Cracking up? Associations between building defects and mental health in new Australian apartment buildings

ABSTRACT

The health implications of poorly constructed apartments are a global concern. Australian cities have experienced rapid increases in apartment development; and like many international cities, there have been widespread reports of construction defects. While there is anecdotal evidence about the stress defects cause residents, the health impacts of these specific problems have received little attention. This study investigates whether defects in contemporary multi-owned apartments – built during Australia’s recent apartment construction boom – are associated with poorer mental health. Residents (n = 1195) in relatively new apartment buildings (n = 114) from areas of low, mid and high disadvantage in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth completed questions on building defects and mental health. For every additional defect, mental wellbeing reduced by 0.45 points (p = 0.003) and risk of psychological distress increased by 33% (p = 0.000). There were no differences by tenure or area disadvantage. The association between defects and mental health may be aggravated by the bureaucratic obstacles faced by owner-occupiers and rental tenants when seeking or negotiating rectification work. To mitigate the negative mental health impacts of building defects in strata/condominium buildings, policy interventions are needed that minimise the incidence and severity of defects and streamline rectification processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Apartment buildings
• condominium
• strata
• housing conditions
• construction defects
• mental health

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Acknowledgments

SF is supported by an RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship, and PH by a Healthway Research Fellowship (# 32992) and the Australian Urban Design Research Centre. The High Life Study is funded by the Western Australian (WA) Health Promotion Foundation (Healthway; #31986) and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) (DE160100140). Study collaborators providing in-kind support include the Department of Planning Lands and Heritage (WA), Office of the Government Architect (WA), Government Architect NSW (GANSW), Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), Landcorp and Heart Foundation. The assistance of apartment residents, resident associations, architects, developers and local government in the study is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [SF]. The data are not publicly available due to ethics restrictions e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DE160100140]; Healthway [31986]; Healthway [31986].

Notes on contributors

Sarah Foster

Sarah Foster is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University. Her research focuses on furthering our understanding of the impact of the urban environment on a range of social and health outcomes. She currently leads a research program examining the policy and practice of designing healthy equitable higher density communities to help inform the content of apartment design guidelines.

Paula Hooper

Paula Hooper is the Co-Director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia. Her multidisciplinary research work has studied the impact of the built environment and urban design on health and wellbeing and has had a strong focus on policy-relevance and research-translation, for which she has won numerous planning industry-based awards.

Hazel Easthope

Hazel Easthope is a Scientia Associate Professor at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She has qualifications in sociology and human geography and researches in the areas of urban studies and housing. She has a particular research interest in residential satisfaction and the intersections between mobility, identity and home. Much of her research focuses on the development, management, governance and planning implications of private apartment buildings and estates and the lived experiences of their residents.