One of the many shedding chimneys at Arvida's village in Tauranga. Photo / Alan Gibson
One of the many shedding chimneys at Arvida's village in Tauranga. Photo / Alan Gibson
A resident of Tauranga’s $300 million-plus five-star Bethlehem Shores retirement village says having a “naked chimney” isn’t good enough and it’s time NZX-listed Arvida Group fixed it.
The resident was responding to a Herald article yesterday about stone cladding failure on some chimneys in the upmarket village ownedby the business with $3.6 billion of assets.
Many chimneys in the village - whose main centre building has a $50,000 entrance chandelier - are without cladding after a widespread system failure, the resident said.
“But it’s been in excess of two-and-a-bit years so it’s been a long wait. The story is that it’s because of Covid,” the resident said about a lack of progress.
Lines of defective chimneys at the village show the scale of problems. Photo / Alan Gibson
“Our naked chimney is not good enough. It became a health and safety issue so they decided to strip the chimneys. Now, they’ve been left like that.
“When we ask when they’re going to be replaced, it’s been hedged off by management for quite some time until Arvida ‘suits’ came down and told us there were issues getting the schist from China.
“They had not ordered enough of it. Only two chimneys have been done in the whole village in all this time.
“There are about 60 or 70 chimneys that need cladding. We were given the option at the last meeting to either have a plaster finish put on it and it painted the same colour as the house and schist,” the resident said.
Jeremy Nicoll, Arvida chief executive said today: “The chimneys have been stripped to avoid any health and safety issues and a team are currently working on the rebuild.
“The process to date has involved engaging with residents, obtaining council approval for a robust fixing system, engaging with a contractor to complete the works and the procurement of the schist from China,” he added.
“The defect was known at the time of the acquisition and allowed for within the purchase consideration.”
Look out Santa: chimneys with an unusual construction defect. Photo / Alan Gibson
The resident said the home had a stylish schist letterbox and schist-clad pillars on the deck “so we wanted the same back on the chimney to match”.
Some residents have chosen plaster covering on their chimney but others still wanted the rock.
Bethlehem Shores has about 150 homes and residents asked management why local schist couldn’t be used.
“Apparently, it’s very expensive,” the resident said.
“It’s obviously a glue that was where these tiles were fixed to the chimneys. The tiles were falling off due to the glue.
“We were told about that ages ago. The glue wasn’t proportionate for the weight of the schist obviously.”
Schist also clads the main village fireplace. Photo / George Novak
Each tile attached to the chimneys had pieces of schist adhered to its face to give the decorative effect.
“My issue is that I’m getting sick of being fudged off with excuses.”
A piece of schist fell from that resident’s chimney into the garden, the resident said - but that was ages ago.
“It wasn’t a major problem. But then, of course, it becomes a health and safety thing so they send people around with hammers and if things came loose, it all had to be stripped down. So we’ve had no cladding but bits of plaster hanging off it since then.”
The cladding failure created no weather issues and the gas fireplace beneath still worked. Apart from the eyesore, the village was well maintained.
Bethlehem Shores has a $50,000 chandelier. Photo / George Novak
“But people are just very fed up about the lack of repairs above their homes. We get some communication but very little.”
Where cladding failures were found, scaffolding is erected, the chimneys are encased in plastic then contractors remove the schist.
That was an ongoing project but the trouble is, although the jobs were started only about two had been finished via recladding.
A new hospital was announced for the site some years ago and although that was under construction, it was very late being delivered and some years behind when residents had hoped it would be built, the resident said.
Nicoll said yesterday: “We’re trying to fix it. It’s just how the schist was fixed to the chimneys. There’s weight. It’s the fixing system.”
The method used to keep the stone in place was at the nub of the problem.
Was it glue or fixings? He isn’t saying.
But “quite a few places” were afflicted, he acknowledged. “It’s something we knew about when we bought it and it was accounted for at that point in time.”
Arvida bought Bethlehem Shores and other villages from Tauranga retirement village pioneer Fraser Sanderson’s business in 2019.
Graham Wilkinson, president of lobby group the Retirement Villages Association, said it was fortunate the residents dId not have to pay for the chimneys to be fixed.
