Opal developer claims cracked tower’s units will not lose value
The man at the centre of the Opal Tower debacle admits he has a battle to regain the public’s trust in his crumbling building, but the developer believes apartments in the tower will still hold their value.
NSW
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The man at the centre of the Opal Tower debacle admits he has a battle to regain the public’s trust in his crumbling building.
But Bassam Aflak, director of Ecove, the building’s developer, believes apartments in the tower will still hold their value.
Mr Aflak has been on site since about 3pm Christmas Eve after a concrete panel on the building’s 10th floor cracked.
The building failure — which Mr Aflak described as an isolated case but which one resident said was “like a mini-earthquake “ — saw 300 people ordered out, back in, then eventually out of the 36-storey tower in Sydney Olympic Park.
Residents have been given no guarantee about when they can return.
Living in the adjacent building with his family, Mr Aflak said he was “stunned” that the prefabricated concrete panel had failed.
“It’s a high-quality building so we were all very surprised,” he said.
“We are deeply sorry for what happened. We have to regain everyone’s trust in the company and we are trying to do that by getting on top of this issue.”
Mr Aflak also expressed remorse about the way the situation was handled on Christmas Eve.
“Initially we had a lot of confusion because it was Christmas Eve and that meant it was difficult for people to resource the right teams,” he said.
“Unfortunately the situation spread out a lot worse and could have been contained.
“We could have also got out to the media earlier and given them updates.”
But Mr Aflak maintains the company’s troubles won’t return and “there’s no issue at all” with those wanting to buy into the building, despite the tower currently being surrounded by temporary wire fencing.
Mr Aflak said some residents wanted to leave immediately: “Not surprisingly, some tenants will want to break leases. At the moment we are focused on helping residents through the current issue.
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“The Department of Fair Trading met with Ecove and Icon yesterday and told us they were satisfied with our processes and communications with residents.
“The department has also put an Opal Tower fact sheet online.”
Opposition planning spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said the government should review all the planning steps that led to this situation.
Mr Aflak denied there was any issue with the planning system.
“The integrity of the planning system and the building codes are world class,” he said.
The building is one of four towers Ecove has developed in Western Sydney since 2009. It is also behind a 39-storey building under construction called Boomerang.
ENGINEERS FORCED TO TEAR OUT UNIT WALLS
As the last residents evacuated the 392-apartment Opal Tower yesterday, engineers moved in to begin a 10-day building inspection.
Over the coming days they will assess at least 230 prefabricated concrete panels used to make the 12 external atriums that are a feature of the Sydney Olympic Park building.
The sections are between four and ten floors high, made from a minimum of 16 panels, measuring 6m by 3m each.
The panel that cracked is located on the 10th-floor atrium of the building’s southern side.
The inspection is intended to ensure the fault is not duplicated in any of the other panels.
Complicating the task is that the panels need to be inspected from inside the apartments, forcing the engineers to remove internal plaster walls.
An engineer working on the repair job said yesterday that they will need to destroy parts of the apartments to check the building is safe.
“To really make sure it’s good, bad or indifferent you need to do destructive investigations on the inside of the apartments,” the engineer, who asked not to be named, said.
“That involves pulling off walls, moving bathrooms, kitchens or whatever to be able to get to the other side of that wall.
“If you look on the external side it is fine — the outside garden. We need to get into the apartments.”
So far, investigations have revealed the entry doors of three apartments are jammed by the cracking and another apartment had cracks in the walls.
Engineering company WSP said the building would not collapse.
“We estimate that this assessment may take 10 days,” a company spokesman said.
“The damaged section of the building on Level 10 has now been reinforced as a precautionary measure.”
About 300 residents have been put up in Novotel and Ibis Pullman hotels in Sydney Olympic Park and the Mantra Hotel Parramatta. Builder Icon is footing the bill.
Displaced residents who choose not to take the free accommodation are being given between $220-$500 a night, depending on the size of their apartment.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner costs are covered in the hotel, while those in serviced apartments will have meal costs reimbursed.
Those with pets have been encouraged to find alternative accommodation for their animals.
The engineer said: “We need free access to each area of the building. If we did not remove people from the building it would be an investigation that would take another three or four months.
“The deconstructive investigation will be looking at all the garden recesses. Cracked panels could only be in the locations that apply to the recesses.
“We have to go through methodically each of these atriums and actually peel the plaster back and make sure we don’t have other issues.”
Workers erected a wire fence outside the tower yesterday while engineers assessed the building.
The panels in question are reinforced concrete that were manufactured off-site and put into place by a crane. They have no relation to the overall structure of the building.
Originally published as Opal developer claims cracked tower’s units will not lose value
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