Moreland City Council however supported the development and helped Citimark quietly obtain its permit. Council said construction must start by June 2010, or the permit will be void.

Citimark’s proposal will include nearly 200 flats, and a 1900 square metre retail component. It paid almost $9 million for the site in early February 2009. At the time of purchase it announced plans for the shopping centre, but not the residential component.

The block is now being onsold in a campaign managed by Colliers International’s Tim Storey and Brett Griffith. Sources speculate it should fetch about $10 million.

Around the corner, in East Brunswick, Little Project Development – the construction company of Toll executive Paul Little – is redeveloping the former Tip Top Bakery site as a $100 million mixed use village which will be identified by ten-level buildings. Little paid $11 million for the disused 1.25 hectare bakery in October 2009.

Sunland Group chief told the AFR he is confident there will be a resolution “which will include the body corporate accepting that it failed to maintain a proper maintenance regime for the building.”

He added “the body corporate has a due care to maintaining the building and in this instance a proper regime has not been upheld.”

“I think everyone is entitled to their own views but justice will prevail.”

Developed in 2005, and pipping Melbourne’s Eureka Tower as Australia’s tallest residential building, the 80-level tower includes 526 apartments.

In 2009, an owners corporation of a Pyrmont apartment block, in Sydney, won $3.1 million and set a precedent for what constitutes systemic default in buildings.

Walter Constructions was the building of that Harris Street property.

Below is a statement Lend Lease released yesterday, regarding the investigation:

Lend Lease Corporation Limited (“Lend Lease”) refers to recent media reports regarding investigations being conducted by the US Federal Attorney and New York
District Attorney of its subsidiary Bovis Lend Lease LMB, Inc. (“Bovis Lend Lease”) in New York.

Lend Lease advises that Bovis Lend Lease New York has received subpoenas and is fully cooperating with the authorities.

The investigations arise from allegations made by a former employee. These include an allegation relating to billing practices in respect of foremen taken out of the union pool where excess costs incurred by Bovis Lend Lease for payments made to union foremen were billed to clients. The union pool is a source of labour available to contractors in New York which is used by Bovis Lend Lease.

Bovis Lend Lease is conducting its own investigation of the matters raised and will assist the authorities wherever possible. Bovis Lend Lease will also take whatever remedial action is appropriate.

In Queensland recently, ALP housing minister Karen Struthers called for “tolerance” in welcoming an increasing surge of public housing residents to its neighbourhoods.

In Victoria, Planning Minister Justin Madden “called in” (approved without community consultation) several social housing projects, which did not need to be publicly advertised, because of a temporary change in the law last year, and soon after the initiative was announced.

Kelvin Thompson, the federal minister for Wills and Jane Garrett, the ALP candidate for Brunswick, in Melbourne, have both acknowledged in The Age today, the government’s failure to consult the community over public housing redevelopment.

However despite the acknowledgement, little seems to be done to change it.

When quizzed about the fast-tracking of projects in the scheme, Federal Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek handpassed a response, telling The Age “such issues were a matter for the state”.

In Queensland, the government has recently said it would not let protesters get in the way of social housing construction.

Mr Madden, again speaking via a spokeswoman, told The Age rather conclusively: “Meeting these time frames ensures Victoria receives its share of nation building funding and boosts its social housing stock across the State.”

Major social housing projects in Coburg and Geelong, in Victoria recently started construction before residents were consulted.

Mr Madden, a former AFL footballer, is facing his second vote of no confidence in a year, over an email sent to him by a media adviser outlining a sham consultation process for the Windsor Hotel redevelopment, in which it would be claimed the politician listened to the public, in rejecting an application.

In Melbourne, a major 128-hectare proposal for Department of Defence land on the banks of the Maribyrnong River, in Cordite Avenue, Maribyrnong, near Highpoint, will include “at least” 20 per cent social and affordable housing.

VicUrban will assume control of the prominent Maribyrnong site in 2012 and proceed with the development, which was not seen by the community, prior to VicUrban announcing plans for the site.

Related articles:

Government Tells Community to be Tolerant as Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast All to Receive More Social Housing

Institutions Encouraged to Apply For Third Stage of the National Rental Affordability Scheme

Major $160 Million Public Housing-Based Development Likely to Proceed Near Melbourne Airport

Public Housing Residents Want Air Conditioning

Public Housing Boom For NSW

Public Housing Building Boom Underway in Australia

Australand Queensland general manager Nigel Edgar told the AFR: “We decided to change the mix of the project as we thought we could do a better job of it and we have adapted it to suit the current market conditions.”

“We see Brisbane as a market that will grow in the future and we think this is a really strong site and well positioned t take advantage of the current pent-up demand”.

The 1.9 hectare site is under the Story Bridge, and faces New Farm.

Australand expects the project to be completed by 2013. The development will also include pools, a recreation centre, gymnasium and riverfront kiosk.

Colliers International is marketing apartments and townhouses on the site.

On Geelong’s south-eastern outskirts, the Moolap site is prominent to commuters taking the Bellarine Highway to holiday hamlets Ocean Grove, Point Lonsdale, Portarlington and St Leonards.

As well as a shopping centre, the Mixed Use Zone request would have allowed Costa (or any subsequent owner of the site) flexibility to build residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

Council officially abandoned the proposal at a meeting last week after receiving a report from an independent panel.

Residents agree, saying the proposed Garvan St Vincents Cancer Clinic building will take away from the heritage landscape of Darlinghust, and limit light to a nearby park.

Darlinghust Residents’ Action Group Jo Holder questioned the need for the centre to be developed, adding locals are concerned the project could include offices (doctor’s consulting rooms) and a ground floor retail precinct and become highly commercialised, something the hospital has denied.

St Vincent’s Hospital spokesman David Faktor said it believes “the proposed cancer centre will not pose any unreasonable impacts on the local environment.”

Overlooking Cleeland Bight and the Phillip Island Bridge, Woolamai House appears on the council’s Bass Coast Planning Scheme as being suitable for residential development.

Grollo’s new application, which is being exhibited, would see the estate split into 69 blocks – the smallest, at 460 square metres. “Small high density development” would be permitted.

Across Western Port, in Sorrento, Myer family member Richard Shelmerdine was recently granted approval by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to split a historic property, The Sisters at 3080 Point Nepean Road, five ways.

In January, when the first block within that subdivision was listed for sale (and later sold for some $6 million), In April, another larger piece hit the market with price expectations of $10 million. Mr Shelmerdine paid $18.4 million for the entire 1.2 hectare block in 2008.

However under the stewardship of new Planning Minister Matthew Guy, and given the Baillieu government’s mandate to curb rampant and random Sydney-esque skyscraper redevelopment, it’s not yet known how the DCA site will be received by developers, especially in a market agents agree has been in downturn for some months.

The DCA is hedging its bets, also marketing the site for sale or lease as a school, or hospital. Kliger Wood’s Nick Breheny and Eugene Wood are the marketing agents.

Elsewhere in the immediate area, Evolve Development is planning to replace the former Suntory restaurant at 74 Queens Road with a 225+ unit skyscraper.

The Peloton Group also plans to replace one of the precinct’s last remaining historic mansions, at 70 Queens Road, with Proximity, a 12-level complex with 159 apartments.

Meanwhile at 541 St Kilda Road, next door to the Alfred, developer Hudson Conway is planning a 258-unit apartment skyscraper on land it paid Stockland approximately $20.5 million for in March.

The Victorian College of the Deaf, an occupant on the DCA site, is opposing the sale, which would likely result in the demolition of buildings and established gardens.