It sparked an emergency inspection by government engineers, including the state’s chief emergency engineer. While they found “no immediate safety risk” to residents, they recommended that monitoring focus on a so-called transfer structure, which shifts loads to other parts of the tower.
Apartment owner Corrie Ford said she was infuriated at the length of time it had taken to put the back-propping in, given the structural engineer had raised concerns about the building last year.
“In the background there seems to have been some acknowledgment that there might be a safety issue with the building and the back-propping has been put in place to ensure the safety of residents,” she said.
Bright & Duggan, which was appointed compulsory strata manager by a tribunal, said the owners’ corporation had decided to take a precautionary approach and install the temporary columns.
“We are not taking risks. We believe it is the developer’s responsibility. Toplace is ultimately the party that is responsible for the quality of the building,” managing director Chris Duggan said.
loading
“But we are not going to wait for them to do it. We will attempt to get the costs back for the temporary propping.”
The owners’ corporation will seek to recover the cost of the temporary columns as part of legal action it has under way against Toplace in the NSW Supreme Court over alleged defects in the building.
Toplace said an independent engineer, who had modeled the structural adequacy of the building, had not identified any need for immediate safety measures to be undertaken.
The developer said NSW Public Works Advisory, which inspected the building on August 1, could not identify cracks or other evidence that an engineer hired by the owners had observed.
Toplace said it had undertaken ground-penetrating radar scanning of columns a day later, and the independent engineers that it had hired concluded that allegations about the need for immediate safety works to secure the building were incorrect.
In April, the state’s building watchdog ordered To place to conduct rectification work after finding a serious defect in the construction of load-bearing walls in the building’s basement car park. At the time, it was the second order issued to place in three months to fix defects in the tower.
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