Village Building Company goes over the odds to win Gungahlin dogfight

time_killer said :

Damn…. I take my dog for a bit of a run in that paddock!

Hopefully the first thing they do is extend Mirrabei Drive to Horse park so that there isnt even more traffic flying down jabnungga avenue. Though, considering the way the rest on Gungahlin has been planned they’ll wait until all 400+ blocks are occupied before they start work on that!

Bad news on that I’m sorry to say. Mirrabei will take a hard right to join HPD up at the Moncrieff group centre. The logical extension of Mirrabei west to HPD will be preserved as a green corridor only.

I took issue with this at a recent meeting with LAPS/LDA given the (I thought) obvious impact it will cause on rat-running through Burramurra. It will take more than us complaining about it though – the residents there will have to own the issue too.

Damn…. I take my dog for a bit of a run in that paddock!

Hopefully the first thing they do is extend Mirrabei Drive to Horse park so that there isnt even more traffic flying down jabnungga avenue. Though, considering the way the rest on Gungahlin has been planned they’ll wait until all 400+ blocks are occupied before they start work on that!

Just read that part of the Casey concept plan. The “big” shopping centre will be to the South of the suburb and there will be a little one (ie. local shops) in the Northern part.

TP 3000 said :

What isn’t mentioned in the press release is that the Casey Group Centre will be located directly opposite to top left corner of the yellow in the picture above.

While not much has been released about the Casey Group Centre, I am led to believe it will be similar to Weston/Erindale/Jamison & include an extension of the ACTION Intertown (now Rapid) network.

Surely that should be the bottom left corner?

I’m one of the poor sods who will become neighbours of the village. I’m buying a cardboard box in Casey, because it’s the only thing I can afford. So I’ll be following the development with some interest and hope it won’t turn into a typical Gungahlin slum. Casey’s not too bad. They’ve left some trees and are planting street trees at least.

TP 3000 said :

What isn’t mentioned in the press release is that the Casey Group Centre will be located directly opposite to top left corner of the yellow in the picture above.

While not much has been released about the Casey Group Centre, I am led to believe it will be similar to Weston/Erindale/Jamison & include an extension of the ACTION Intertown (now Rapid) network.

Sorry to move away from the original topic, but ‘rapid’ buses to/from Weston/Erindale/Jamison sounds positive! When is this planned? I did a quick search on the ACTION site and found nothing about it?

TP 3000 said :

What isn’t mentioned in the press release is that the Casey Group Centre will be located directly opposite to top left corner of the yellow in the picture above.

Not according to the Casey Concept Plan, see pages 35/36.

The Casey Group Centre is going on the corner of Horse Park & Clarrie Hermes Drives (ie: big empty space lower left of picture), with the Casey Local Centre going upper left where you’ve identified.

What isn’t mentioned in the press release is that the Casey Group Centre will be located directly opposite to top left corner of the yellow in the picture above.

While not much has been released about the Casey Group Centre, I am led to believe it will be similar to Weston/Erindale/Jamison & include an extension of the ACTION Intertown (now Rapid) network.

wooster said :

Due to the erosion of the ability of state and territory gov’ts to raise revenue through a century or so of reinterpretation of the Constitution has meant that gov’ts are more and more dependent on rates, stamp duty on transfers, etc, related to land sales.
Constrict supply, and you artificially raise UVs.

This is actually key to the affordability problem. State governments are very much reliant on stamp duty etc. as a source of revenue. As the monopoly supplier of greenfield land, the ACT government can maximise revenue from sales by limiting supply and jacking up prices.

The developers are doing very nicely as well, 475 dwellings on $36.25 million worth of land is $76,000 per block of land (on average), which they are going to sell for $220-$355k a piece. I can tell you it doesn’t cost $144k-$279k to develop the infrastructure for each block of land.

wooster said :

2 bedroom house, probably on a block around 500m2, for $335?

You’ve got to be kidding me if that’s affordable housing.
Certainly agree with Grumpy Old Fart, to an extent, but proffer a different view:
Due to the erosion of the ability of state and territory gov’ts to raise revenue through a century or so of reinterpretation of the Constitution has meant that gov’ts are more and more dependent on rates, stamp duty on transfers, etc, related to land sales.
Constrict supply, and you artificially raise UVs. Revenues are tied (largely) to UVs.
Add to that a population thats heavily invested in the current scheme (of needless housing restriction), and you won’t actually get any meaningful change via elections.
Canberra is by no means short of land. To argue otherwise is, frankly, ridiculous by intl standards.
Sadly, the only solution is to see a correction by broader changes in the market.
I for one, wont be sad to see the demise of the generation of ‘ self-anointed ‘property investors’ who’ve realised extraordinary returns, and as yet, have not seen the corollary falls that history teaches us will come again. Though perhaps sooner than many think.
Zeitgeist is a hell of a thing…

Forget the 500m2 block! The ones at Bonner are on average less than 150m2! They sell them for $83,000 and the house + land package costs you $307,000.

