Page 410 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Did they benefit financially? Yes, they did. It has been proposed to me that larger houses were built on the estate because of the conditions and the indication that there would be no government housing. Also, higher prices were paid for land than would have been paid, because there was going to be, they believed, no government housing. This, of course, is because of stamp duties and higher ongoing rates determined by the sale price, not the later market value.
We had a situation where there were two different conditions required. There were conditions required for private home purchases and then there were relaxed conditions for the Government purchase. In March 1992, when Mr Wheeler purchased his property, included in the transfer documents was a memorandum of restrictive covenants. It listed those sections and blocks on the estate to which restrictive covenants applied. The memorandum of transfer stated that a covenant restricting the size of all dwellings to a size greater than 12 squares applied to all sections including section 426. In August 1992 the Government purchased section 426 and commenced to construct public housing of less than 12 squares in size.
On 15 November 1993, after Mr Wheeler's letter of complaint to Mr Connolly, Mr Wheeler received a reply from Mr Connolly stating that when the Government purchased section 426 "there was no leasing condition or covenant which restricted the size of the houses to more than 12 squares". To support this statement Mr Connolly included documents signed on behalf of the Government which did not reveal any such covenant. On 2 February this year Mr Wheeler received a letter in response to his complaint to the Land and Planning Appeals Board which stated, in regard to restrictive covenants, that the annexure to the memorandum of transfer of title was a private legal arrangement and as such the restrictive covenants do not come within the control measures of the department or within the powers of the registrar of the board.
My questions, and the questions that arise out of this, are: Is this vanishing covenant an indication of a deliberate attempt at fraudulent misrepresentation by Realty World developers in order to lull purchasers into a false sense of security by inserting restrictive covenant documents into transfers of title with these purchasers which it then, at a later date, drops out of similar transfer documents with regard to the government development? Should the Government be required to ascertain whether restrictive covenants have been made with other private purchasers on the estate, and assurances given by these covenants that size limitations apply, to which the Government, at a later date, would be morally if not legally bound to comply? Should the Land and Planning Appeals Board be granted powers to take action and to impose control measures on such restrictive covenants even though they form part of private legal arrangements?
What we have is a situation where people reasonably believed that they were going to be protected from having their investment detracted from because of public housing being built on the estate. Was that a wise decision? One could argue the point. However, it was certainly a decision that was stated for a long time and they were aware that the Government did not do anything. What could the Government have done? The Government could, first of all, have said to the developer, "Do not do it. Do not make these claims that you know you cannot substantiate". Secondly, they could have said that if these claims continued there would be legal action taken. Thirdly, they could have made the matter public in the media so that private purchasers or prospective purchasers in the ACT would have known to ignore such deceptive claims.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .