Developers are preparing to bulldoze 18 homes in Sydney’s infamous ‘sinking suburb’ as some residents of the estate express regret for ever buying there.
In 2018, reports emerged that the Jordan Springs East estate, in Sydney’s western suburb of Llandilo, was sinking because it had been placed on an insufficiently stable landfill, causing large cracks in homes, driveways and sidewalks.
Lendlease, the $4 billion company that developed the estate, was forced to launch a compensation scheme in 2020 and bought back 50 homes from people to repair and put them back on the market, or demolish them because they were ‘unliveable’ goods.
Retired couple Robert and Veronika Borland bought one of the repaired properties on Private Circuit for $820,000 late last year after being told it was OK by an engineer, but are now shocked to hear the house next to theirs is being demolished .
Retired couple Robert and Veronika Borland were shocked to hear that the house next to theirs will be demolished in February
“If we had known the house was going to collapse, was too badly damaged or was not up to standard, we would not have bought this property,” Ms Borland told Nine News.
Mr Borland agreed.
“The heavy machinery will impact our properties and we have no insurance,” he said.
‘We’re going to lose. We’re not getting what we paid for and we have a pension and we’re retired, so where are you going?’
The Borlands have taken their case to the NSW Department of Fair Trading and demolition of the adjacent house will begin next month.
In a statement to Nine News, Lendlease said they “continue to support our customers and are committed to ongoing support as we work through the process.”
The Jordan Springs East estate, in Sydney’s western suburb of Llandilo, is sinking because it was built on an insufficiently stable landfill
Two other houses bought back by Lendlease have already been demolished and a further 18 will be bulldozed in February.
Penrith City Council had previously issued warning notices to potential buyers for 841 homes worth a total of $605 million.
Original owners who chose to remain in the affected homes received compensation and an ongoing 15-year support guarantee from Lendlease.
Mr Borland accused Lendlease of providing only minimal communication about what was happening, despite the company offering assurances that disruption to neighboring homes would be kept to a minimum.
The Borlands have already spent about $30,000 renovating their home.
“Everyone will say, ‘Well, it’s your fault, you signed the document’, and we did,” Ms Borland told the ABC.
“But yeah, we just feel like we’ve been misled, that the situation here in Jordan Springs is not as safe as they say.”
When Daily Mail Australia visited Jordan Springs in 2020, young families said they were facing a very uncertain future.
Amit Vohra, 35, saw his entire front yard sink about 7 inches within months of moving into his home in June 2018, destroying his driveway and creating dents in his lawn.
The problem was finally resolved earlier this year when developer Lendlease relandscaped his entire front yard and gave him a new driveway.
But the IT engineer said he was still worried about the future and what else could go wrong with his Navy Road home.
The sinking has caused large cracks in houses, driveways and footpaths on the estate
“We put our life savings into this house so I’m scared and worried that we’re going to have cracks in our walls or the driveway will sink again,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
Mr Vohra lives with his pregnant wife and 18-month-old son at the epicenter of the crisis engulfing the suburb.
The house next door is rotting due to massive crack problems, weeds are growing around it and a brand new kitchen is gathering dust.
He said this is what the house looked like when he moved in, and even before that, while his house was still under construction.
“My real estate friend tells me the value of my house will have already dropped and I don’t know if this suburb will recover like that,” he said.
A few doors down on Navy Road, Suman Saini and Sandeep Kumar had similar problems with their driveway, which have not yet been properly resolved.
The ground sank so much to expose the bottom of the driveway of this house that the Daily Mail visited in 2020
The ground sank about a foot, exposing the underside of the driveway, and it cost the couple two tons of soil to fill.
They still need to place more decorative stones in areas of the garden bed bordering the driveway every time they garden because it continues to sink.
“We’re just so fed up, we don’t know what’s going to happen or what’s going to go wrong in the future,” Ms Saini said.
Jaymie Murphy said there were problems with her home on the nearby private circuit – two doors down from one of the demolished houses – which were resolved before she moved in.
However, she feared that other problems could emerge in the future, and that the crisis would depress house prices for years to come.
“My husband has stage four cancer and only has a year to live, so this is his last home,” she said.
‘It would be a disaster for us if something else went wrong, I don’t know what we would do. All we can do is cross our fingers and try to be optimistic.
“It’s such a shame for the whole suburb because it’s a really nice area with a great community.”
Jordan Springs East is built on swampland and an old creek bed, and sits on a floodplain. To reclaim the land for development, soil and other materials are added on top.
However, the developers allegedly used larger rocks instead of finer soil, and then did not wait long enough for the rocks to settle and stop compacting before starting construction.
According to Lendlease, the problem was exacerbated by heavy rainfall in late 2018 and early 2019, which created a temporary detention basin due to a blockage.
Lendlease has been contacted for further comment.