The Night Bricks Rained On Goulburn Street
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday February 27, 2007
AT 4AM on December 12, high winds tore a 15-metre section of wall from a Meriton-built apartment block in Surry Hills, causing hundreds of bricks to rain down over Goulburn Street. They crashed through a glass awning and smashed three parked cars.
As the sun rose the street looked like a bomb had gone off."If it had happened at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, instead of the morning, people may have been seriously injured, probably killed," said the building manager at Waratah Gardens, David Solylo. Harry Triguboff's Meriton Apartments built the 14-storey block, originally a hotel, in 1983. It was converted into apartments a decade later. The insurer's consulting engineer found that "the parapet as constructed contained a number of latent defects. The more obvious being the lack of wall ties." The insurer will not cover latent defects.Now members of the owners' corporation fear they may have breached a law, introduced recently after urging by Mr Triguboff and other developers, that effectively makes it harder for them to consult a solicitor.The law prohibits owners' corporations from seeking legal advice costing more than $10,000 without first having the approval of owners at a general meeting. But when faced with an emergency order by the City of Sydney Council to ensure the building was safe within seven days, the owners had no choice but to seek advice immediately.One source at the building, who asked not to be named, said: "Costs are already $6000. With the negotiation of the insurance payout, satisfaction of emergency orders from council and WorkCover, plus preservation of the insurance cover, we're easily going to pass $10,000."There was a serious hazard and a threat to safety that we had to think about. We couldn't spend days preparing for a general meeting."Mr Triguboff refused to comment when contacted about the collapse. Meriton has not been contacted by the owners' corporation.In an interview with the Herald last year, Mr Triguboff revealed that he had convinced the former premier Bob Carr to change the law to stop rogue elements in bodies corporate engaging lawyers and consultants without a proper vote.A Meriton spokesman has previously said: "Owners are still free to sue anyone they choose, but they ought to be informed about it before locking themselves into these expensive and open-ended court cases which have the potential to cause an owners' corporation to become insolvent."The NSW executive director of the Australian Property Council, Ken Morrison, agreed the law was "sensible" as it protected strata owners from renegade executive committees."Legal proceedings can be very expensive and owners need to know that they are not being exposed to a liability which could bankrupt the owners' corporation," he said."Where an emergency situation arises, the focus should be on dealing with the safety issues at hand, not running up legal bills."Meanwhile the residents of Waratah Gardens have been presented with a massive bill by the NSW Police Force for the cost of closing the street for four days. And the beauty room, a salon on the ground floor, wants $15,000 for loss of trade.It is unclear what the insurers are prepared to cover, says Mr Solylo, but "they're certainly not happy about it. Not happy at all."
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
