3 JULY 2019
The Minister for Better Regulation has denied there are widespread problems in the city’s high-rise residential housing sector, saying “I don’t believe there is any great cause for alarm for other apartment buildings across Sydney”.
Announcing an emergency financial assistance package for residents of the beleaguered Mascot Towers block on Sunday, Minister Kevin Anderson said the NSW government would restore “confidence” with “the biggest shake-up of the construction industry that this state has ever seen”. He said this would start with the creation of a building commissioner to “look at accountability, transparency and the quality of buildings that will be going up in the future”.
However, a spokesman for the Owners Corporation Network, Stephen Goddard, said he did not share Mr Anderson’s sanguine view. He told the Herald that studies had indicated a high proportion of all new residential strata were prone to defects, mainly in the areas of water penetration, fire safety and flawed facades.
The Opal Tower, which was evacuated on Christmas Eve because of cracking in parts of the concrete structure, had been a “turning point” Mr Goddard said. “If Opal was a turning point, Mascot [Towers] must be a last straw, and that does not mean there are no more straws left,” he said.
> Read the full article at smh.com.au
Deborah Snow