By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A developer accused of failing to fix an alleged litany of fire-safety risks in a Dandenong hotel building is facing new charges.
Emad Farag, who owns the City Edge apartment hotel site at 229 Thomas Street, failed to front Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 1 September on the latest charge of occupying the allegedly still-defective building’s first-floor offices without an occupancy permit.
Mr Farag is a director of E & M Farag Pty Ltd, which was also charged with the same alleged offence.
Dreamlizer Pty Ltd, which leases the short-stay apartments and ground-floor retail spaces, has also been charged with occupying the building in contravention of the occupancy permit.
City of Greater Dandenong’s prosecuting lawyer Mathew Sherwell told the court the co-accuseds were occupying the building despite a list of “structural defects” being yet to be fixed.
Mr Farag had yet to appear in court or communicate to the council about the alleged occupancy permit breach, the lawyer said.
“We’ve had no correspondence, no indication from anybody in relation to these proceedings.”
Mr Farag and his company are contesting charges with failing to comply with council-issued building orders to repair the “fire safety and essential safety” defects dating back to 2019 and 2020.
The charges included allegedly failing to follow building orders such as to provide a fire engineer’s report confirming fire-rated walls and doors, and fire separations in the hotel to stop fire spreading and to allow for safe evacuations.
They were also charged by the council with allegedly failing to provide complete safety maintenance records.
In February, a Greater Dandenong building inspector told the court the hotel building failed to comply with essential safety maintenance and checks.
The hotel’s fire-escape had a broken handrail, and some of the escape doors opened “in the wrong directions”, building inspector Peter Truong said.
The escape’s ground-floor exit opened into the foyer rather than out to the street, which “compromised the safety of the occupants supposed to be isolated from fire and smoke”, the court heard.
Some of the fire escape signs were “confusing”, and smoke detectors were missing, Mr Truong said.
The situation was “endangering” the building’s “transient” guests who were “not familiar with their surroundings”, the court heard.
“That’s why the essential safety measures are supposed to be maintained, to mind the safety of the occupants.”
The contest hearing on the alleged building order breaches is set for 5 and 6 December.
The occupancy permit matter was adjourned until 20 October to allow the council more time to supply Mr Farag a list of the defects.
