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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Trestrail housing development mortgage mess

by

Joshua Seemungal
424 days ago
20231126

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

There is no clear time­line for re­me­di­al work to fin­ish on the 110 apart­ment units at the HDC Tre­strail Land De­vel­op­ment where struc­tur­al de­fects have been iden­ti­fied.

It is like­ly to cost be­tween $100 mil­lion to $150 mil­lion to un­der­take re­pairs to the units, ex­perts es­ti­mat­ed. The in­de­pen­dent ex­perts said most, if not all, of the apart­ments would have to be de­mol­ished.

While the HDC has not paid for the work done by Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that mort­gage agree­ments for most, if not all, apart­ment units are closed/have been com­plet­ed.

But peo­ple seek­ing hous­ing have been left wait­ing more than three years, un­sure when their dream homes will be de­liv­ered.

In 2019, for­mer hous­ing Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell said the HDC was well be­hind sched­ule on the Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment. HDC falls un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment.

As con­firmed by a mem­ber of the Tre­strail fam­i­ly, around $77 mil­lion was spent in 2011 to ac­quire Tre­strail Farms in D’Abadie.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Zones D and E-1 of the de­vel­op­ment, which is un­der con­struc­tion by Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed, is a de­sign, build and fi­nance FIDIC con­tract be­lieved to be val­ued at around $150 mil­lion. Raghu­nanan’s com­pa­ny has pro­vid­ed fi­nanc­ing for the project.

With the pro­ject­ed high cost of re­pair work, due to ini­tial con­struc­tion work de­scribed by mul­ti­ple HDC and in­dus­try sources as poor, there is no guar­an­tee of a com­plet­ed project in the short or medi­um term.

Con­trac­tor Ricky Raghu­nanan has de­nied claims that his work at the site was poor, say­ing to Guardian Me­dia that there was no is­sue but could not give an es­ti­mat­ed com­ple­tion date for the project.

“You should dri­ve on the project and see it, then talk. It’s just some lit­tle re­pairs. That’s all we have to do. The work was nev­er shod­dy or any­thing like that. We have plen­ty fin­ished al­ready, but you have to fin­ish every­thing be­fore you hand it over. It’s about two or three build­ings that have to be hand­ed over be­fore we fin­ish every­thing. When you do­ing a big project like that, you will have lit­tle re­pairs to do,” Raghu­nanan told Guardian Me­dia.

So we did just that.

Tour­ing Tre­strail

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the site with an in­de­pen­dent in­dus­try ex­pert (whose iden­ti­ty is pro­tect­ed). The site was guard­ed by se­cu­ri­ty guards and we were able to gain en­try.

From a dis­tance, the 110 units ap­peared to be com­plet­ed and ready for oc­cu­pa­tion. How­ev­er, up­on clos­er in­spec­tion, grass and weeds were grow­ing in the dri­ve­ways. Many of the streets con­nect­ing the apart­ment build­ings were slant­ed and un­even, and sev­er­al de­fects on the build­ings were ev­i­dent. For any layper­son, it was easy to iden­ti­fy cracks in the in­side and out­side of many of the units.

The in­de­pen­dent in­dus­try ex­pert who ac­com­pa­nied us iden­ti­fied sev­er­al is­sues.

The ex­pert said there were sym­met­ri­cal cracks in­side and out­side of many units, the floor was sep­a­rat­ing in­side some of the units, many of the units were show­ing dif­fer­en­tial set­tle­ment (which oc­curs when part of the foun­da­tion set­tles more or faster than the oth­er), some of the units were slant­i­ng, there were mark­ings on ex­te­ri­or walls show­ing the like­ly pres­ence of wa­ter and hol­low­ness and there was paint bulging.

The ex­pert de­scribed the work as ‘seem­ing­ly poor’.

There was no sign that the re­quired re­me­di­al work start­ed.

Guardian Me­dia was able to get a rough es­ti­mate of what re­me­di­al works may cost by ref­er­enc­ing a leaked CEP Lim­it­ed re­port pre­sent­ed to the HDC in Oc­to­ber 2022. In CEP Lim­it­ed’s re­port, which Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed cost the HDC be­tween $100,000 to $200,000, the re­pairs re­quired on ten ex­am­ined units were iden­ti­fied. We then cross-ref­er­enced the re­port’s find­ings with in­de­pen­dent in­dus­try ex­perts to de­ter­mine if the re­pairs sug­gest­ed were need­ed in all 110 units, and we al­so re­ceived es­ti­mates on the ap­prox­i­mate costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­pairs/re­me­di­al work.

