A temporary engineering evaluation released earlier showed that the concrete panels were broken due to deviations from the original design in the manufacturing and assembly of the concrete panels. Although the building is structurally stable and there is no danger of collapse, repairing the failure will be expensive, slow and cause damage to residents.
The size of the tower, its useful life (less than six months), and the timing of the cracks may make it particularly newsworthy, but poorly constructed apartment buildings are by no means uncommon. At present, many buildings in Australian cities have serious leaks, cracks and fire safety defects.
Therefore, we cannot just solve the errors in individual development. We need to determine how to plan and implement the systemic flaws of the “compact city” policy.
Anthill under the flood dike
The consequences of these deficiencies increasingly affect us all.
As the population of Australian capital cities grows, more and more of us live in apartments. For decades, governments have been promoting housing density to replace expansion. However, they do not always ensure that the density, including construction quality, is done well.
After the consequences of the opal tower legend, experts pointed out many reasons for construction defects.
This includes the fact that once the developer sells the apartment, the developer hardly owes the buyer any legal obligation, which limits the risk if they get things wrong. There is also huge market pressure to build quickly and cheaply, especially during boom times. Moreover, there are still some gaps in the way of supervising the construction process, which means that errors will not be noticed.
These are not new discoveries, but it has proven challenging to develop regulations to address these issues. New South Wales’s new defect guarantee is a good example, requiring developers to set aside 2% of the building’s value to repair defects. The launch of the bond has been delayed for several years, and it will take several years to know whether it is effective.
Solve the problem
So how serious is the situation?
The project only regarded construction defects as one of the many problems faced by apartment owners, so it did not document the problem in detail.
Our new research project will study the prevalence of building defects, why they occur, and how to improve housing named after the layered structure.
Although the research will focus on Sydney, we hope this is a step towards changing planning and development policies to ensure higher quality apartment buildings nationwide.
Increased inequality
A system that allows defective apartment buildings not only brings huge financial and emotional pressure to residents, but also brings greater economic and social risks.
Poor construction practices have undermined confidence in the multi-billion-dollar construction industry, strata management industry, and planning system.
They can also increase inequality. This is because apartment residents are more likely to be younger, have lower rents, have lower incomes and have a non-English speaking background.
People are increasingly worried about the widening of the gap between housing “own” and “not having”, and people have a new political interest in housing policy. Of course, this is a key issue that the government needs to solve, but it is not limited to housing supply and prices. Treatment quality must also be a priority.
At the same time, we also need to take a step back and reconsider how we can conduct compact urban planning more broadly-including the role of government and the private market. Now that two-thirds of us have the largest city as our home, we need to have a serious open dialogue to discuss the city we want and how to best achieve these goals.
We cannot ignore the growing evidence that our cities are under pressure. Because like the owner of the opal tower, when things go wrong, all of us bear the cost, and all of us must live in the wreckage.
