News / Housing
The nightmare next door: neighbours say housing project has damaged their homes
Claims that cracks began appearing early in construction of Harvest Square development
Mark Phillips
RESIDENTS living next to the new Harvest Square social housing development in Brunswick West are demanding compensation for permanent structural damage to their houses they claim was caused during construction.
But they say the state government and private developer AVJennings are stymying their efforts.
At least three houses in Peacock Street all developed major cracking during the construction which residents blamed on stormwater flooding caused by the project coinciding with heavy ground works. The houses share a common stormwater pipe that flowed into a blocked pit on the Harvest Square site.
One resident, Richard Agar, claimed AVJennings, which was contracted by government agency Homes Victoria to deliver the new housing, has reneged on a promise to repair any damage.
AVJennings denies its construction works caused any damage, which it attributes to the impact of tree roots on the ageing houses.
Agar’s home is riddled with cracks inside and outside, including some which are wide and deep enough to fit all of his fingers inside.
He has estimated that repairing his home would cost in excess of $200,000 and force him and his partner to find alternative accommodation for months.
“It’s been tragic, exhausting, depressing and disheartening,” Agar said of his long battle to get AVJennings to pay for the repairs.
Similar cracks have appeared in the house of his next door neighbour and other houses in the street.
A flagship project of the government agency Homes Victoria, Harvest Square is an $86 million redevelopment of the Gronn Place public housing estate which has seen 82 dwellings replaced with 119 social homes and 50 apartments for the private market.
The first stage was completed in the middle of last year.
Agar and his partner Maree Meoli say their problems began in early-2020 with the demolition of Gronn Place.
They have lived for the past 24 years in a 1950s single-storey brick house that was purchased by Meoli’s parents in 1977 from the state Housing Commission.
In mid-2020, they first noticed new cracks in rooms at the rear of their house. They also began having trouble closing windows and doors.
They say the demolition of housing in Kitchener Street backing onto their house left a pile of rubble that filled a drainage pit, leaving any stormwater with nowhere to go but Agar and Meoli’s backyard. This resulted in half of their backyard flooding with ankle deep water every time there was heavy rainfall.
But the water also seeped into the soil under theirs and their neighbours’ houses, turning it into soft mud and then hardening into solid clay when it dried out.
At first the couple didn’t make a connection between the cracks and their flooded backyard, but they now believe that the fractures were caused by a combination of stormwater flooding and vibrations from ground compaction works undertaken to prepare the Gronn Place site for the pouring of concrete foundations.
Agar first brought their concerns to AVJennings in May 2020 and says that during construction he was repeatedly assured that a dilapidation report would be prepared and their house would be restored to its original state once building works were finished. Brunswick Voice has seen copies of emails to Agar that appear to confirm that advice.
One email, dated June 9, 2022 from a former AVJennings executive who was contracted to deal specifically with the Harvest Square project, said: “On the dilapidation report. The reason we want them done is that after the heavy site works finish, we can repair them to the original state as close as possible. That will be near to the end of the project of course if something is dangerous then please bring that to our attention immediately.”
At one stage, the company even organised for a handyman to conduct some minor repairs so they could again close doors and cupboards.
When the project was drawing to a close early last year, AVJennings arranged for an inspection of the damage to the Peacock Street property and subsequently commissioned a forensic structural engineer to prepare a report.
The engineer’s report claimed that the cracks were not the result of construction works, but were caused by the roots of trees in the front and back yards of the house. Agar has since had advice from an arborist that this was not possible.
Agar has also discovered following a Freedom of Information request that the demolition began before a stormwater masterplan was in place as it should have been. He claims this proof of negligence by AVJennings and its building contractors.
He said the State Government had refused to release other documents under FOI that he believes will show beyond doubt that the damage to his house was due to construction.
During mediation in the middle of 2024, Agar and Meoli rejected an offer from AVJennings of a small financial payment which they say would have been a fraction of the cost of repairing their house. In return, they would have been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Agar said the cost of repairs was so significant that the best solution would now be for AVJennings to buy the house and take it off their hands.
