Architects dumped from apartment blocks to save money

An artist's impression of Spencer Street tower.

Developers are hiring top architects to win tricky high-rise permits, then dumping the architect and watering down their approved designs to save money, it has been claimed.

Gardens are being scrapped, extra apartments squeezed in, cheaper material used and decorative elements cast aside, city planners say.

They say this cost cutting occurs most commonly when property developers pay an inflated price for a block of land because it already has a high-rise planning permit attached.

By paying a premium price for the property, the new owners are forced to find savings elsewhere.

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"Maybe the real estate agent says to them; 'You buy this at this price, there is a good chance you will be able to add 20 storeys on top' [to the existing planning permit]," council's planning chairman Ken Ong said.

"There are buyers out there who don't understand the planning system who believe that."

A number of Melbourne councils are now making it a condition of some high-rise permits for the original architect to be kept on during construction, after becoming frustrated when hard-earned plans were tampered with later by a building or drafting company.

Adopting the new policy, Melbourne City Council recently asked the new planning minister, Richard Wynne, to make it a condition forElenberg Fraser to be kept on as the architect of an 89-storeyhotel and apartment mega-tower proposed for Spencer Street.

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Architects dumped from apartment blocks to save money