8 August 2006

Caravan park disaster over

| johnboy
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The ABC is reporting that Josip Zivco and Koomarri have done very well out of the rest of us with the Government bankrolling a deal to let the Narrabundah Long Stay caravan park stay where it is.

I’d say the park residents have, in the end, done quite well, except now they shall languish in the care of Housing ACT.

Jon Stanhope has put out a media release celebrating the news.

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Pandy said “The ink was hardly dry on the property transfer…” and that’s all it needed, signed sealed and delivered. Would you not move into your new house after the sale just ‘cause the vendor thought that they’d changed their mind?

The deal was ‘like for like” Consolidated Builders were compensated appropriately for a fuck up orchestrated by the Smyth Government and abetted by Koomari. Stanhope has made the best of a bad situation that avoids, in the great part, dumping a bunch of people into the Government housing pool. The Govt. was always going to do well on betterment tax for any change of lease, whether or not it was at the caravan site or across the road – this way about a hundred people keep their humble abodes and Consolidated gets the equivalent of what they paid for – in my book the ACT tax payer should consider themselves lucky that Consolidated were gracious enough to accept the deal.

A caravan park. But Uncle Josif is free to get a change of lease purpose clause. It will cost him millions and the ACT will get their money back.

So what lease purpose will be applied to Uncle Joe’s new block across the road?

The ink was hardly dry on the property transfer, when Koomari asked Jo to tear-up the contract. He told them to piss-off in front of Sonic: he knew he could screw Sonic further. Therefore Koomari was prepared to take-back management of the caravan park before they could off-load it again.

Pandy you can’t just go around compulsorily aquiring land – we don’t live in Chavez’s Venezuala or Stalin’s Russia, the government must use its powers to compulsorily acquire very sparingly (ie when it is necessary to build public infrastructure, eg major roads).

It would not bode well for the economic standing of the territory if potential investors were concerned that the government would compulsorily acquire their property on a political whim.

One upside is that ACT Housing are now sitting one hell of a fat land investment that they can sell for another dollar further down the yellow brick road.

Koomarri doesn’t want to run a caravan park. That’s why they sold it in the first place. So your solution fails there.

Stoopid Sonic should have resumed the land. Koomari was prepared to hand back the money if they handed back the block.

Sonic resumes the land, pays Jo the money he paid for it, Koomari gives the money they got to Sonic, Sonic hands the caravan site back to Koomari. Status Quo.

Hang on people, the sale of the caravan park was for around $2m, the swap was supposed to be “like for like” so the land across the way, that is ‘green-field’ doesn’t have the improvements that the original site had – power through out, sewage connected, roads, fencing, electricity across the site etc.

Having said that, I wish I could get people like the ones they have at Consolidated Builders working for me – the real crime here will be if those chaps don’t get a bloody fantastic Christmas bonus.

Glad to see that taxpayers are forking out a shitload to make-up for the stupidity of the former liberal government.

Watch for a hefty donation to the ALP from Consolidated Builders.

According to todays CT, the developer is to get a comparable block across the road from the ex Koomari site – apparently its not as good. So our financially strapped Guvmint has decided to give him the block plus $1.5mill. Am I missing something here? He buys a caravan park for $1mill, evicts the occupants, all hell breaks loose, and he winds up with a comparable block plus $1.5 mill for an investment of $1 mill. This is Government largess gone mad! What does the ACT ratepayer get out of this except inflated rates bills to pay for this financial nonsense. This result cannot be justified!

James-T-Kirk1:58 pm 09 Aug 06

alert (“beer”);

James-T-Kirk1:56 pm 09 Aug 06

Yes, they brought –

Wait for it

!!!!!

They sold them to pay the rent. Oh, hang on, they didn’t actually pay the rent! Something’s going on here…

James-T-Kirk1:54 pm 09 Aug 06

Last time I went on the M5, the rate for a multi axel vehicle was higher than a car. I suspect that the govmnut is looking forward to the increased revenue when they make the parkway a tollway!.

