Paying double rent as demo continues
An oversized bird’s nest of fractured concrete and twisted steel is being piled storeys high, as one of Wellington’s biggest quake building casualties - Reading Cinema car park - is brought down.
Pete McDonald had lived in the Maison Cabriole complex for 16 years before being ordered out of his three-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor in the days after the quake.
Access to his home has been cut off while the car park is demolished, using the same heavy machinery that tore down 61 Molesworth St.
‘‘It was the second time in my life I thought I was going to die in an earthquake; it was reasonably terrifying up there,’’ McDonald said.
‘‘[The building] does shudder and shake pretty bad.’’
McDonald learned he would not be allowed back into his Tory St apartment through a Dominion Post story.
He was now paying rent and power for both his unoccupied apartment as well as a temporary residence for himself, his partner and daughter.
‘‘It is not pleasant. My mother and I are getting a little bit of assistance through the body corporate’s insurance, but it’s not everything and I didn’t have contents insurance, unfortunately.
‘‘All in all, it has been a really expensive process.’’
Wellington City Council project manager Phil Becker said the car park’s demolition was about ‘‘three-quarters complete’’.
‘‘We’ve got some 200 residents who are still out of their homes and it’s looking like the second or third week of March that we’ll be able to get them back in.
‘‘Over the course of the demolition, the risk to some of the surrounding buildings lessens, so the businesses can get inside in a staged way, so we’ve been trying to get them in as soon as we can given the risks.’’