“We’ve had a geotechnical engineer come in who says you would need to get under the house and jack it up,” Agar said. “You’d need to pull up all the floorboards to do that. It’s $200,000 of repairs at the minimum.”
Meoli said the house had been in her family for almost half a century and it was distressing to see how much it had deteriorated in such a short time.
“They’ve basically destroyed our house and we need to think about what we do next because you can’t live in it like this any more,” she said.
“It’s put us in a situation where we will have to move to live elsewhere, or at least move during the repairs.”
They are now considering whether to take action in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, although this would cost up to $10,000 for legal representation and technical evidence.
In a written statement, AVJennings denied responsibility for the damage.
“AVJennings is aware of the concerns raised by a resident regarding damage to their home,” the company said.
“When this matter was brought to our attention, we conducted independent investigations, the most recent of which was undertaken in 2024 and concludes ‘the damage has been caused by long term differential footing movement caused by normal seasonal changes in soil moisture condition and exacerbated by the tree-root drying effect of the trees to the north and south of the subject building. The damage has not been caused by vibration due to demolition of the neighbouring site or construction of the basements.’
“Although the damage was not attributable to our activities, we engaged in mediation with the resident in 2024 as a gesture of goodwill. We also extended an offer in good faith, which was ultimately not accepted. Given these circumstances, we are unable to take further action in this matter.”
The damage is not limited to Agar and Meoli’s house. Their next door neighbours, Sandra Tobias and Yoshi Machida, now also have cracks on inside and outside walls throughout their house, as do the owners of the next house further down the street towards Citylink.
Tobias said she first came across new internal cracks in her house, which is of the same vintage as Agar and Meoli’s, in late-2020. But the problems worsened during 2021, with cracks widening and developing on exterior walls, along with doors jamming open or closed. It was during this time that AVJennings conducted a dilapidation report, she said.
“We love living in our maisonette,” Tobias said.
“The clinker brick house has important historical significance to Victorian architecture. This is the reason we bought here in 2010.
We would like to be compensated to structurally repair and make right the damage that has been caused by the developers. The cost of this I am unaware of [and] I would need to get a structural engineer to provide a report for this.”
Pippa Soccio, who has extensive experience in the architecture and planning industries, including a PhD in Architectural Building Science and also lives in Peacock Street, said she had no doubt the cracks were caused by the combination of stormwater flooding and vibrations.
She said she was fortunate that her house was not on the same stormwater line as most of her neighbours and had also been renovated in 2017 to improve site drainage so it avoided the same damage. But the vibrations from construction next door had still been so severe they shook a 43 inch television set off a bench, where the screen consequently smashed on the floor. The builders had paid for a replacement, she said.
“Based on Richard's timeline of events, I’m convinced that the clay soil, lacking proper drainage, became so saturated from stormwater pooling on the site that the ground essentially turned to jelly,” Soccio said.
“During site remediation, the vibrations from the compactors and rollers triggered significant movement in the earth and the building foundations, which is what caused the cracking.
“AVJennings are arguing these are old houses at the end of their life, but the acceleration of their deterioration is a consequence of what happened on the site.”
Soccio, who was a resident representative on the project’s community consultation committee chaired by former Brunswick MP Carlo Carli, said there was a severe lack of communication and transparency throughout the demolition and construction of Harvest Square.
She said the damage experienced by her neighbours was just one example; another was the removal of a century old gum tree without any forewarning, in direct contravention of promises made by the developer and Homes Victoria
“The whole process has just stunk,” she said. “[The consultation] was tokenistic.”
“We were told at the start of this process that there’s all these rules and responsibilities and promises in place and it will be okay and then we get to the stage where the site is complete and the promises are not honoured, the key people have left, no-one is listening and everything we say as a community is [considered] not worth it.”
Homes Victoria was contacted but did not provide a response prior to publication of this article.
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