Another apartment basement and a prestigious restaurant have flooded, and more trees are dying in South Perth as major WA developer Finbar junks plans for the site billed to 'change the face of South Perth' amid chaotic groundwater changes.
Apartments at 100 Mill Point Road had their basement flooded for the past month, causing residents to speculate about what they have dubbed the 'Civic Heart Lakes' across the road.
Finbar's builder Hanssen has for six months been pumping groundwater beneath the road from its adjacent Aurelia development site to Civic Heart, for re-infiltration via the ponds as per an approved management plan.
Street trees along the median strip on Civic Heart's other side have died in the past three months, prompting residents to speculate about salinity and the council to order an arborist's report.
Related Content
The apartments' basement flooding is receding as the localised water table lowers, the council says – but now the elevator shaft is flooded at the apartments at 23 Bowman Street, overlooking the dead trees and Civic Heart.
The elevator at luxury Perth restaurant Red Cabbage, also across the road from Civic Heart, also had its elevator shaft flooded, the restaurant's owners Tweeted on Thursday.
Jacaranda trees in its front garden now also appear to be dead, though the council cannot comment as the trees are on private property.
The City of South Perth has had to continuously close traffic lanes around Civic Heart to accommodate dewatering trucks. Officers on Sunday installed groundwater monitoring wells in the area, requiring verge closures and pedestrian detours.
But Finbar repeated on Wednesday that there was "no definitive link" to Civic Heart despite conflicting public comments from builder Hanssen.
A spokeswoman said groundwater levels were being monitored by external consultants at multiple locations surrounding the site in accordance with the approved management plan and were reported to be consistent with historical levels.
She said there were several construction sites adjoining the 100 Mill Point Road property which had involved excavation that could have an impact on ground water flows.
Finbar also denied suggestions by Hanssen that the water issues were behind last week's shock announcement it would cease sales on Civic Heart, a $400 million, 39-storey building centrepiece of CDB redevelopment slated to include a supermarket, childcare centre and medical centre as well as luxury apartment tower and five-level basement car park.
Finbar's official announcement blamed uncertainty around local planning scheme changes which were "disruptive to the marketing" and impacted its ability to deliver such a large mixed-use development in a timely manner.
"Hanssen do not speak for Finbar, nor are they party to the management decision making process for Civic," the spokeswoman said.
"Hanssen may have their own agenda or political reasons for making these exaggerated and incorrect statements but it is not Finbar's position to speculate what these are.
"There are many factors to be considered when giving instructions for the redesign of a project. The complexity of a basement is an element that increases risk in any project however it was not the primary driver.
"Ultimately complex basements can be constructed in any water table condition but basements come at a cost and if you are not able to adequately de-risk a project with sufficient sales at an acceptable value within timeframes set by approvals and sunset periods then hard decisions need to be made on project viability and proceeding to construction.
"Our decision has came down to a risk versus reward decision and all factors considered, we decided it was in the best interest of the buyers and the company to release buyers from the contracts so they could freely make other purchase decisions if they wished, and to go back to the drawing board on design under the new town planning scheme."
The decision is a huge one for Finbar, which held $140 million in pre-sales contracts. Selling agents have been instructed to refund the 10 per cent deposits paid by 152 homebuyers.
Details of the new design, expected to be smaller, would be announced in coming months.
Finbar had a jab at South Perth council in its announcement, saying the council's "posturing" over its attempt to reintroduce height limits in the precinct made things worse.
At any rate the council was not successful. The town planning scheme amendment came into force on Tuesday after Planning Minister Donna Faragher overruled its attempt to include height limits and enforced other modifications.
And the modifications appear to have made no one happy – not developers, not the community and not the council.
Meanwhile, dewatering at Aurelia is set to continue for another month.
Residents are staging a Town Hall meeting on March 1 at 7pm, with candidates for the state seat of South Perth set to answer questions from the floor.
