Geelong growth corridor planning delays spook landbankers

The 2.2ha property at 760 Anakie Rd, Lovely Banks, has sold for $1.2m.

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Speculation over lengthy delays in bringing land ready to create new suburbs in Geelong’s northern and western growth corridor is giving potential investors in the area cold feet.

The slowdown within the corridor comes as a Lovely Banks property spent a year on the market as three separate real estate agents sought to bring a purchaser to the negotiating table.

An urban growth zoning would typically bring out landbankers to a 2.2ha property such as the home offered for sale at 760 Anakie Rd, HF Richardson Property agent Matt Poustie said.

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But Mr Poustie said coverage of existing and future delays besetting the growth corridor was concerning for potential buyers in Geelong’s west.

The property sold last week for $1.2m.

“It was probably a more complex sale than we’d expected,” Mr Poustie said.

“The UGZ zoning of the property did create a lot of conversations, we had a lot of interest in the property from day one when we renewed the listing and started afresh,” he said.

Future land use of a specific location within a growth area was an important consideration for buyers.

“There is a lot of media attention at the moment in regards to those structure plans and some of the leading developers not being overly happy with the government and I suppose council’s direction about costings and timelines,” he said.

The 2.2ha property at 760 Anakie Rd, Lovely Banks, is on the fringe of the growth area designated for urban development.

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“Overall, the urban growth zone probably didn’t work in our favour as we, and probably the two agencies before us, expected.”

The Northern and Western Geelong Growth Area is expected to accommodation 110,000 new residents.

The state government announced in June it would take over planning for four precincts in the corridor after it revealed no precinct plans, due to be completed since 2023, had been submitted for approval.

The first plan since submitted to Planning Minister Sonja Kilkenny for the Creamery Road precinct at Moorabool was described as an impending disaster by the lead developer Villawood Properties.

The minister recently sent to plan back to the council seeking more work.

The 2.2ha property at 760 Anakie Rd, Lovely Banks, has sold for $1.2m.

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An updated kitchen featured an electric Falcon stove and oven.

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Villawood executive director Rory Costelloe said the high development contributions levy and lower developable area made the 4500-lot Moorabool project unfeasible to deliver without lifting land prices to an unaffordable level.

Data centre giant NextDC also recently acquired a nearby 169ha farm partly located within the urban growth zone and close to high-voltage power infrastructure.

The 2.2ha property on the western fringe of the growth zone holds a 1960s era, four-bedroom brick veneer house eventually fell to an owner-occupier to purchase, Mr Poustie said.

Mr Poustie said the location was convenient and offered a rural aspect.

“It was very pretty, and the home, while an older home, was a very solid brick home in really good condition,” he said.

“Hopefully, in the long term they’ll benefit from the PSP. But in the short term, it was probably more a hindrance (to the sale).

“There’s probably not a lot of confidence in the direction that the Labor government has with those PSPs and getting them going.”

There were no such qualms in a property of the same size across the road at 735 Anakie Rd, which sold in March for $1.211m after three weeks on the market.

That property is in an area designated to remain rural living.