NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler speaks about the Crownview development in Wollongong.
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00:00 There's been lots of coverage of this project over the last year and it's likely to continue.
00:07 This project was first identified for an inspection soon after the Rabak powers came into play
00:12 in 2021 and this project was due to complete shortly after that.
00:18 You can see what's happened along the way since, it's really quite alarming.
00:24 First impression of this job was to discover in the basement that three entire floors were
00:29 where plastic formwork had been used, had been improperly filled and the grinders were
00:35 in removing it and setting up to put another layer of reinforcement in to actually compensate
00:41 for the wall that was no longer functional.
00:43 But just a few things to point out, look at the sprinkler pipes covered in cement, look
00:50 at the props not using proprietary pins, really this showed the signs of everything that is
00:57 to follow in this presentation.
01:01 Fire stairs, pump rooms, really bodgy attempts to try and make things right.
01:10 In the early days, this was back in September/October '21, I had hoped that this project had some
01:17 prospect of becoming a serious contender to be remediated but as time goes on it looks
01:23 more challenging as we proceed.
01:26 You can see that each subsequent inspection presented a new set of challenges with shotcrete
01:33 not really working all that well and additional columns being required, substantial back propping,
01:38 the bottom right hand picture actually shows the situation under the fire tank where the
01:44 slab was deemed not strong enough to carry the load.
01:48 Every time we've been back to this building there's been additional strengthening required,
01:52 columns not big enough to carry the loads, additional thickening required on the core,
02:00 services really all over the place and monitoring in place just to see that everything was hanging
02:05 in alright.
02:06 Again you can see here the massive amounts of retrospective remediation in the basement
02:12 that's been required.
02:13 At that particular point in time it was estimated that the cost of those works to date were
02:17 about $15 million and the work continues in the basement.
02:23 In fact this is a more recent photograph just showing how the cracking in the basement slabs
02:28 are being dealt with but more recently the work has moved on to identifying new and unknown
02:34 risks in the tower and you can see here that in fact everywhere there's massive reinforcement
02:39 going on to compensate post-tensioning ducts that have never been filled, inadequate post-tensioning
02:45 and of course the wrong location of shear and bending moment infrastructure.
02:52 Here you can see in the middle, in fact the bottom of this slide, is an attempt to start
02:57 to connect the stairs to the core.
03:00 The entire stairs weren't connected to the core so they're going to have to be retrofitted
03:04 and the props on the left hand side are there just to temporarily hold the load but just
03:10 have a look at the massive amount of exotic reinforcement and cables that are being required
03:19 to be put in here.
03:21 Carbon fibre, quite an exotic attempt to make good and holes everywhere where they've had
03:27 to dig down and actually discover where the post-tensioning was and the fact that it wasn't
03:33 reinforced or it wasn't grouted and you can see that this is what owners who would have
03:40 potentially settled on that building in December '21 would have had to experience in the post-occupation
03:46 phase where you can now see those marks on the carpet identifying where the post-tension
03:51 ducts are underneath the carpet and then having to go underneath the building and repair them.
03:58 More recently we've opened up bathrooms and started to look at what might be there for
04:04 future leaks in the bathroom.
04:05 You can see that in fact the entire tiling arrangements are unsatisfactory and further
04:11 work to be done there.
04:13 Further investigations on the balconies, glass that didn't have code mark on the handrails,
04:20 while it appeared that the threshold arrangements of the door might have been satisfactory when
04:24 you peeled the skin back on the cladding on the balcony you can see that in fact the upturns
04:29 were lower than the balcony which had no overflows on them at all.
04:35 Really this is a nightmare of a project and the Mercury really did cover it quite well
04:42 saying that the challenge here is how will this building ever achieve a situation where
04:47 it can have an occupations certificate and a future building commissioner will be able
04:52 to lift a prohibition order.
04:54 [ Silence ]