MEDIA REPORTS since the cracking and evacuation of the Homebush OPAL Tower on Christmas Eve … followed by the major structural issues for Mascot Towers, the Erskineville and Zetland apartments have been targeting ‘Private Certifiers’.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed the ‘full weight of the law’ for any Opal Tower wrongdoing … that her government will  “hold everyone to account” …

AND when structural cracks emptied Homebush’s Opal Tower at Christmas time, then-minister Matt Kean blamed dodgy certifiers. “I’ll throw the book at you,” he said.

Read more …

https://caanhousinginequalitywithaussieslockedout.com/2019/07/26/sydneys-stupidest-building-boom-was-born-in-a-bonfire-of-regulation/

WHY is it that the NSW Government, the Premier, the Minister for Better Regulation (both current and former), and the media … are all overlooking which GROUP, which Body is really responsible for the decline in building standards … since 1998?

BECAUSE we believe we have found it in ‘black and white’ …!! 

IN this report:

2001: TOWERS OF TROUBLE

 ‘The NSW Government introduced a scheme that offered developers an option to almost completely privatise the process

-under the change these “private certifiers” would report directly to the developers who had contracted them to inspect the buildings‘

EXTRACT:

The Herald has learnt that private certifiers are used in up to 30 per cent of all new buildings in NSW. 

Significantly, the majority of those jobs are the bigger projects being undertaken by the larger developers.

** Patricia Gilchrist, the executive director of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, which lobbied for the change, said the new system was working well and had cut down on the lengthy delays of the old system.

(See below ** for the UDIA ABOUT)

“I know that sometimes people see it as something a little bit perhaps sinister, but it is really not the way we see private certifiers … [They are] a spur to better service,” she said.

*”Where councils held the monopoly, we felt we weren’t getting the service. It is particularly a timing issue, there were delays, and when developers have got borrowed money and when they have sold units, people are anxious to move in.”

*But Peter Woods, the president of the Local Government Association, which opposed the move, said he didn’t think the Government had thought the consequences through.

“Our view in local government is that it’s not just about maintaining bureaucratic control, it’s about representing people to protect their interests,” he said.

“One of those interests is to ensure quality control.

“We saw enough bad practice before private certification came in … what happens when we open the floodgates and say all we want is a signature on a piece of paper?”

Read more …

https://caanhousinginequalitywithaussieslockedout.com/2019/01/26/7609/

UDIA ABOUT …

** The UDIA is a federation of five state associations which aims to secure the economic success and future of the development industry in Australia. 

UDIA seeks to create awareness that national prosperity is dependent on our success in housing our communities and building and rebuilding cities for future generations.

Our members cover a wide range of specialist and industry fields, including: Developers, Valuers, Planners, Engineers, Architects, Marketers, Researchers, Project Managers, Surveyors, Landscape Architects, Community Consultants, Environmental Consultants, Lawyers, Sales and Marketing Professionals, Financial Institutions, State and Local Government Authorities, and Product Suppliers.

The change to certification came about in 1998.

*With Ms Gilchrist’s response: ”Where councils held the monopoly, we felt we weren’t getting the service. It is particularly a timing issue, there were delays, and when developers have got borrowed money and when they have sold units, people are anxious to move in.”

Perhaps the delay with Councils was exacerbated due to the huge growth of development created by developers marketing their ‘new homes’ to overseas buyers? A huge market particularly in China with 1.4 Billion People!

Related Article: Lessons from the cracks in Sydney’s Opal Tower go beyond building certification

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/art-architecture-design/lessons-cracks-sydneys-opal-tower-go-beyond-building-certification

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RELATED ARTICLE

OPAL TOWER PANIC

‘Huge pressure’: Developers cutting costs are root cause of defects

There were cases of big developments where the strata committees would not talk because of fear of harming unit values. In one case a shocking building report on a very “prestigious” inner west development was locked in a safe so that strata searches by prospective buyers could not access it.

A report by the UNSW City Futures Research Centre in 2012 found that 85 per cent of apartments built since 2000 have major defects; another report in 2015 found that the average cost of rectifying faults in new apartment buildings was 27 per cent of the original construction cost.

The most common – and most expensive problem – is faulty waterproofing where tiled areas have to be ripped up and replaced, often costing strata bodies millions of dollars and individual owners tens of thousands.

The Towers of Trouble series was nominated as a finalist for a prestigious Eureka Award but did not prevail. It turned out that two of the panel judges for that category represented an institution that was criticised in the report.

In those days industry bodies – not the government – accredited private certifiers. Conflict of interest was contagious.

Recently I used a private certifier myself to build a carport – something I thought I would never do. But the local council took months to approve the DA and when I asked how long it would take to issue a construction certificate they would not give me a time frame. This was for a carport!

So it’s pretty clear even to me why the government will not walk away from private certification. It would slow down development if left to councils.

 

Who or what is to blame for the building issues at the Opal Tower is yet to be established.

*But one of the features of the certification system – private or council – is that a certifier ticks off a particular trade if that contractor supplies what is called a “certificate of compliance” for their work – the certifier does not have to check the work themselves, just tick off the paperwork.

It is called “self certification” – trades are their own policemen. Only one of the plethora of such certificates required for a major project has to be dodgy for a building to have major problems down the track.

In October, the Minister for Better Regulation, Matt Kean, admitted for the first time for any NSW government that “it’s ridiculous that developers can choose their own certifiers” when releasing an options paper on how certifiers are appointed to projects.

Government-appointment by panel or a rotating list of certifiers so they are appointed randomly to developers is the obvious answer to the system’s inherent and sometimes corrupt conflict of interest but both sides of politics have resisted the obvious for two decades so don’t hold your breath. Developers have always had the government’s ear.

Harvey Grennan is a former Herald local government reporter.

 

SOURCE:  https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-s-dodgy-buildings-due-to-17-years-of-inaction-20181227-p50odo.html

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