NEWS
Brisbane City Council has sidestepped questions on how long the owners of the eyesore Walton’s building in Fortitude Valley will be given to rectify 65 defects outlined in a show-cause notice issued late last month – or what action council intends to take if such a deadline passes without substantial remedial work being undertaken.
The Independent put both questions to Lord Mayor Graham Quirk but he ignored them, only answering two others relating to two major safety concerns facing Valley pedestrians that were not addressed by the show-cause notice. This paper had asked why similar action had not been taken against the owners of the Happy Valley building adjacent to Walton’s over the often-stationary escalators that service Wickham Street, or the disgraceful state of the walkway through Walton’s to Valley Metro which The Independent understands is that property owner’s legal responsibility as well.
In his response, the Lord Mayor said council had also recently identified a number of issues with the Happy Valley building (including those identified by this newspaper) and was “currently pursuing them with the owners”. “I’ve made it very clear both publicly and privately that the appearance of Valley buildings must kept to an acceptable standard and I will be using everything in my power to make that happen,” Cr Quirk said.
Some of the defects covered in the show-cause notice might be remedied by a team of handymen over a solid weekend but others – such as painting the building externally, replacing boarded windows with glass, reinstating facades “to original condition” and repairing walls with dry-rot or termite damage could take hundreds of thousands of dollars.
