Cracked wall in Winchester Hills townhouse complex still an issue

SOME of the residents who live in Monte Roche, a townhouse complex on Devereaux Avenue, Winchester Hills, have had enough of empty promises from Howard Matheson of Sinai Developments and DHP Construction, concerning a retaining wall to a townhouse complex, 376 on Devereux, which is above them.

“In August last year we asked the Comaro CHRONICLE to write an article highlighting our concerns, which was written and sent to Matheson for comment before it went to print,” said Hilton Edwards, a resident of the complex.

“He commented he would address our concerns, but since then not one of his promises has been fulfilled. There are still cracks in the wall, no weeds have been removed from the retaining wall, nor succulents planted in the retaining wall, and because natural vegetation was removed during construction, this is now causing erosion and resulting in mud slides and stones coming down onto the driveways when we have heavy rains.

“A few weeks ago, after it had rained, I went to park my car in our own driveway and because there was mud and stones on the drive, as I put on my brakes my car skidded forward. I could have gone through the wall and landed on the house below us,” added Edwards.

According to the Edwards, the engineer was on site last year to view the cracks in the retaining wall, but in his report of this year (March 15) he said he’s not been on site to check the cracks again.

“I find this very unsatisfactory that he can write an email regarding the cracks without physically inspecting the current condition of the cracks and retaining wall,” Edwards said.

In Matheson’s comment to the CHRONICLE last August he said: “The wall has been inspected by the engineer and nothing was found to be of concern. The engineer also carries insurance and signs off, so if there was an issue it can be repaired. Before summer the wall will be cleaned up of weeds and succulents will be planted.”

Last August PR technical engineer Silvio Ferraris was also contacted for comment and said this week: “I was there around February or March this year, then my engineers were there in April. I will go again next week and inspect the wall.”

Edwards added: “More cracks have appeared in the retaining wall. Obviously, as residents in this complex we are very frustrated with all the empty promises.”

Matheson was again approached for comment: “The engineer has checked the wall previously and found it not to be of concern. This was explained in detail in the previous article. The wall was designed and constructed as a mechanically stabilised fill, and the retaining blocks are a facing only, using high-strength geogrids that create a monolithically bound structure, a similar concept to how reinforcing steel is used in concrete, that is, the geogrids in combination with the wall compacted fill are doing the retaining. In layman’s terms, the retaining structure is one massive stabilised block, to a horizontal depth equal to 70 per cent of the wall height, and is very stable.

“Should there be minor cracks which have occurred recently, these will be repaired with a concrete fill and the areas that needed repairing previously have been repaired a while back already. I have arranged for a team to remove the weeds from the wall on May 16.”

Read: 

Monte Roche’s residents concerned about the retaining wall

Home flooded in Winchester Hills

Water interruption notice for Winchester Hills and Suideroord

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