Mascot Towers: NSW Building Commissioner lashes ‘poorly built’ block

NSW Building Commissioner says Mascot Towers builder ‘couldn’t read plans’.

The evacuated Mascot Towers. Picture: AAP.

The man appointed to investigate misconduct in the NSW construction industry has branded Sydney’s Mascot Towers one of the most “poorly built” apartment blocks he has seen, and says the builder “shouldn’t really have been in the space doing it”.

Three days into his new job as NSW Building Commissioner, David Chandler delivered the ­assessment during a state parliamentary inquiry when asked “Who is to blame?” for what happened at the evacuated apartment block in the city’s south.

Mr Chandler told the upper house inquiry into regulation of industry standards yesterday he was “quite certain” the Mascot Towers builder did not know how to read plans because faults in the block indicated he “didn’t pay any attention to them”.

He also rated the engineering design of Mascot Towers “poor” and said construction drawings for the project were “perhaps” flawed as well.

The building commissioner based his assessment on a site inspection 24 hours earlier when he observed cracks in the block’s lower structure and other defects.

A deed signed with the former Botany Council says the building developer of Mascot Towers was a group of companies owned by members of the Sydney-based Elias family — Hanna, Sarkis and Bradley — whose firms have been involved in other city blocks.

Elias family members did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Chandler’s claims yesterday through their solicitor, Bill Kalantzis.

Giving evidence under privilege, Mr Chandler came under fire from inquiry panel MPs who challenged how he could promise a “sea-change” in the state’s troubled construction industry when he was appointed by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian but with no commission, no staff, no budget and no supporting law for the task.

He dismissed claims by the ­inquiry chairman, Greens MP David Shoebridge, and others, that he was “irrelevant”, “out on a limb” and “drowning”.

During frequent testy exchanges, Mr Chandler repeatedly declined to reveal at this stage a “work plan” he’d devised to eliminate “an unsustainable culture of risk aversability (sic) and ‘what’s in it for me?’ ”. While accepting a need for more licensing of professionals, he said tougher regulation was not the answer.

Criticising work performed more than a decade ago at Mascot Towers, where residents were evacuated in June, Mr Chandler said: “First of all, I think the engineering is poor. My personal observation of the engineering design is that it’s poor, and I’ve built a lot of buildings.

“When I walked across that job yesterday, I don’t think I’ve seen as many buildings as poorly built as that.

“I’m quite certain the builder didn’t know how to read any construction plans because the faults … in that building are simply someone who didn’t pay any ­attention to them. The control joints and cracking and stuff that’s in there, it’s fixable but it’s going to take a lot of work to fix.

“There’s a builder there … who shouldn’t really have been in the space doing it. They didn’t have the capability. They certainly didn’t know how to read a construction drawing. But perhaps the drawings … were flawed.”