If Sydney is to ever have a modern road system it is becoming clear that underground tunnels will play a big role in speeding cars across the city. We are lucky that this city sits on a massive sandstone underlay that is ideal for those giant boring machines that are bringing road and rail systems to reality.
What has long worried home owners is the extent of the tunnelling proposed and the twisted, spaghetti like interchanges that are taking place at an ever shallower depth beneath their feet. The initial plans promised that this work would be undertaken 35 to 65 metres deep in most parts of the city but revisions are now taking it to just eight metres below the surface.
What has many residents worried is the uncertainty about how house repairs caused by tunnelling cracks will be arbitrated when it comes to compensation and repair. Many houses that were perfectly stable before the tunnelling have developed movement cracks which the road builders deny are caused by their activities. They are quick to lay the blame on the drought. This lack of rain has caused the soil to dry out and consequent land movement is simply nature doing its thing. It is becoming obvious that finality will come into play in the courts when these road construction problems reach finality.
Some new plans envisage tunnels just six metres below the surface and this raises the question of what road noise residents will hear in their homes. Some residents claim to hear a " vague grinding noise " in the night and believe this is caused by the boring machine working below. They wonder how traffic noise will impinge on their home once these tunnels become part of the road system.
The other unknown is how these tunnels will impact on house prices in the general real estate system. This is a particular worry to owners with a large mortgage which they will still be paying off years into the future. In Real Estate the motto " position is everything " is a valid truism and we simply do not know how the market - and importantly the banks and their lending policies - will react to homes situated above a road tunnel.
All this raises a huge question mark over people living in south Sydney. A divided road to link the St Peters exchange with the F6 at Waterfall is long overdue and it seems the land set aside for its construction is now deemed unsuitable. Land resumption for such a corridor will probably force this road underground because of the cost factor. It is therefore likely that the residents of the Sutherland Shire will one day have to live with a new road tunnel beneath their homes and all the uncertainty that goes with its planning.
One thing is fairly certain. Tunnelling damage is more pronounced in older homes constructed with materials that are no longer in use. The main value is the land beneath and it seems likely that damage will be discounted because of this age factor. If residents with what they consider tunnelling damage expect to receive adequate compensation then that will be a legal fight to be fought in the courts a long way into the future.
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