https://www.news.com.au/finance/rea...b/news-story/d8e31ddc6b937f3923e10a021ff92c37
Australia’s sinking suburb
It was a street of dream homes – now they’re being demolished leaving homeowners angry, out of pocket by hundreds of thousands and pointing fingers.
Benedict Brook
@BenedictBrook
December 23, 2021 - 8:37PM
Residents who spent all they had on property in a new build suburb on the Gold Coast say they are living in a nightmare after their dream homes began to shift and crumble around them and sewage lines started leaking human waste into gardens.
One resident said the area was a shoddily built “ticking time bomb” and scores of homes would now have to be demolished.
Just weeks ago, cranes began tearing down the first home on Greenvale Crescent. There are fears all the houses on the street will meet the same fate.
Homeowners have laid the blame on the local council and the developer Stockland and claimed the $11 billion Australian firm built the houses without adequate drainage which led them to falter when heavy rain hit in March.
The residents have said they just want to sell up and move on with their lives but are being “screwed” by Stockland. While it has agreed to buy back properties, residents have accused the company of not giving them a fair price for their doomed homes.
One said they were being offered a quarter of a million dollars less than what they were entitled to.
But Stockland has said the drama was caused by factors outside of its control including a landslip. It has refuted claims it built the suburb on the cheap and told news.com.au it had been “working closely” with residents and had “agreed to high end market valuations” of the affected homes.
Fencing and signage at a Riverstone Crossing home on the Gold Coast evacuated after a landslip.
At the same time, the local council is demanding some homeowners demolish parts of their damaged properties or risk being fined more than $600,000. Yet residents have said it is the council’s negligence in allowing the inadequate development to go ahead that has caused all the problems.
A resident of the Riverstone Crossing estate in Maudsland, 22kms inland of Surfers Paradise, told news.com.au they were living in Australia’s worst new build suburb.
One of the estate’s collapsed back decks.
Property now worthless
“My wife and I are retirees and when we bought the place we were debt free,” Greenvale Crescent resident Tony Hastings told news.com.au.
“But the day after the rain, the property was worthless. Now we’re accumulating debt, were in a rented place and we have lawyers involved because Stockland want to steal the house back.”
In November, demolition began on the first home on Greenvale Crescent built just five years before. Diggers pulled the home to pieces which had already snapped in two after the rain event hit the Gold Coast.
Following the sodden conditions, other new homes in two streets in Riverstone Crossing also began to crack, splinter and even move downhill.
Demolition work beginning on one of the homes.
One of those belonged to Mr Hastings and his wife Noelene.
They moved onto the street in 2016 after “my wife fell in love with the view,” he said.
“It was the only place we ever looked at.”
There were “no issues” with the home itself, Mr Hastings said, until after the rain.
“At first it appeared to be some very minor subsidence of about two inches. We went onto the deck and we could see a channel of water. Like what you might get from an overflowing drainpipe.”
“We thought it would be pretty easy to fix” said Mr Hastings.
But when the house was inspected by their insurer he said they were told to immediately move out “and we never went back expect to get some furniture”.
Mr Hastings said his house has been “moving ever since” and is now tilting on an angle of around 70mm.
“It’s a sturdy home but it’s now showing signs of stress.”
Jason Lyall outside his now fenced off home which is rotating and has seen the pool and deck sink and buckle. Picture: Supplied.
Pool began to move
A few doors down were the Lyall family, including three kids, who had relocated from Sydney and moved into their $1 million dream home in June 2019.
They also noticed something amiss after the March rain.
“My pool started to drop slightly. And from there, day by day, week by week everything got significantly worse,” Jason Lyall told news.com.au.
“The pool has now dropped by about a metre and moved by about the same; the deck was really strong but it’s falling to pieces; I have a big cavity under the footing of my balcony; there’s a long fissure that runs the length of my backyard that’s big enough to stick your foot into and the retaining wall has failed and the fences have dropped.”
Google Maps images of fenced off homes on Greenvale Crescent.
Area is a ‘ticking time bomb’
Several homes have now been bought by Stockland and at least eight are earmarked for demolition.
Mr Lyall said he believed the problem was far worse than that with up to 50 houses needing to be fixed.
“It’s a ticking time bomb. There’s noncompliance all over the estate. They’ll have to demolish everything in the area, everything on Greenvale Crescent.”
The unsettled earth has also severed water mains and sewers from some homes forcing the installation of makeshift piping. Mr Lyall said these had failed at least twice.
