An apartment complex on Queenstown’s Frankton Rd’s closed for more than two years while it under goes leaky-building repairs which are estimated to cost up to $45 million.
Forty-one-unit Oaks Club Resort closed for business on September 1.
The complex was built in the late 2000s by Invercargill’s Ross Wensley, whose development complex subsequently went under.
As a result, owners sued Queenstown’s council for signing off the building, however in late 2021 the parties settled confidentially in a deal that allegedly cost ratepayers $40m.
Body corporate chairman Graeme Kruger says the remediation project will involve taking each unit ‘‘back to bare skeleton’’.
About 90% of owners, he adds, donated the likes of washing machines, dishwashers, lounge furniture and beds to Salvation Army and flood-affected North Islanders.
Owners, he says, are also delighted they had a ‘notice to proceed’ from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment which included a financial contribution.
Kruger earlier told Mountain Scene the main defects were the lack of compliant fire rating and ‘‘some weather-tightness issues associated
with the waterproof membranes on the [decks]’’.
He estimates remediation will take 25 months, during which the Club will be closed for business.
The contractor, Brosnan Construction, is already about halfway through repairing another nearby Wensley-built apartment complex, the 84-unit Oaks Shores, which had similar leaky-home problems.
Its 73 owners had been suing the council and other parties for $162.9m, however the owners and council also settled that claim for a
confidential sum.
That remediation project is still about two-and-a-half to three years away from completion.
Earlier, a third nearby Wensley apartment complex, The Point, which had leaky-building issues, too, was also totally rebuilt.
