Hi guys and gals,
Basically my dad bought this block of land in Minto in which we submitted a plan to build three detached dwellings which would be under a strata title.
The council (Campbelltown City Council) rejected this plan because they apparently have provisioned to build a road which goes through our land.
The road which is there at the moment stops right in front of our line and the council has provisions to extend this road to a main road, although this is not clearly indicated in the plans.
After the council rejected our submission the first time around, they have told us we can build two houses as long as we do the following:
1. Give the Council the land required to build the road (around 120 sqm- our land size is 1200 sqm) for free
2. We have to build the paved road for them on our block of land.To me this seems quite unreasonable and the council has taken over 4 months to get back to us although we have been calling them weekly.
Its been over a year and a half that we have had this land, and its been kind of a dead weight around our necks especially when interest rates were high.
Is what the council requesting even legal (I thought there would be some property rules that disallows governments to take private land for free)
Furthermore we want to build two houses ASAP, and what would be the costs of building a paved road if we must.
Thanks for your help.
There are two separate issues:
1. What did your searches show when you purchased the property? When did the Council decide it was going to put a road through there? If the Council had issued a written statement before the date of Contract then this should have been disclosed in the Contract pursuant to the Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation. and potentially if you can show you have suffered loss you may have a claim against your conveyancer or the vendor. You would need to seek legal advice.
2. The Council can basically put what conditions it likes on consents. If you consider conditions are unreasonable you can appeal to the Lnad and Environment Court. Prima afcie if either of the houses is going to get access using the new road both the council conditions would normally be reasonable. But again you should get advice from a lawyer or twon planner
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