OCN in the Media

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Falling Through the Cracks

2020-10-08T12:38:04+11:00

01 JUNE 2019 "The ancient Greeks believed opal came from the tears of Zeus.  When opal turns to tears again it will ... bring down Australia's booming high rise apartment business." - From the Opal Tower Sydney Residents Facebook page Three months after the initial evaculation of Opal Tower on Christmase Eve 2018, nearly half of the tower's apartments are still not fit for reoccupation and hundreds of people remain in [...]

Falling Through the Cracks2020-10-08T12:38:04+11:00

Tower Residents in Cry for Certainty

2020-10-08T12:39:13+11:00

01 JUNE 2019 Five months ago, Shady Eskander's short-term plans involved watching the New Year's Eve fireworks from his new apartment on the top floor of Opal Tower in Sydney's Olympic Park.  Longer term, he and wife Amy hoped to start a family. But plans were up-ended on Christmas Eve when major cracks found on the 10th floor of the $165 million skyscraper forced an emergency evacuation. Hundreds of residents remain [...]

Tower Residents in Cry for Certainty2020-10-08T12:39:13+11:00

Apartments can be great water savers – instead of wasters

2020-10-08T12:40:21+11:00

20 MAY 2019 Everyone’s talking about water again this week. Sydney Water has announced level one restrictions, high-security water pricing in the Murray region has reached around $175,000 for an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of the stuff and some towns in Barnaby Joyce’s New England electorate face the very real prospect of running out in the coming months. But these issues are literally a drop in the harbour compared to the [...]

Apartments can be great water savers – instead of wasters2020-10-08T12:40:21+11:00

Opal Tower Tenancy Chaos Leads to Calls for NSW Help

2020-10-08T12:43:29+11:00

17 APRIL 2019 Owners, tenants and industry lobby grops are calling for the NSW government to step up efforts to resolve tenancy chaos at Sydney's troubled Opal Tower. The government, which also owns more than 40 apartments in the tower, should take a bigger lead in clarifying tenancy issues both as a stakeholder and as a statutory body instead of relying on Fair Trading NSW and the NSW Civil & Administrative [...]

Opal Tower Tenancy Chaos Leads to Calls for NSW Help2020-10-08T12:43:29+11:00

32 Canberra construction sites shut down

2020-10-08T12:44:25+11:00

10 APRIL 2019 The ACT government has temporarily shut down 32 construction sites in the past three months, as part of a renewed crackdown on dodgy building work. Access Canberra's building regulators have also inspected 180 sites since the start of the year, as it attempts to shake a widely-held perception that it's failed to respond to the problems plaguing Canberra's construction sector. Release of the figures comes as the ACT [...]

32 Canberra construction sites shut down2020-10-08T12:44:25+11:00

Advocates accuse NSW government of failing to help apartment owners affected by flammable cladding

2020-10-08T12:45:16+11:00

12 MARCH 2019 Residents at high risk from potentially deadly flammable cladding are being denied information about what they should do to make their buildings safe, consumer advocates claim. Instead, say apartment residents, they are being threatened with huge fines for doing nothing, while owners in some blocks have been told it could cost more than $50,000 per unit to fix the problem. “This decision is bewildering,” says Phil Gall, the [...]

Advocates accuse NSW government of failing to help apartment owners affected by flammable cladding2020-10-08T12:45:16+11:00

What’s in the Lacrosse VCAT judgement for owners of defective apartments and policy makers?

2020-10-08T12:46:48+11:00

7 MARCH 2019 Despite the wailing of design consultants about the implications of the Lacrosse judgement and the Opal Tower engineering report, the importance of a viable Design and Construct constructor in these cases has proved critical to a way forward. The experiences and the processes that apartment owners have endured is unreasonable in a modern construction industry. It is evident that better design management skills, risk management and trustworthy performance [...]

What’s in the Lacrosse VCAT judgement for owners of defective apartments and policy makers?2020-10-08T12:46:48+11:00

Cladding and cracking towers prompt call for royal commission

2020-10-08T12:48:00+11:00

6 MARCH 2019 The Builders Collective of Australia, has called for a royal commission into the national industry in the wake of combustible cladding on residential towers and cracked concrete in Sydney's newly completed Opal Tower, citing failures within Australia’s residential construction sector.” Stephen Goddard, solicitor and spokesperson for owner advocacy group Owners Corporation Network of Australia, said he backed a royal commission but acknowledged new home buyers had been the [...]

Cladding and cracking towers prompt call for royal commission2020-10-08T12:48:00+11:00

Labor Promises Strata Commissioner to Tackle Defects

2020-10-06T22:30:45+11:00

6 MARCH 2019 A dedicated Strata Commissioner to protect apartment owners and residents and restore confidence in the strata sector will be introduced by the Labor Party, should it win office at the upcoming state election. “A commissioner solely focussed on strata is long overdue,” says Phil Gall, chair of OCN, which is running a seminar on cladding issues on March 16 in Sydney. “Fair Trading is overloaded with concerns that [...]

Labor Promises Strata Commissioner to Tackle Defects2020-10-06T22:30:45+11:00
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