It is an 'interesting' looking block with its fiery orangeish highlighted exterior and the apartment part is known as Triolgi. Such a wankery name. It has been described as a luxury apartment block, but then so has our block, which R will tell you is about public housing standard, no offence meant to public housing people. (Actually, the colour has faded since the building opened)
807 people live in the apartment block, the building completed in 2016, and no sooner finished than in January of that year notices went out to residents with warnings about placement of barbeques on balconies.
Post the London Grenfell Tower fire, residents of Triolgi have been advised to not use the power points or barbeques on their balconies, lest they go up in a blaze like a Hindu widow.
Resident Ann says this, "It is marketed as top level luxury apartment. For them to cut corners on something as important as this and tell us that we shouldn't use certain power points in our own apartment is ridiculous," she said.
How can this happen, with all our building standard rules, laws and regulations? Here is why, from The Age.
Stonnington City Council, which is responsible for issuing emergency orders, told Fairfax Media they were not aware of the problem.
"It is noted, however, that the buildings are new and have been approved and granted occupancy permits by a private building surveyor. It is the role and responsibility of the private building surveyor at the time of construction to verify that all the work complies and is safe."
Not so City of Stonnington. You are responsible for building standards, and as the local government authority it is up to you to police standards. You are attempting some shocking buck passing.
Worse, the same company who built Triolgi also built the Travelodge in our Docklands, where I think once our Friend from Japan once stayed and it has the same cladding as London't Glenfell Tower. Stay at Docklands Travelodge at your peril.
I qualify this with saying our fire prevention standards are very high, as was proved when the flammable exterior of the Docklands apartment building Lacrosse caught fire. But standards need a strong focus and that we have flammable exteriors is almost beyond belief.
The developers must pay to remove flammable cladding, as it is clearly illegal, and install safe cladding. Too simple. Yes, ultimately it goes back to local councils, who hire private building surveyors.