This week’s podcast is given over to one topic – but it’s a fascinating one: What are we going to do about Australia’s older apartment blocks?Sure, there’s been a lot of attention given to the blocks currently under construction or recently completed, with our special guest this week, NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler shaking up the whole industry by demanding work is up to standard or, effectively, the apartments can’t be sold.He has a few horror stories to tell about buildings that seem to be undertaking major reconstruction but on the ground it's strictly amateur hour stuff.And, in a considered personal response to a question asked at the Owners Corporation Network seminar last November, which is definitely not an official state government position, he is worried about the 50,000 unit blocks over 25 years old in NSW.The problem is that for many, repair and maintenance issues over the years have led to patchworks of surface repairs while the infrastructures of the blocks have deteriorated.The nightmare scenario - admittedly one that's extreme - is the Miami Beach apartment block collapse back in June last year in which 97 people died. There, the condo board (strata committee) was quibbling about the expense of fixing serious structural problemsSo what’s the answer when even collective sales to developers to knock down and rebuild might not be an acceptable solution for home owners?Although quick to confirm this is only his personal view of the situation, David Chandler outlines the extent of the problem and explores one potential solution. TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00I caught up with Building Commissioner, David Chandler, the other day.Sue 00:05Fantastic!Jimmy 00:06And as usual, he has a lot to say about the state of apartment blocks in New South Wales. But, his focus is changing a little bit to older apartments, so we had a long chat about that and he's got a lot to say, so I think we'd better just get on with things. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I wrote the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue 00:27And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy 00:30And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.Anybody who's been reading Flat Chat, or listening to this podcast for the past year or so, will know that David Chandler, the Building Commissioner for New South Wales, has been shaking up the new apartment developers, dropping in on sites and near-completed buildings, and forcing them to fix things, or face the prospect of not getting occupancy certificates. But late last year, at a conference organised by the Owners Corporation Network (OCN), someone asked him what he was planning to do about older buildings. So, I contacted David and asked him the same question, now that he's had a chance to consider it. First of all, he wanted to outline the extent of the problem and I have to warn you, that the audio at the beginning of this recording is a bit rough, because of the circumstances under which we recorded it. But it gets better; a lot better, pretty quickly, so hang in there. Here's David Chandler.David Chandler 01:39It was a great question and it's time to start fleshing out what's the scope of the conversation, because we can now see a
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Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.
