Architect raises spectre of balcony collapse

Balconies in the Gulf Harbour complex. Photo / Greg Bowker

Balconies on a block of leaky apartments have been so badly repaired that they could collapse like another Cave Creek disaster, says an architect who has distanced himself from the project.

The repairs have been defended by the engineer in charge, Northbridge Building Consultants director Peter Beran, who says the work was approved by the Rodney District Council and homeowners could not have afforded the full reclad recommended by other experts.

But a report by building consultants Maynard Marks on the eight leaky units at Gulf Harbour, north of Auckland, says the repair job appears to have ignored design specifications approved by the council.

The investigation found that Northbridge did not add support posts to the 2.8m-high balconies at Waterside Crescent as ordered.

Builders also failed to remove untreated timber joists (horizontal planks supporting the deck), even though rot was already spreading through the framing elsewhere in the building.

The report was prepared for unit owner Bill Rehm, who tried to stop the repairs going ahead, and is now suing the council and five other owners, along with Northbridge and Mr Beran.

It concluded that the only viable repair option was to completely reclad all the exterior walls, with a cavity system allowing water to drain away, and to replace all the rotting timber.

The director of the architectural design company which drew upthe repair plans said he was very disturbed to hear they had not been followed.

"That's not acceptable," said Mark McLeay of Creativearch.

"If that rots out, you've got another Cave Creek-type incident [the 1995 Department of Conservation platform collapse which killed 14 people] on your hands.

"It's critical that that kind of thing gets picked up."

His company has written to the council, saying it will not be held responsible for the work.

Northbridge and Mr Beran are also being sued by the owners of apartments in Mt Smart Rd, Onehunga, who allege similar defects in repairs from 2004 to 2006 including:

* Failing to obtain a building consent for the repairs.
* Attempting a limited "target repair" when the building needed a total reclad and cavity system.
* Failing to repair the original defects and introducing new ones.
* Leaving rotting timber within the building.

The claim by specialist leaky building law firm Grimshaw & Co says the Mt Smart Rd owners paid $552,990 but the estimated cost of full repairs for the block is $1.5 million.

Mr Beran also supervised targeted repairs on the 21-unit Sunset Terraces complex in Mairangi Bay. Owners told the High Court in 2008 that the repairs were defective and a building consent had not been properly obtained. The eventual cost of a full reclad was about $1.9 million.

Mr Beran said it was not practical to expect many homeowners to pay two or three times as much money to reclad their whole properties, as demanded by some leaky building experts.

"Where are these poor people going to get the money from to reclad? That's what it's all about.

"Everybody would jump atthe opportunity if it didn't costthem an arm and a leg."

He said councils also supported the more comprehensive repairs but realised homeowners usually did not have the money or the ability to recover costs from anyone involved.

"So I think in certain circumstances the council is being very accommodating and understanding and saying: 'We have to do something - we can't do nothing - so what's the most economic solution that we're totally satisfied with?'."

Home Owners and Buyers Association president John Gray said the Gulf Harbour case raised questions about the willingness of councils to let homeowners carry out substandard repairs, which tended to delay potential legal claims against councils within the 10-year time limit imposed by law.

A spokesman for the Rodney District Council said that thecouncil would defend the case but could not make any further comment.

A report to the Government last December on the cost of leaky buildings said it had become increasingly obvious that targeted repairs did not work, especially as problems fixed in one place tended to reappear later elsewhere.