The in­dus­try ex­pert who vis­it­ed the site and re­viewed CEP Lim­it­ed’s re­port es­ti­mat­ed that re­pairs on zones D and E-1 of the project could cost be­tween $100 mil­lion to $150 mil­lion. The ex­pert said that the re­pair in­volves a lot of spe­cialised work that few lo­cal com­pa­nies do and the ma­te­r­i­al re­quired is dif­fi­cult and ex­pen­sive to source.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the amount paid to con­struct the 110 units is around the cost it will take to re­pair. Each unit cost be­tween $1 mil­lion to $1.5 mil­lion to con­struct, while re­pair works would be es­ti­mat­ed to be around $3 to $3.5 mil­lion per du­plex. The in­dus­try ex­pert said from what was pro­posed in the re­port and what he/she was able to ex­am­ine, the foun­da­tion of all units will have to be re­paired, while most of, if not all, the apart­ments will have to be con­demned/de­mol­ished.

Works that need to be done

Spe­cial­ist Grout­ing for Foun­da­tion

Ac­cord­ing to ‘Retro­fit/Re­me­di­al Mea­sures’ un­der CEP Lim­it­ed’s re­port, analy­ses re­vealed that the fill be­low the town­house blocks was un­able to sup­port the ap­plied loads of the pro­posed and de­signed two-storey struc­ture.

“The ge­ot­ech­ni­cal en­gi­neer­ing con­sul­tant has thus rec­om­mend­ed im­prov­ing the ex­ist­ing soil con­di­tions to in­crease the soil’s bear­ing ca­pac­i­ty and al­so to re­duce ex­pect­ed build­ing set­tle­ments.

“Based on our dis­cus­sions with var­i­ous tech­ni­cal pro­fes­sion­als in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try, pres­sure grout­ing is con­sid­ered to be the pre­ferred soil im­prove­ment tech­nique to im­ple­ment for this project, con­sid­er­ing that the town­house blocks are al­ready built and to min­imise de­struc­tion to the built el­e­ments,” the re­port stat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to in­dus­try ex­perts, pres­sure grout­ing in­volves in­ject­ing grout ma­te­r­i­al in­to spaces or voids in a foun­da­tion. They said it is a spe­cial­ist job that is cost­ly.

The re­port rec­om­mend­ed the use of AV-275 soil grout de­signed to bind to­geth­er loose gran­u­lar soils. The cost of each five-gal­lon pail of AV-275 soil grout is more than US$500 in the Unit­ed States and is even more ex­pen­sive to source lo­cal­ly.

Crack Re­pairs

It was rec­om­mend­ed that any cracks ob­served should be cleaned and then sealed with a sealant.

New Con­crete Mix for Ma­son­ry Sheer Walls

CEP Lim­it­ed’s re­port found that the ex­ist­ing ma­son­ry sheer walls would like­ly re­quire retro­fit work. It said it would re­quire an in­de­pen­dent agency to con­duct field ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cis­es to de­ter­mine if re­in­forc­ing bars are in place for the walls and whether con­crete ex­ists in the cores of the walls as re­quired. In the ab­sence of those re­quire­ments, the re­port said it would re­quire re­mov­ing the wall ren­der, prepar­ing the block wall sur­face to re­ceive ap­proved ce­ment mor­tar mix, an­chor­ing to both faces of the block walls, and ap­ply­ing, smooth­ing and cur­ing a con­crete mor­tar mix.

Main Re­in­forced Con­crete Beams to be In­stalled

The re­port rec­om­mend­ed that the wall ren­der must be re­moved and in­spect­ed to de­ter­mine whether con­crete beams ex­ist as re­quired. If it is de­ter­mined that the beams do not ex­ist, then the ma­son­ry block walls would have to be bro­ken along the line and depth where the beams should be; An ad­e­quate re­in­force­ment cage would have to be in­sert­ed; in­stall con­crete spac­er blocks; fill the cav­i­ty with ap­proved con­crete, re­move form­work; and then ren­der walls and ap­ply primer and coat­ing.

Con­crete Re­pairs

The re­port said that if the ‘as-built’ con­di­tion is not in ac­cor­dance with the struc­tur­al draw­ings, then the En­gi­neer of Record should eval­u­ate and de­cide if the ‘as-built’ con­di­tion meets the ap­plic­a­ble strength and code re­quire­ments for ac­cep­tance. If the eval­u­a­tion proves that the re­quire­ments are not sat­is­fied, then the RC first-floor beams (in­clud­ing the RC ring beam) will have to be de­mol­ished and re­con­struct­ed in ac­cor­dance with the struc­tur­al draw­ings.