Oh – yes, that’s right… I forgot that most of the vans out there don’t have wheles on them…

Why does the government pander to a group of people whose homes have more wheels than the cars they drive?

VYBV8, I couldn’t have said that better myself.

James-T-Kirk11:04 am 09 Aug 06

VY – Get stuffed – That is entirely unreasonable.

I Myself have decided to move in – Just like being at home, I will never have to worry about rent again. Bloody bewdiful.

I might even keep my rental properties while I suck the public teat dry. Yumm

I find it interesting that the residents bought or rent mobile homes that are not mobile, on land they don’t own, many of them fail to pay rent, and then they wonder why the owner wants to offload the lot! I know the residents want to stay forever, but geez, everyone else has to suck it up and organise their own housing, including when they have to move.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m getting a bit sick and tired of hearing how hard done by these residents are.

On 666 the morning teh Cm suggested that the Koomari contribution might be around $750K but that a final amount was to be negotiated.

We’re still wondering why Koomarri isn’t repaying all its ill gotten gains to the ACT government.

On the plus side, charitable organisations that aren’t Koomarri should hopefully be getting a better piece of the donation pie…

Too much political connection between certain ppl at Koomarri and a former ACT MLA.

I wouldn’t be popping the passion pop out at the Park until the ink is dry and the whole racket has been sewn up.

I smell a well orchestrated spin campaign – govt looks good, developer most likely gets a better parcel of land + some further $$ incentives and the residents can remain on site relishing in the lifestyle of choice.

Don’t know about your title there JB ‘Disaster’ puts me in the mind of a tsunami/fire going through the park with half the residents killed. I would have thought Fiasco would be more appropriate.

An interesting saga. Ended well for the residents. Not much was ever said by the Government about Koomarri’s actions (I think we can hazard a guess as to why). They cashed in big time on what was basically an asset provided gratis to them. The Government made much of the Liberals giving it to Koomarri for nothing.I’m just a little suspicious. Senior Koomarri executives got through that exercise pretty well unscathed. If it didn’t suit Koomarri surely they should have handed it back to the Government/Canberra public and try to do a deal on costs?

3000th since we moved over to wordpress last year, another 5000+ on the old site.

30,000 comments on this site coming up though.

Hey … is this the 3000th post on the-riotact?

The page ID seems to suggest it!

Oh Mr Evil, you are cruel.

I bet there are am lot of defaulters cheering that ACT Housing is taking over the running, because they know they will not be chucked-out when they default again.

So does this mean that all outstanding rents will now remain uncollected?

Sorry if I’m a bit dense Johnboy, but how have the residents “done quite well”? We’ve had nearly a year of uncertainty about our future, and if you have a good look at Stanhope’s press release, the agreement will be signed by Friday the 11th, but the land swap could take up to 18 months to be finalised, and there’s a fantastic get-out clause which I quote: “In the event the swap does not take place, ownership of the park will remain with Consolidated Builders.”
The land swap is definitely a huge step forward for us, it gives us a much firmer base to go forward from, but that’s all. We are just at the beginning of a process which can only be considered over when there is legislation in place in the ACT, in line with most other states and territories, that prevents this scenario from ever happening again.

The only people who have done well out of this fiasco are Koomarri and Consolidated Builders. And, as you rightly point out, the entire Canberra community has had significant financial penalties imposed on it.

James-T-Kirk1:54 pm 08 Aug 06

Which of them owns shares in the companies that got rich out of this?

I’m glad this debacle is over and the residents can stay in their homes.
Simon Corbell could have prevented this whole drama and instead failed to act until the deal was done. Perhaps it was this that led Jon S to take some of Simon’s portfolios away from him.

Languishing? Haven’t we established that Housing ACT are the best landlords anybody could ask for?

Or was Deb Foskey living in a slum the whole time?

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