The New South Wales state government is scrambling to ensure the “structural integrity” of several high-rise buildings in the Sydney Olympic Park precinct after cracks in Opal Tower forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.
The building fault, reported by residents who heard “cracking noises”, caused the 33-storey tower to move up to 2 millimetres and left doors jammed shut on Monday.
While most of the residents in the Australian tower were eventually allowed to return home on Monday night, occupants of 51 apartments were forced to spend Christmas Eve elsewhere and have not been allowed to return.
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts’ department will urgently investigate “what steps were taken to ensure the structural integrity of that building and other buildings at Olympic Park”, his spokesman said on Tuesday, Christmas Day.
“The Minister is very concerned about the situation with the Opal Tower. Obviously his first concern is the safety of the residents,” the spokesman said.
“He wants to assure the affected residents that this matter is being treated with extreme urgency.”
While the displaced residents face an uncertain future, attention has now turned to identifying who or what is responsible for the building failure.
According to the Department of Planning, its approval of the tower required a structural report to be submitted, to the satisfaction of a building certificate, prior to occupation. It will investigate “to confirm compliance with the approval conditions”.
Urban Taskforce chief executive Chris Johnson, a senior planning and development expert, described the cracks as “staggering”, given the structure is just four months old.
“It’s a bit bewildering to me that something like this could happen,” Johnson said.
“Buildings like that go through all sorts of checks and balances,” he said.
Johnson said unless there was a “fundamental error” in the structure, the problem could be due to instability underground.
“The only other option is that something underneath the building has changed. That could well create tensions through the structure itself.”
The Opal Tower building was approved by the Department of Planning as a state significant development in 2015, according to Roberts’ spokesman. The Planning Minister at the time was Rob Stokes.
The department would have had input from the now-defunct Auburn City Council, which has since merged into Parramatta City Council.
A council spokeswoman said the construction and occupation certificates had been issued by a private certifier, as opposed to a council certifier, who had inspected and monitored the tower.
“The private certifier has the original occupation certificate and all related structural, electrical, hydraulic certificates issued by engaged engineers.”
Shadow planning minister Tania Mihailuk said the government must “ensure that whoever is liable is held accountable”.
A spokesman for the developer, Ecove, said: “We are deeply sympathetic for the concern and anxiety of residents and owners and are actively following up the builder and the builder’s engineers to hopefully provide residents and owners with further information.”
The website spruiking the Opal Tower apartments promises “uncompromised quality”.
Ecove is the developer of four other residential towers in the Sydney Olympic Park precinct, as well as One30 Hyde Park in the CBD.
The building company, Icon Construction, and the structural engineers Bonacci Group were contacted for comment.
