17 July 2006

We've all been had - The Narrabundah longstay caravan park saga continues

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times reports that the ongoing debacle of the Narrabundah longstay caravan park is nearing a conclusion.

The pirates at Koomarri have profited mightily from selling the park they were given for $1 (after years of neglectful management of the park) and now the developer, Consolidated Builders, is going to be given an equivalent chunk of land and the Government will go back to managing the park. But first we the taxpayer are going to have to pay for the new land to have roads, electricity, and water hooked up.

Koomarri wins, Consolidated Builders wins, the long-stay caravan park residents win their cheap inner Canberra rent. The rest of us have to pay for everyone else’s wins.

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I and many other find it quite disturbing that these sorts of things are happening. Under what protection are the deal makers of this allowed to go un-beheaded. It is embezzlement.

I can’t really add anything to that. You’re all spot on.
Can’t these sort of deals (where publicly owned land is being sold off to a preferred developer) be subject to a cooling off period of say 3 months, so that all ‘other’ interests ie the community of tax/ rates payers interests are addressed? These deals should not be done ‘behind closed doors’ and should be open and transparentin their process and decisions.

Well isn’t the ACT Govt stupid. You sell a piece of real estate (irrespective of whats on it) for $1 with a condition that they don’t sell it for 5 years…. Guess whats gonna happen once the time has expired…

The giveaway for $1 was Liberal party stupidity. But this “compensation” thing is Labour party stupidity – if you don’t want him to be able to rezone, make sure that he can’t in the first place.

The Planning and Land Council, established by Simon Corbell in 2003, has just been abolished. The PLC was advised of the decision last month, but Simon so far has made no public announcement (that I’m aware of).

Yet another nail in the coffin of community oversight of planning issues in the ACT, and yet another nail in the coffin of planning governance and accountability. The PLC was “part of a new structure for the governance of planning and land management in the ACT”.

It provided “an independent source of high level planning and land policy advice to the Minister for Planning and ACTPLA”.

It wasn’t as effective as it could/should have been, as it only consulted with ACTPLA and no-one else, but was able to provide an alternative view.

johnboy i bloody well agree with you. why is it all other canberra residents are paying for this? i am outraged that the (clearly valuable) land was even given away in the first place for $1 for a pitiful condition of it being used as low-income housing for only 5 years. i don’t have a problem with cheaper housing being provided to legitimate low income people but all i see that has happened here is that 2 companies/organisations have/are making a motza – thanks to all other canberra residents.

Well the ACT Govt had better collect all that out-standing rent from some of the caravan park residents now or I’ll be really spewing!

Yep, we’re getting screwed every which way.

What I can’t understand is how the govt can justify giving serviced, developable land to Jolly Josip. After all, he bought land that was an existing caravan park, and was going to have to work pretty hard to get it re-zoned for residential blocks (and may very well have failed).

Now, he’s played hardball and is being handed a gift of subdivisible land, all at taxpayer’s expense. What a bonanza!

Absent Diane1:21 pm 17 Jul 06

its pretty sad that they have damaged their reputation like this.

i hope koomarri doesnt get to suck the govt teat for some years.

Perhaps Koomarri could make a donation towards the costs involved…

Wasn’t Koomari offering at one point to try to buy their way out of the controversy with their windfall?

They should be paying for the services to be provided on the new land.

Perhaps a few caravans on pontoons is what Lake Burley Griffin is after?

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