Bulldozer only remedy for leaky homes

Rae Standring's home at Sacramento village in Botany Downs will have to be demolished. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

A third of the 153-unit Sacramento housing complex in Botany Downs is so rotten it must be bulldozed and rebuilt.

The biggest leaky building lawsuit to be filed will return to court early next year.

Owners are claiming $19.2 million, of which $4.7 million is tagged to demolish and rebuild 51 units at the cost of $93,000 each.

Owners' lawyer Paul Grimshaw said a third of Sacramento was so rotten demolition was the only option.

"It's beyond repair," he said.

Residents need $6.6 million to re-clad their units, which were built in 1999 and 2000. Many need reroofing and extensive repairs to rotten timber framing. All 153 garages need to be stripped and reclad, have timber repaired and remedial work done to roofs and screening.

The claim was adjourned in the High Court at Auckland in October.

The Building Industry Authority is named in the case involving the 153-unit complex but wants the litigation dismissed on the grounds that it was not liable to pay damages to individual homeowners.

Mr Grimshaw expects a decision on the authority's role in the case from Justice Hugh Williams by February.

But Sacramento owners and residents have a long wait before the full case gets to court, he said.

The hearing could be next year and take two to three months.

Sacramento body corporate chairman and unit owner Chris Kittow said an initial 12 defendants were named in the case, but these had joined other parties so that more than 20 defendants were now named.

Those involved included entities associated with Tim Manning's Taradale Properties, which developed the homes, and three building firms: Ellerslie Park Holdings, associated with Macrennie Construction, Akita Construction and Link Construction.

James Hardie NZ, which manufactured the Harditex exterior cladding system, the Building Research Association and the inspection firm Approved Building Certifiers are named.

Sacramento was Mr Manning's flagship development and hailed by Auckland Regional Council officials as an outstanding example of intensification and a new style of urban living which exactly fitted the objectives of the blueprint for the future, the Regional Growth Strategy.

Mr Manning has remained in property development but now uses Norwich Properties as his main entity.

Mr Kittow said Sacramento owners wanted the case to go before the courts as soon as possible.

"We would like to have it earlier, but we're not expecting it until next year," he said.

Mr Grimshaw has 3000 leaky building clients.

Ten staff at law firm Cairns Slane are working on the issue, which he said occupied 80 per cent of two partners' time.

The Sacramento action still names the Building Industry Authority, despite its being subsumed into the new Department of Building and Housing on November 30. A department spokesman said the authority had sought to be withdrawn because it was not liable. About 60 authority staff had transferred to the new department and any legal claims against the authority would now be handled by the department, he said.

The authority's former chief executive, John Ryan, has become the new department's general manager of building controls.

He said the authority's axing was not a move to defeat litigants.

"It was part of the formation of the department which brought a lot of separate entities into one central department to better manage building and housing."

The authority's website is shut down, referring visitors to the department, saying the authority has been "dissolved".

Macrennie Construction marketing manager Chris MacDonald said he had been involved with the Sacramento case for many months and blamed the authority for the leaky building crisis.

"After lobbying from multinationals and 'Greens', they allowed the introduction of untreated timber," he said.

Mt Eden resident David Probine said leaks to his 11-year-old home had cost him almost $200,000 to repair but he expected to spend more before the problem was solved.

"I could not use the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service because my house was more than 10 years old."

Mr Manning said yesterday that he was unaware of plans to demolish a third of his Sacramento development, as he was "out of the loop" on the project.

Last year, Mr Manning said he believed that Sacramento was "a quality development" and that it complied with all rules and regulations for building.

Yesterday, he took a different approach.

"I'd have to look at the reports," he said.

Last night was the first time two elderly women living in the Sacramento village heard their units were to be demolished and rebuilt because of rotten timber.

One, who declined to give her name, said residents had a body corporate committee "but we don't get information, only the bills".

Seventy-seven-year-old Rae Standring said the demolition was news to her.

Mrs Standring said she left all such matters to her son, prominent Western Springs midget-car driver Graham, and his wife, Linda.

Mrs Standring moved in about 20 months ago and became aware of Sacramento's problems some time later.

"I had just moved in when all this happened ... I would love to see the end of it.

"I haven't got many more years left. I'd like to see it finished."

Both women said their units were not beset by damp but both had front rooms whose outlooks were dominated by reinforcing.

* additional reporting: Philip English

PROBLEM AREA

Sacramento at Botany Downs is a village-size housing complex which is rotting;

It was once hailed as the face of the future by the Auckland Regional Council;

Now, residents and owners are taking a $19 million claim against those involved;

They are also trying to sue a former Government authority, axed last month.