By Mikayla van Loon
In the wild winds at the start of December, a large gum tree lost its footing and fell onto The Bridge House in Kilsyth, leaving a small amount of damage to the building.
Japara House board of management chairperson Mark Doubleday said while it was disappointing it didn’t cause significant damage but repairs will need to take place.
“A fallen tree on a house always looks dramatic and sometimes it can be more serious than what it looks. In this case it fell on the corner of the front room. It doesn’t appear to have impacted the walls and it’s dented the roof,” he said.
As a council owned facility, workers from Yarra Ranges Council were quick to respond by removing the tree and clearing the eaves of non-friable asbestos.
“They had a hygiene and asbestos assessment. There was asbestos in the eaves, that’s not unusual for buildings of that age.
“It’s called non friable but it means that the asbestos sheeting is perfectly safe unless it’s impacted and it creates dust.
“Once the term asbestos is mentioned people can get quite reactive and for good reason, it’s a scary product. However, in this case, we were fairly confident that it was not extensive.”
Mr Doubleday said the house was made completely safe in four days, with repairs to the roof scheduled for the coming weeks.
“We’ve got clearance from the council to be able to re-occupy the building and use it excluding the room where the impact took place.
“Given the time of year, it does make it difficult we’re about to go into the December, January period so they’re saying five to six weeks.
“I would probably add an extra margin for that just for the availability of trades to be able to do the job. So within two months, we’ve got an indication that the repairs will be done.”
Looking forward to reopening properly when the repairs are complete, Mr Doubleday said the priority initially will be to get back into the garden.
“We want the gardening crew to continue to work and do cleanup because of the last two years of lockdown our ability to maintain and develop the garden has been severely restricted. So our priorities are to restore the garden to a usable space.”
There has been some hesitancy from people about returning to group situations but Mr Doubleday said the option of an outdoor gardening group has been a welcome initiative.
“Outside, we see it as an important space because it’s outside and people will have more confidence to do things in that environment. So that’s really going to be a priority.”
Mr Doubleday said there has also been some interest from local community groups and individuals to get back into the space and reactivate their programs but he would like to see more people hiring the art studio and other rooms.
