Cracks see Frasers Property Clemton Park Village caught up in widening apartment building defect calamity
Cracking in the carpark basement at Clemton Park Village has placed Frasers Property amid Sydney's widening building defects calamity.
The Campsie complex joins the Elias Brothers-built Mascot Towers and Ecove's Opal Towers as apartment complexes showcasing building cracking defects.
No evacuations have been required at Clemton Park Village, which was completed just three years ago.
Unlike the earlier two, Clemson Park Village is a low-rise project which was commended in the 2017 Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) excellence awards.
It won the Urban Taskforce Australia’s Mixed Uses Development Award at the Development Excellence Awards 2017, presented by the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts.
The builder, Parkview is currently working with Frasers and the occupants, residential and commercial on a "remediation plan."
The remediation works would be at "no cost" to the owners, although residents dread that they will incur a lost value cost following the complex's reputational damage.
Parkview promotes itself as a "multi-award-winning property company committed to integrity, excellence and innovation."
But Friday evening Channel 7 news showed footage with metres of cracks in the carpark basement ceiling.
The roof has been jacked up after a "potential issue with a concrete slab" was identified. It does not appear to be a structural issue.
"As a precaution, temporary props were installed and engineers employed to confirm the property is safe," Frasers Property advised at 3.59pm yesterday.
Entrances and exits to the building all have "danger" signs, Channel 7 noted.
However Frasers crisis management publicists stressed "there was no risk to residents or visitors."
It said "the property is safe."
Frasers worked in partnership with leading architects Kann Finch and Group GSA on the design.
The strata managers are Strata Plus, which also provides property developers with strata consulting services.
Clemton Park Village was begun as a three staged, Australand project located 13 kilometres from the Sydney CBD. Frasers took over Australand in 2014 with the final apartments delivered in 2017.
On its completion Clemton Park Village housed 1,500 people in 747 apartments across 11 residential buildings.
The village comes with a Coles supermarket.
It was the former factory site of electrical appliance maker Sunbeam.
Prior to its residential zoning, Sunbeam owned the land from 1951 to 2002.
Before this, the land was Mackinders Market Garden farming potatoes, beetroot, carrots, pumpkin and squashes.
Steve Mann, chief executive of the NSW branch of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, told Nine Enertainment that incidents involving building standards were "quite rare".
He said NSW has some of the most rigorous building standards in the world, requiring that builders fix defects at their cost.
"There is an average of around 40,000 dwellings completed each year, and last year there were 163 complaints made to the Building Practitioners Board," Mr Mann noted.
An apartment building just 150 metres from the cracking Mascot Towers had been pinpointed as the 'next to go.'
Completed in 2009, it has been alleged to have had waterproofing issues, sinking foundations and sediment cracks since 2014 according to building defects campaigner, Edwin Almeida.