As for the property investors… If house/land prices plummet, they might have sell their second 4WD, but the ones that will be really farked will be those who are paying their whole monthly income on a stupendous mortgage on one of those glorified cardboard boxes.

Lego Land V2.0.

2 bedroom house, probably on a block around 500m2, for $335?

You’ve got to be kidding me if that’s affordable housing.
Certainly agree with Grumpy Old Fart, to an extent, but proffer a different view:
Due to the erosion of the ability of state and territory gov’ts to raise revenue through a century or so of reinterpretation of the Constitution has meant that gov’ts are more and more dependent on rates, stamp duty on transfers, etc, related to land sales.
Constrict supply, and you artificially raise UVs. Revenues are tied (largely) to UVs.
Add to that a population thats heavily invested in the current scheme (of needless housing restriction), and you won’t actually get any meaningful change via elections.
Canberra is by no means short of land. To argue otherwise is, frankly, ridiculous by intl standards.
Sadly, the only solution is to see a correction by broader changes in the market.
I for one, wont be sad to see the demise of the generation of ‘ self-anointed ‘property investors’ who’ve realised extraordinary returns, and as yet, have not seen the corollary falls that history teaches us will come again. Though perhaps sooner than many think.
Zeitgeist is a hell of a thing…

Skidbladnir said :

The Frots said :

Are there any maps available of exactly where this is??

ACTMAPi doesn’t allow hotlinking, so I have highlighted the block and emailed a copy to Jb.

The yellow is the block just sold.

PS: ACTMAPi isn’t hard to use, try it out.

Thanks for that – appreciated!

Gungahlin Al said :

The Frots said :

Are there any maps available of exactly where this is??

It is the missing chunk out of Ngunnawal, here:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gungahlin+Australian+Capital+Territory,+Australia&ll=-35.162407,149.107368&spn=0.012665,0.016437&t=h&z=16

Finally get rid of that bloody pile of fill. Now about the other pile on the south of Franklin…

Ha – thanks Al.

There never will again be anything such as cheap housing under our current system. The simple reality is when you have multiple bidders vying for the same block the only people who will win are the Government and the developers.

As a society we have painted ourselves into a corner by placing value on the land in the ACT that we never actually own.

Maybe a better scheme would be to place say a $2,000 dollar a year repayment on the block for the 99 year lease period with a portion going to the Government and a portion to the land developer. Instead of facing horrendous mortgage repayments you just have a larger rates bill. This way instead of a one off lump payment the government has ongoing revenue stream over the entire lease period.

Short term loss for longterm income

This may be the only viable way that any newcomers can afford to build a house without being burdened with the cost of land they do not own. When you sell your house you only sell the house.

Yes the obvious problem is that you may not get the block you want bcause you are not actually buying it and the blocks may have to go into a lottery draw. The other problem is that you need to account for the stupidity and greed of folks given that they do not have to pay for the land the houses may become larger.

I for one would be happy to sell the block of land I am on back to the government and pay a reasonable annual lease fee for the land as it would have a dramatic impact on my mortgage.

Does that mean the new “affordable housing” limit will be $335,000 in the near future? That’s a 2% increase. Which isn’t much, but house prices hardly went up at all in the past year.

Anywho, I’m sure they’ll make a nice little profit and it will look as awful as all the other new developments in the area.

“I am delighted that the Village Building Company was successful in purchasing this land,” said David Dawes, the Director General of the Economic Development Directorate.”

No doubt – this is the trade-off for Winnell after “gifting” $1m to the Stanhope memorial gardens i.e. the arboretum. Nice little earner there, Bob.

Only $36 million? What a bargain! I wish regular people could buy land that cheap and not have to pay the extra land developer fees…

The Frots said :

Are there any maps available of exactly where this is??

ACTMAPi doesn’t allow hotlinking, so I have highlighted the block and emailed a copy to Jb.

The yellow is the block just sold.

PS: ACTMAPi isn’t hard to use, try it out.

The Frots said :

Are there any maps available of exactly where this is??

It is the missing chunk out of Ngunnawal, here:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gungahlin+Australian+Capital+Territory,+Australia&ll=-35.162407,149.107368&spn=0.012665,0.016437&t=h&z=16

Finally get rid of that bloody pile of fill. Now about the other pile on the south of Franklin…

Blocks from $220,000!! WOW, that’s cheap [not]. I bet a 3 bed duplex with no yard will go for at least
$400,000+. Affordable housing at its best [LOL].

Are there any maps available of exactly where this is??