June 25, 2014
Owners of properties on the failed Memerambi housing estate will have to pay between $25,700 and $29,807 to have their properties connected to proper road and drainage systems.
South Burnett Regional Councillors voted today to make Stages 2 and 3 of the sub-division a “benefitted area”.
If owners agree to pay off the cost – either in a lump sum or over an extended period – the Council will spend $1.6 million to construct or upgrade five roads in the sub-division (Earl, Lord, Marquis, Duke and Prince streets); widen the Bunya Highway near the estate to provide seven driveway accesses for houses that front onto it; and upgrade the Bunya Highway-King Street intersection.
It will also spend another $490,000 to install a stormwater drainage system on the sub-division and acquire an easement on an adjoining property.
The drainage system would improve stormwater flows and protect the sub-division from future flooding events.
Money to undertake the work would be borrowed from the Queensland Treasury. The full cost of the loan would be shared by the owners of the 70 lots which would directly benefit from the road and drainage works.
However, the work will only proceed if all the 42 owners who involved the Council in two Planning and Environment Court actions over the sub-division agree to the arrangement and release the Council from any further claims.
If any of the 42 “litigating owners” refuse, Council will take no action and all the sub-division property owners will either need to fund the road and drainage works themselves, or watch their investments gradually disintegrate.
Today, Councillors instructed CEO Ken McLoughlin to ask King & Company Solicitors to prepare Infrastructure Agreements between the Council and individual property owners, along with any associated legal documents.
These documents are expected to be forwarded to property owners within the next few weeks.
If an agreement can be reached by December, roadworks are expected start next January followed by drainage works in April.
Both projects are expected to take 18 months to complete.
The “benefitted area” will exclude most of the properties on King Street – the first stage of the sub-division – which had proper infrastructure installed when owners took possession of their properties.
At today’s Council meeting, Cr Ros Heit asked if the arrangement meant that other South Burnett residents would bear none of the costs of remedying the sub-division’s problems.
Mayor Wayne Kratzmann said that was correct.
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Council has taken the view that the owners alone are responsible for the failure of this estate and the legal action taken by these people, now issuing a ultimatum pay up or watch these houses rot along with their future. Council failed its obligation to administrate this development appropriately.
Council allowed the developer to build houses before roads were built this was wholly their decision with no consultation with lot owners. It’s their fault, but they will never admit it ‘cos they’re too scared of getting sued and losing their houses, just like some of us have allready and some of us are about to.