“The temporary sewerage line blew last week and there was s*** everywhere. Young children live in the property below the fault line”.
Backyards are slipping away.
Council demanding residents demolish there homes
To add to the Lyalls’ woes, Gold Coast City Council has now demanded that over the Christmas break Mr Lyall demolish the affected pool and deck at his own cost, which could set him back tens of thousands of dollars.
An enforcement notice, seen by news.com.au, demands a “safe, complaint and orderly” demolition with the threat of a $620,000 fine if it is not completed.
But Mr Lyall said the council hadn’t set foot on his property since April, had no idea of the current state of his house and were refusing to release a report into the issues plaguing the estate.
He speculated the council’s investigations may have found both it and Stockland were at fault, casting doubt on whether the tab for broken homes should be picked up by homeowners at all.
Council told news.com.au it was “undertaking a comprehensive investigation into the matter” but it was not complete.
Documentation for the construction of the lots shows where drains were recommended to be sited. But residents say only two homes received them. Now homes along the street are uninhabitable. Picture: Supplied.
Claims of shoddy work
Both Mr Lyall and Mr Hastings, and it’s understood other neighbours, have said they are being penalised for Stockland’s substandard building work and Gold Coast Council’s failure to properly ensure that the completed development met requirements.
News.com.au has seen a report, commissioned by Stockland prior to building work beginning, which warned the ground around several lots, including where Mr Lyall’s house now stands, was “saturated, unstable in its existing condition” and needed to be remediated. Indeed, a gully went straight through many of the lots.
A further report said there was a “medium” or “very high risk” of “slope instability” and a “sub surface drainage system must be installed” at the lots, which became a requirement by council of the development proceeding.
Stockland has insisted an adequate drainage system was installed “according to site conditions and expert advice throughout construction, and was approved as part of the project’s planning and design”. But the root cause of the problem was a landslip.
Mr Lyall said that “10000 per cent” there were no drains across the upslope of all the lots and added that such a system was not even listed in later technical reports and no one can point out where the drains are apparently located.
Nonetheless, documents show council did sign off that all necessary works had been completed. Mr Lyall has claimed council did not check to see if the drains were in place.
A Google Maps images showing early earthworks at Riverstone Crossing which residents say was inadequate.
Stockland trying to ‘screw’ us
Mr Hastings said the originally sloping ground should never have been built on and the couple would not have bought the house if they knew it was on effectively a waterway.
“Making the slope level just sealed its fate. It was never a question of when it was going to fail, merely when.
“When they built this place they were just papering over the cracks.”
He and his wife are now living in rented accommodation.
Stockland have offered to buy the Hastings’ and Lyall’s homes. But both families say the proposed price is too low and won’t allow them to purchase a comparable property.
“Melbourne and Sydney buyers are coming in here and paying $50-$100k more than the perceived market value, but Stockland want it for the lowest possible price.”
Mr Hastings said he was being short-changed by Stockland by up to $250,000.
He feared with the price Stockland were offering on their four bedroom home might only get them a two bedroom home in a few months’ time.
“They’re an $11 billion company, they have deep pockets – they should do the right thing.”
Mr Lyall said Stockland was offering 30 per cent below market value for his home.
“They’re trying to screw us into taking a deal which is less than what the house is worth.”
Subsidence under one of the homes.
Stockland and Council respond
Stockland said it had been working with the homeowners since March.
“We now own four affected properties, have remediation agreements in place with two owners, and remain committed to finding a way forward with the other owners,” a spokeswoman told news.com.au.
“For those owners wishing to sell their properties back to Stockland, we have agreed to high end independent market valuations, along with a settlement that recognises the impacts of moving, renting and other hardships. All owners have been able to seek their own alternate independent valuations as part of our process.”
Demolition seen from Jason Lyall’s sinking garden.
A spokeswoman for Gold Coast City Council said it was working with the owners and the developers to resolve immediate hazards.
“While significant progress has been made since the landslip event, there remains ongoing safety concerns until full rectification has been achieved.
“We are taking all reasonable action to facilitate co-operation from all stakeholders and the delivery of rectification works as soon as practicable.
“The City is also undertaking a comprehensive investigation into the matter, which includes the provision of technical advice from consultants. Those investigations are ongoing and are expected to be completed in the New Year.”
Mr Hastings said their retirement dream was dashed.
“Sadly our house has to go because the earth is moving. It’s like a cancer in the ground, it’s slipping away piece by piece with all that water underneath.
“It should never have been developed.”
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