A 21-storey Wollongong apartment block under construction will be slapped with a stop work order after the NSW Building Commissioner found it was a "minefield" of safety issues.
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The Wonder Wollongong complex at 30 Young Street will be issued with a draft stop work order, which will lead to the site being closed down by Wednesday afternoon.
"There are significant structural issues," Mr Chandler said.
"I don't know what they are but when I look at the building there are cracks, it's got propping. It's got reinforcement being added to other columns to make the column stronger."
He also said there were problems with the handrails and there was no fire hydrant system working beyond the first floor and, when they arrived on the site, they found a tradesman trying to put the pipes in to connect the water.
Mr Chandler said the first-time builder, WG Projects Group, had until 9am on Wednesday to object to the stop work order "but I assure you they'll have no basis to object to it".
An independent inspector will need to visit the site to create a full list of the problems that need to be rectified.
The developer will then fix the problems - something Mr Chandler estimated would take at least a month - and then call the building commissioner back for another inspection to confirm the work has been completed.
It was the worst site commissioner David Chandler had visited on a two-day blitz of Wollongong residential developments - but many of the others had safety breaches as well.
Mr Chandler said the SafeWork inspector accompanying them had to write up so many safety notices that he had to work late into the night.
He expressed deep concern about the safety standards he had seen on Wollongong construction sites, saying "they just don't see this stuff".
What we've seen is as bad as we've seen anywhere in NSW.
- NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler
"I don't know what you have to do to get it into these people's heads that everybody getting home safe is got to be rule number one," he said.
He said he would have to make it a priority to come back to Wollongong more often - the next visit would be in just over a month's time.
"We are going to have an absolute blitz on the Wollongong area because what we've seen is as bad as we've seen anywhere in NSW," Mr Chandler said.
"We haven't seen it this bad in the Tweed. We haven't seen it this bad in Coffs or Port Macquarie, haven't seen it this bad in Newcastle.
"There are a few pockets of it in Sydney, but it's consistently not good in Wollongong."
WG Projects was contacted for comment.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
