The Land Development Agency has revealed the prices it paid for a swathe of rural land along the western fringe of the city, including a substantial property to the west of the planned Ginninderry housing development.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The agency has launched a series of negotiations with rural leaseholders over the past two or three years, resulting in more than $20 million of farmland purchases in the 2015-16 year alone.
The purchases are in contrast to the approach the government has taken to the Corkhill family-owned farmland west of Belconnen, where it has entered a joint venture to develop the land. In that joint venture, the government is splitting costs and profits 60:40 with the Corkhill family, which is also being paid to manage the Ginninderry project.
Separately, the Land Development Agency has bought a string of farm blocks along the western edge of the city. Last year, it refused to say how much it paid for individual farms, but it has now tabled the prices in the ACT parliament, in a correction to its annual report.
It paid $10 million for the Huntly property in April 2016, a property divided into five separate blocks that form a wedge of land where the Murrumbidgee and Molonglo rivers meet.
The land is across the Molonglo from the water treatment plant, which leads to the vast area which will become Ginninderry, home to as many as 11,500 new homes over the coming 30 to 40 years.
Agency chief executive David Dawes said the five blocks that made up the Huntly property were bought after the owners approached the agency with an offer to sell. The property was still being run as a farm, but along with the farm properties further south, the purchases were "long-term strategic acquisitions to enable potential for further supply of urban capable land". The land was "in close proximity to the existing trunk infrastructure and urban areas".
The agency paid $7 million in July 2015 for the 290ha Milapuru property west of Kambah.
In November 2015, it paid $3.1 million for the 320ha Fairvale property, further west again, and, like Huntly, adjoining the Murrumbidgee River.
In November 2015, the agency paid $950,000 for a block of land on Wallaroo Road in NSW, which it bought as an environmental offset to compensate for the loss of golden sun moth habitat with roadwork for the new Ginninderry estate.
Asked whether any more farm blocks were in the agency's sights, Mr Dawes said "any ongoing considerations" were commercial in confidence.
The ACT's rural leases were converted to 20 or 99-year leases under the Carnell government in 1999, with the Stromlo leases all set at 99 years.
In the case of Ginninderry, the joint venture includes farmland owned by the Corkhill family on the ACT and NSW sides of the border.
The Corkhills bought the ACT block, up to about 1000 ha, from the Shepherd family in 2004 for $800,000, according to Riverview project head David Maxwell.
Late last year, they sold it to the ACT government for $4.5 million - a price Mr Maxwell said was based on a 2011 valuation of $3.8 million, plus GST and inflation since then.
The Corkhills have farmed an adjacent 332 ha block on the NSW side of the border since 1984.
The two blocks are being combined for the new Ginninderry estate, although the NSW land will only be developed if NSW agrees to rezone it. Mr Maxwell said the planning application would be resubmitted to NSW authorities this month and he hoped for a decision by mid 2018.
Riverview has 15 years to get the zone change through. If NSW doesn't give agree to rezone by then, the Corkhills hand their NSW land to the ACT government for $1.
The first land at Ginninderry goes on sale on Saturday, with more than 100 blocks of land, "flexi-living" homes, and house-and-land packages released to the market. Land is priced at $590 to $792 a square metre, or $230,000-$360,000 for a house block.
