Buyer Beware! Is there a big development coming next door?
During our pre-purchase due diligence last week for a property in Kew, we found a major surprise. A surprise so big that it caused us not to bid.
A major development next door to the north will fundamentally change the amenity of the target property during construction and when built.
The property next door, a magnificent home with impressive façade and large land with tennis court was just approved by council to be knocked down. Surprised? We sure were.
What was the City of Boroondara thinking? 2324 square metres (approx) of land is about to be transformed into 14, three-story town houses with basement car parking for 28 cars. Apparently, subject to 23 amendments to the plans, these townhouses will go ahead.
So why didn’t we bid?
The lovely north views from the balcony, lounge/dining and main bedroom of the target apartment will be lost. The future outlook will be a construction site for possibly years to come. Council has warned that the excavation for the basement car parking will be major.
Once it is all completed, the access to the basement car parking will be right next to the entrance to the block of flats we were considering with possibly 28 cars going in and out day and night. So, no more sleepy location, even when the development is complete. As an investment property, we were risking a loss of rent from potential tenants being turned off by construction.
Ironically, I received a letter from City of Boroondara this week entitled Municipal Wide Heritage Gap Study.
Apparently, this is “a proactive work program to identify and protect valued heritage properties and precincts through inclusion of properties in the Heritage Overly.
The study has two components, a street by street assessment of all properties not currently included in the Heritage Overlay and implementation of heritage controls to properties recommended for heritage protection by the assessment.”
“The assessment will take two years to complete as follows:
- Canterbury, Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew are the first four suburbs to be assesses during 2016.2017
- Kew East, Hawthorn East, Glen Iris Ashburton and Mont Albert will be assessed in 2017/2018”
A personal observation is that it is a shame this assessment hadn’t been done earlier in order that this and other significant mansions in the area were saved.
A client told us they heard about an eight million dollar mansion in Kew being demolished on Melbourne radio program, 3AW’s “The Rumour Files”. He said that the program cited that City of Boroondara had tried to protect this property from redevelopment but failed.
Buyers Advocate, Buyers Agent, Buying property, Investment, Investment property
+61 39816 8555