Building authority acts on combustible cladding as Moreland tops count

The Victorian Building Authority has stepping in to take control over a range of buildings in Moreland after it topped the list of council areas in a recent audit with a shockingly high number.

A statewide audit has found Moreland is the state’s hot spot for combustible cladding.

Figures released from the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) audit showed Moreland had 145 buildings with the cladding.

Melbourne was the next highest council area with 64 buildings.

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Buildings audited were limited to those of at least three storeys, or two-storey hospital, school or aged-care buildings.

Sam Danby was issued a notice that dangerous cladding could be present in his Brunswick East apartment building late last year. He said apartment owners forked out a combined $6000 for a survey of the building and was now awaiting results.

The Anstey Square apartment building in Brunswick.

“It’s pretty savage that the homeowners get pinged for that stuff when they have done nothing wrong,” he said. “I wasn’t so stressed about the safety risk, I was more concerned about the financial cost.”

Moreland Mayor Natalie Abboud said the council had never approved a building with non-compliant cladding and blamed the high numbers on an increase in development and back-channel approval processes, such as VCAT. “This recent increase in development and the fact that cladding is often chosen in new developments may have contributed to the increase,” she said.

A fire within Brunswick’s Anstey Square building in March 2017 led to an emergency order to have cladding removed.

VBA spokeswoman Karen Lyon said the authority was the municipal building surveyor of 76 of the buildings in Moreland — which means it will oversee the cladding removal — and would write to affected owners’ corporations to begin the removal process.