September 17, 2013
A developer who has purchased Kingaroy’s troubled Sunnyvale Estate housing project says he is “absolutely confident” in the future economic strength of the area.
Brett Hore, from Sunnyvale Alliance, told southburnett.com.au today the purchase of the estate, which is located on the northern entrance to town, was finalised in July after the previous developers, Tapwood Developments, went into receivership.
Mr Hore, who has other developments underway in Maryborough and Hervey Bay, said commercial vacancy rates in the Kingaroy CBD were “really quite low” in comparison to other Queensland centres.
“Kingaroy has a lot going for it … a public hospital, a private hospital, an airport and major employers that are quite stable,” he said.
Initially, Mr Hore will be marketing 10 unsold blocks in the already-developed Casuarina Street and Frangipani Drive, however his Sunnyvale Alliance has also purchased the balance of the blocks in the estate and has development approval for 270 future blocks.
Sunnyvale was originally approved by the South Burnett Regional Council in 2009.
After it appeared to have stalled, there was a proposal to seek Federal Government assistance for it to proceed as an Affordable Housing project, with funding approved for a multi-million “link road” to be constructed linking the Bunya Highway to Fisher Street.
However in December last year, South Burnett Regional Council voted to turn down the $3.7 million grant, saying Tapwood was unable to provide sufficient security to ensure the completion of the 250 lots which was necessary to cover Council’s potential liability under the agreement.
Mr Hore said today he believed the link road would still be built at some time in the future by Council, but in the usual fashion from developer contributions levied on a pro rata basis per block.
He said his plan was to market the estate to first home buyers, working in partnership with local builders to put together affordable packages with a $250,000 “turn key” price.
“What I have in mind is to promote it as an affordable, owner-occupier estate,” he said.
Mr Hore said he had approached GJ Gardner Homes and Hotondo Homes, the Bank of Queensland and Suncorp to put together house and land packages for first home buyers that could be purchased with a deposit of about $13,000 and repayments of just over $300 per week.
He said he would also be approaching Council to do some “streetscaping” to help beautify the estate.
PS. Mr Hore said he wasn’t concerned that “Sunnyvale” was the fictional suburb name used in the satirical SBS series “Housos”; however “if there is a negative issue we may have to reconsider”.
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