Homeowners are desperate for solutions after more new homes in Sydney’s western suburbs were found to be sinking, with the blame being placed on “Wild West” property developers.
New homes built in areas such as Glenmore Park and Box Hill in Sydney’s western suburbs are showing cracks in exterior and interior walls and floors due to foundation problems. 7 News reported.
The problem has become so widespread that New South Wales Building Commissioner David Chandler has launched a new investigation into the cause.
Mr Chandler is using satellite images to see what the farmland at the sites looked like before developers began building the properties.
“If you can go back and look at the subdivision when it was still a pasture, you can see the depressions where there were dams and where the soil had settled beneath the slab,” he said.
‘There are some ‘Wild West’ players who may have thought they could get away with it in the past, but they won’t be able to do so in the future.’
The commissioner said that if a homeowner is regularly required to repair cracks and uneven floors, then “something is not right there.”
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the government is reassessing where future housing development can take place because of subsidence issues on flood-prone land.
More homes in several western Sydney suburbs are showing signs of subsidence. Cracks have appeared in walls and floors (pictured)
Homes are believed to be sinking throughout the area because they were built on flood-prone land and have poor foundations because they were built on insufficiently compacted landfill (pictured, a driveway with exposed concrete slab in Jordan Springs East, 2020).
“We’ve made some unpopular decisions, particularly over the last six months on residential construction,” he said.
Sadly, it’s not a new problem in Western Sydney – Daily Mail Australia reported on almost identical issues at the Jordan Springs estate in 2020.
At the time, the local council placed notices on 841 homes, worth $605 million, after conducting a report in 2018.
It was soon discovered that the estate was allegedly built on an insufficiently compacted landfill, causing it to sink up to a foot in some areas.
One of the sinking houses at Jordan Springs East in Llandilo, near Penrith (pictured)
As of late January 2024, 18 homes in the suburb were being prepared for demolition after the homes were deemed too damaged to be repaired.
Lendlease, the $4 billion company that developed the development, was forced to launch a compensation scheme in 2020 and bought back 50 homes from people to fix them up and put them back on the market or knock them down because they were “uninhabitable”.
Mr Minns is currently urging anyone experiencing subsidence issues to contact the building commissioner.
