Report author says the building at Olympic Park will effectively be a construction site, and residents should not move back in

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Sydney’s Opal Tower suffered from a series of construction defects, a NSW government report has found, including beams designed with “factors of safety lower than required” and reinforcing bars made to the wrong length.

But the interim report, released on Tuesday, could not make “definitive conclusions” about what precisely caused the damage in the new apartment building, which developed a dramatic crack on Christmas Eve.

One of the authors, Prof Mark Hoffman from the University of NSW, said residents should not move back in until new repairs and checks were completed, which would “stretch over many weeks”.

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He said “significant rectification works” were needed that would turn the building “effectively into a construction site”.

The report found the building was structurally sound and not in danger of collapsing, but had many construction defects.

Two hob beams had “safety [standards] lower than required by standards”, a dowel bar between a hob beam and a panel “was observed to be incomplete”, precast concrete panels were found to be 200mm wide, instead of 180mm, and a series of reinforcing bars were found to be 20mm, instead of 28mm. Asked if these were significant faults, Hoffman said it was too early to tell.

The report concluded that engineers needed more information to make definitive conclusions about the cause or causes of the damage.

The NSW planning minister, Anthony Roberts, said he wanted to “make very clear this is an interim report” and more reports would follow.

He said the question of whether residents should re-enter their homes was “beyond the scope” of the report, but Hoffman said he would recommend residents wait.

On Friday the company that built the tower, Icon Co, declared it was safe for residents to return home over the weekend.

But the chairman of the body corporate, Shady Eskander, said residents overwhelmingly refused to move back.

“A meeting was held last Saturday, 300-plus owners of the site attended,” he said. “Overwhelmingly we will not return to the site … until independent engineers have said on letterhead that it is safe to move in.

“No resident wants to live on a construction site. We have suffered. People were buying into the Australian dream and unfortunately this has become an Australian nightmare for us.”

Roberts said he understood their decision.

“Whether they move back into the building is a matter between residents and the builder. I completely understand residents’ reluctance to move back into what is essentially for some time a building site.”