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Every time IT manager Patrick Quintal leaves work to travel home, he feels sick with dread that his apartment building may no longer be standing. Each night when he goes to sleep, he dreams about waking up buried beneath rubble.
One of his neighbours, Michael Jones, has worries about the safety of his wife and two small children almost constantly on his mind amid fears that their 10-storey development in south-west Sydney could prove the next disastrous Mascot Towers.
Michael and Jenna Jones and neighbour Patrick Quintal are worried about their Canterbury apartments.Credit: Nick Moir
“It could potentially be on the same level as Mascot Towers,” said Quintal, 29, comparing their troubled complex, Vicinity at Canterbury, to the sinking building that massive structural defects have rendered unliveable since 2019. “The number that’s been thrown around to repair our building is around $50 million.
“I can’t begin to express how emotionally damaging it is walking through the hallways of my complex, seeing the defective calcium-stained balustrade wall crumbling even further than the day before; seeing another notice on a door that a bank has foreclosed on someone; seeing a crack that seems to be just that much bigger than the day before. So many of us are reaching the end of our tethers.”
It has now been one year and nine months since a structural engineer hired by the owners warned that the tower, part of the 276-unit complex, was at risk of collapse, followed by emergency propping put into place and a series of building work rectification orders slapped on by the NSW building commissioner. The latest was on July 7 this year.
A hearing is due to take place at the Land and Environment Court on July 27 and 28 for NSW Fair Trading to enforce the orders against developer Toplace. There’s also a hearing at the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal on July 19 to extend the period of compulsory strata management.
But with the owner and founding director of Toplace, Jean Nassif, wanted in relation to a fraud investigation and being hunted by police overseas, the apartment owners are despairing of their homes ever being fixed.
“It is so stressful,” said Jones, 37, a communications professional who moved in six years ago when his wife was heavily pregnant and who now has two children, aged five and two. “It’s something you end up thinking about all the time. It really weighs you down.
“You can see all the problems around you, and the building looks far older than it should and is deteriorating faster than it should. It’s an absolute eyesore, but the more important thing is the concern for safety. We don’t want the building falling down on us. And the financial burden is huge, with the strata levies that are being charged to prop up and insure the building like a second mortgage. We’re seeing more people in the complex starting to take up second jobs as delivery drivers to help pay the extra costs coming in.”
So far, Fair Trading has forced Toplace to pay $40,000 for a part of the propping, the cost of which is currently up to $150,000 and has been paid by owners. Toplace was contacted for comment but did not respond.
Apartment owners in the Vicinity building are coming to the end of their tether.Credit: Janie Barrett
A government spokesperson said: “NSW Fair Trading continues to enforce the building work rectification orders that apply to the Vicinity building for a range of defects. It is engaged in enforcement proceedings against the developer.”
The former chair of apartment peak body, the Owners Corporation Network, Stephen Goddard, says Vicinity has all the hallmarks of the Mascot Towers disaster. “At this stage it looks as if it’s going to become the next Mascot Towers,” he said. “The building is now held up by props.
“How can the state of NSW take all that stamp duty from the buyers but then not back them up more forcefully? They need to give the building commissioner more powers to preserve the public interest and protect those owners and prevent Vicinity becoming even more of a disaster.”
At Vicinity’s compulsory strata managers, Bright & Duggan, group managing director and Strata Community Association Australasia president Chris Duggan says it’s at least encouraging that Toplace paid that $40,000.
“But it’s challenging as Toplace has now ceased to have a building licence so they’re having to outsource to other entities to do work,” he said. “On the other hand, the developer still exists and, despite the conjecture around the owner, it still is a business backed by a lot of assets and it’s within the warranty period so there is the opportunity for a fix, although it’s still a very long process.
“We are hopeful of a good outcome. I wouldn’t share the pessimism that it could be the next Mascot Towers at this stage.”
But Quintal is adamant that far more needs to be done, with owners disheartened by the lack of action on site, and being crippled by all the extra strata levies they’re having to pay. His own have skyrocketed from $900 a quarter to $4500 a quarter.
“We bought our unit in April 2021 planning to start a family, but our lives are practically on hold now,” he said. “Not only would starting a family be incredibly irresponsible due to the safety of the building itself, but it would be financial suicide.
“No one can do anything. You can’t sell as not a single bank in Australia will let a buyer take out a mortgage on it, and you can’t refinance, and God knows how much longer this will go on. In 640 days since that first report was made public, we have had no remediation work, no government assistance, only financial and emotional damage.”
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