Residents and business owners along the route of Sydney's $2.1 billion light rail line have recounted the heavy personal and financial toll the troubled project has had on their lives.
A state inquiry into the impact of the project heard on Wednesday from business owners who told of how disruption from construction of the line had forced them to close, left them close to ruin, split their families or on medication for depression.
Emanuel Tzirtzilakis, who has a cafe on Devonshire Street in Surry Hills, said he was “on the brink of financial ruin” and on the verge of checking into a psychiatric hospital.
Emanuel Tzirtzilakis told the inquiry he was “on the brink of financial ruin”. Credit: AAP
“My wife and I had a dream – it's gone. We are heavily indebted – banks won't give us money,” he said.
“I am border line checking into a psychiatric facility ... [because] it is so depressing. I am on every medication there is.”
The project has been dogged by repeated delays, legal battles and prolonged disruption to businesses and residents. The cost to taxpayers has blown out to $2.1 billion, and the government faces the risk of further increases following a $1.1 billion lawsuit against it by the Spanish subcontractor building the line from Circular Quay to Randwick and Kingsford.
The line rail line is not expected to be opened until March 2020, a year later than planned.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Greg Tannos, from Optical Illusions at Kensington, told the inquiry he was on medication due to the personal impact it has had on his business, and he cited a local mechanic who suffered severe depression and had been off “work for a long time”.
“I get depressed going to work all the time,” he said.
Amelia Birch, who operated the Book Kitchen cafe in Surry Hills with her husband for eight years before it closed last year, estimated they had lost $500,000 and said she would not wish the emotional and financial toll “on anybody”.
Amelia Birch estimated she and her husband had lost $500,000 as a results of the light rail. Credit: AAP
“The project put us in an incredibly difficult financial and emotional condition which left us no opportunity to recover any loss or damage. My husband and I have now separated, and it takes a toll not just financially ... but emotionally,” she said.
“My husband has suffered depression absolutely from this.”
The government has provided $12.2 million in financial assistance in the form of rent relief to 92 businesses along the route of the line since August last year.
Residents along parts of the 12-kilometre route also told the inquiry how noise, dust, strong lights and vibration from construction had turned their lives upside down.
In an at times emotional address to the inquiry, Doncaster Avenue resident Diana Argirellis said she was among a “group of forgotten residents” who would suffer from noise from the stabling yard for trams long after the construction was completed.
Diana Argirellis said she was one of a number of residents who would suffer from noise from the stabling yard for trams long after the construction was completed.Credit: AAP
“Our lives have been permanently changed. The noise will occur at all hours of the night,” she said.
Ms Argirellis said there had been “no escape” from the noise, dust and vibration from construction, which had forced her family out of their backyard and inside their home.
Their house had suffered cracks throughout from vibration from construction of the stabling yard for trams near Randwick Racecourse, and had yet to be fixed.
Her two young children were light sleepers and were woken at night by construction causing their home to shake and vibrate.
“We are not against the project. We just want to have ... the life we had prior to the commencement of the construction. We need our houses mitigated,” she said.
Kensington resident Andrew Jordan, who lives within 10 metres of the line, said the construction had disrupted “all levels” of his life and cited excessive sleep deprivation. “My life has become un-liveable. We have to put up with this 24 hours a day,” he said.
He claimed construction workers breached noise levels and alleged they had “openly threatened residents”.
“Their behaviour is consistent with, ‘we can do whatever we like’,” he said.
French rail supplier Alstom, whose 67-metre tram sets will run along the line, told the inquiry it expected testing and commissioning to start on the entire Randwick section in January, followed by a section through Surry Hills in the second quarter of next year.
However, it said there was a risk of a two-month delay to the section of the line through Kingsford due to civil construction work under way by subcontractor Acciona.
The line along George Street in the CBD will be the final section to be tested and commissioned, which Alstom expected to begin by the middle of 2019.
ALTRAC, the light rail consortium which Alstom is a 30 per cent shareholder in, has said it expects the entire line to be opened in March 2020, a year later than originally planned.