Re­in­forced Con­crete First Floor Slab May Have to be De­mol­ished

The re­port found that based on a vi­su­al in­spec­tion of the cored con­crete sam­ples through the RC first floor slab of Town­house Block in the ar­eas where cor­ru­gat­ed gal­vanised sheet­ing was used, no re­in­forc­ing bars were ob­served. In the ab­sence of the re­in­forc­ing bars and the ex­treme­ly weak con­crete com­pres­sive cylin­der strength, the re­port rec­om­mend­ed that a load test be per­formed by an in­de­pen­dent test­ing agency. It said that based on the re­sults, a de­ter­mi­na­tion from the En­gi­neer of Record can be made on whether to de­mol­ish and re­build the RC first-floor slab.

Hon­ey­comb­ing Re­pairs

Hon­ey­comb­ing is a term used to de­scribe ar­eas of a con­crete sur­face that are coarse and stony. It may be caused by in­suf­fi­cient fine ma­te­r­i­al in a mix due to poor mix­ing/meld­ing or in­cor­rect ag­gre­gate grad­ing. CEL Lim­it­ed ob­served this on the struc­tures and sug­gest­ed that cor­rod­ed steel re­in­forc­ing bars may need to be cleaned and have an an­ti-cor­ro­sive coat­ing ap­plied. It al­so rec­om­mend­ed that a con­crete bond­ing agent be used and the con­crete cav­i­ties be filled with non-shrink grout and treat­ed with a cur­ing agent.

Ques­tions for HDC

Based on Guardian Me­dia’s find­ings, the fol­low­ing ques­tions were sent to the HDC on No­vem­ber 15.

1. Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed un­der­stands that the struc­tur­al and in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues af­fect­ing the ten units iden­ti­fied in CEP Lim­it­ed’s re­port ap­ply or like­ly ap­ply to all 110 units of the Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment 1-R Project. Can the HDC con­firm?

2. Can the HDC give a de­fin­i­tive time­line or time lim­it for the com­ple­tion of re­pair work to be car­ried out by con­trac­tor Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed at the Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment 1-R Project?

3. Was a cease-and-de­sist let­ter or a sus­pen­sion of works let­ter ever is­sued by the HDC to con­trac­tor Ricky Raghu­nanan in re­la­tion to works done at the Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment project?

4. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that mort­gages have been ap­proved for all 110 units of the Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment 1-R project and that the sale of 110 units has been pre-ap­proved or ap­proved. Can the HDC con­firm?

5. What was the HDC’s pro­cure­ment process in hir­ing Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed to con­struct units as part of the Tre­strail Project

6. Has Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed pre­vi­ous­ly con­struct­ed apart­ments/homes for the HDC? If so, for which projects?

7. Giv­en the time that has elapsed since Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed be­gan con­struc­tion work at Tre­strail De­vel­op­ment–and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of agree­ments be­ing statute-barred–does the HDC main­tain the abil­i­ty to ter­mi­nate the con­tract with Ricky Raghu­nanan Lim­it­ed?

8. Does the HDC main­tain the abil­i­ty to take le­gal ac­tion against the con­trac­tor for fail­ure to de­liv­er with­in a stip­u­lat­ed time­line?

9. What is the ap­prox­i­mate cost–es­ti­mat­ed by en­gi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als or by the HDC or the con­trac­tor–to re­pair the 110 units of the Tre­strail Project 1-R?

HDC re­sponds

This was the re­sponse from the HDC:

“Giv­en that this mat­ter has al­ready been ven­ti­lat­ed in the me­dia, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HDC) refers to its ear­li­er re­sponse dat­ed Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 19, 2023 (a copy is at­tached). The HDC is cur­rent­ly work­ing with the con­trac­tor to bring this mat­ter to a suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion.”

HDC had said in an ear­li­er re­sponse that its board of man­age­ment raised con­cerns about cer­tain struc­tur­al is­sues on the project and com­mis­sioned CEP Lim­it­ed to con­duct a study in re­la­tion to de­fec­tive works.

HDC had said it will not take pos­ses­sion of these town­hous­es or pay the con­trac­tor un­til these de­fects are reme­died.


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