Billionaire in apartment pickle

Dispute: The Meriton building site at Moore Park. Photo: James Brickwood

One of Australias largest developers has spent six months building a series of inner Sydney apartment towers it is accused of not having full approval to build.

Meriton and the City of Sydney are now facing off in a courtroom, after the council sought an urgent injunction when it claimed the company refused to stop work.

The NSW Land and Environment Court will decide next week whether to force more than 300 workers to down tools at the Waterloo site, where billionaire Harry Triguboff is building 355 apartments across five towers soaring up to 25 storeys high.

Council said the serious and significant breach was uncovered during inspections by its staff about two weeks ago.

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Excavation work, construction of basement car parking and building work up to 10 storeys on a number of buildings has been completed without the necessary approvals being obtained, a spokesman said. The City will not tolerate developers who fail to respect these requirements.

The property giant was granted development consent for the project last year, as well as approval for some preliminary work, but not the construction certificate that is required before building could actually begin.

According to affidavits read out at Fridays hearing, it was the sites senior project manager, Shener Dursun, who failed to lock in this disputed approval.

The court was told Mr Dursun attempted to resolve the problem without telling anyone at the company for fear of losing his job.

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Billionaire in apartment pickle