engineering at the University of Newcastle, had agreed to offer their expertise.
A spokesman for Mr Roberts said they would specifically look into the “basis of the failure” and the “immediate steps that need to occur to ensure the safety of this building and its occupants”.
They will also make recommendations to avoid similar incidents in the future.
Mr Roberts said the report would be made public when completed.
“I’ve been in contact with the developer and the builder in the last 24 hours and have stressed to them my expectation that these residents are looked after,” he said.
“I’d also like to place on record my sincere thanks and congratulations to emergency service workers and the engineers from the Department of Public Works who attended the site over Christmas, their hard work and self-sacrifice during this holiday season is a credit to the State.”
Better Regulation Minister Matt Kean said renters could get support through Fair Trading NSW.
“My Office has been in regular contact with Fair Trading and its experienced staff are standing by to provide advice to tenants,” Mr Kean said.
“Renters might not know that they don’t need to give notice to leave a property should their property be damaged and wholly or partly uninhabitable.
“If the investigation shows that to be the case, Fair Trading can talk through the issues and even contact a tenant’s agent or landlord, if disputes can’t be resolved.”
It comes as the developer behind a defective Sydney high-rise has lashed out over suggestions the damage is part of a “broader pattern in the industry” claiming the building is “high quality”.
In a statement released this morning, Ecove director Bassam Aflak said the Opal Tower building was “above industry standard” and that any suggestion it was part of a broader pattern of shonky works was “completely wrong”.
“It’s a high-quality building. The city’s “development boom” has not led to cutting of corners. There has been no cutting of corners,” Mr Aflak said in a written statement.
“Our focus is ensuring the Opal Tower residents are getting all the care and support possible. Part of that is getting them accurate information as soon as we can and reconfirming that the building is safe.
“Ecove’s approach to the issue is to be as transparent as possible, within the limits of expected business confidentiality. We’re pushing as hard as everyone else for information on what’s happened.”
He said the builder and authorities were working “flat-out” to get to the root of the problem.
“It’s too early to leap to any conclusions, for instance, to speculate on wider building issues because of what appears to be one failed panel,” he said.
“Importantly, the authorities have deemed the building safe. Because of high Australian standards, buildings like this are engineered to have many built-in safety redundancies.”
Mr Aflak said the Sydney Olympic Park Authority — a state government agency who signed a development agreement with Ecove- had required that the building be of high quality.
“While this incident suggests otherwise, the contract with Icon specified that the building be of high quality Australian design and construction,” Mr Aflak said.
“This project has enabled the delivery of more than $30m of infrastructure to improve the Sydney Olympic Park community including parklands, a water quality control system that cleans the storm water run-off, wheelchair accessible pathways to Bicentennial Park, a footbridge and underpass beneath the rail-line and the inclusion of affordable housing,” he said.
A blame game erupted over building with the state government distancing itself from the damaged building despite having signed an agreement with the developer.
Three days after the dramatic Christmas Eve evacuation of Sydney Olympic Park’s Opal Tower, the residents of 51 units are still locked out of the building yet no one will explain the near-disaster.
The Daily Telegraph has been told the problem lies with a single 6m x 3m concrete panel on the 10th floor which has cracked, sparking concerns about its strength as a supporting wall for units.
The “load bearing panel” is attached to two reinforced concrete columns which connect to 51 apartments — which are yet to be declared safe — on floors 1-36.
Load bearing panels are parts of the internal wall that bears the weight of the panels above and below it and are a “structural element of the building”.
The panel was made offsite by Evolution Precast. A person hung up when the Telegraph called the company.
Yesterday Mr Aflak blamed the problems on the tower’s builder Icon, while also complaining about the media coverage of the event and spruiking the building’s “high-end finishes” and “marble foyers”.
“We’re waiting on further information from the engineers, but we understand the issue is with a concrete panel. Importantly, the authorities have deemed it safe for people to re-enter and they have isolated the issue to a small number of apartments,” Mr Aflak said in a written statement.
“The media has understandably investigated this as a sensational story but it’s happened over the Christmas break when there is a scarcity of people who can comment with authority.”
He said Icon “had full liability” on the design and construction of Opal Tower.
“We, like the residents, are anxious that the builder defines the problem and resolves it as soon as possible.”
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts is yet to shed any light on the debacle, despite the fact his department approved the development application for the building.
“I will not speculate on the cause of the problem, but once the investigation by the Department of Planning is complete, I will make it public,” Mr Roberts said.
“I have ordered my Department to comprehensively investigate and report to me all steps taken to ensure this building’s structural integrity. The investigation into compliance with conditions of approval for this building has already begun.”
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The Telegraph has learned the Sydney Olympic Park Authority — a state government agency — signed a “development agreement” with Ecove in 2014 over the site.
A spokesman yesterday refused to comment — despite the tower being listed on its website under the “current projects” page.
The Department of Planning also claimed that certifying the structural integrity of buildings was a role for building certifiers not department planners.
“The Department’s investigation is focusing on whether the construction of the Opal Tower complies with the requirements of its conditions of approval and the Building Code of Australia,” the spokesman said.
Property expert Louis Christopher, founder of SQM Research, said hundreds of thousands of dollars could be knocked off the value of the apartments. He said there had been concerns in the industry about the quality of some apartment towers built during the boom.
“There are many good builds out there, and then on the other end of the spectrum you have this kind of nightmare,” Mr Christopher said.
“I suspect this will not be the only one which is discovered in Sydney”
Opposition planning spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said she was concerned details were still not available.
THE KEY PLAYERS
THE DEVELOPER: ECOVE GROUP
Described on its website as having a “long and successful history in the development of large scale projects” including Opal Tower, the nearby Australia Towers and Boomerang Tower, also in Sydney Olympic Park. Director Bassam Aflak yesterday said that builder Icon had “full liability on the design and construction of Opal Tower”.
THE BUILDER: ICON
Has residential projects in Macquarie Park, Mascot and Ultimo as well as Opal Tower in Sydney Olympic Park. A spokeswoman yesterday said: “It’s not that the apartments are unsafe, they are being assessed to ensure that they are safe.”
EVOLUTION PRECAST SYSTEMS
Construction group that made the cracked panel at the centre of the Opal Tower incident.
The Rooty Hill-based company says its mission is to “establish a first-class precast facility”. Refused to comment yesterday.
SYDNEY OLYMPIC PARK AUTHORITY (SOPA)
— Responsible for the management of buildings and landscape assets in the Park
— Oversaw the development application and planning approval needed to get Opal Tower off the ground. Has no financial stake in the project.
PLANNING MINISTER ROB STOKES
Was planning minister when Opal Tower development was approved
— As the planning minister, Mr Stokes overhauled the state’s planning laws in January 2017, announcing that major developments would be given faster approvals in a bid to boost housing supply. The changes also meant councils would determine fewer development applications.
DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING
— The NSW government agency spearheaded by Planning Minister Anthony Roberts plays an important role determining major economic and social infrastructure projects
— Will urgently investigate whether the construction of the Opal Tower complied with the requirements of its conditions of approval. However, a spokesman confirmed a structural report was submitted “to the satisfaction of a building certifier prior to occupation”.
Originally published as Opal Tower residents forced out again as investigations begin into what happened
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