We officially kicked off our Larbonya project back at the start of February 22 and this one has been a bit of a slow-burn as we progress our DA and respond to Council RFI's.
We settled the property at the end of January, this one was a deceased estate and we ended up inheriting an entire two storey house (plus garage/shed) worth of belongings from the previous owner (and a cat!). We spent the first 4 weeks fully cleaning out and preparing the existing house to be leased, this included constructing a new front staircase, installing new kitchen appliances, installing ceiling fans and smoke alarms and a thorough cleaning. We had originally discussed demolishing the existing house but upon closer inspection, it is a well-constructed, 70s hardwood frame with great bones and the ability to be renovated into a nice home. There was too much value in keeping the house and our subdivision plans could account for it in our design, plus it could be leased out to help cover some of our holding costs.
The property is on approximately 1900m2 and zoned Low Density Residential. We saw this ideally as a 1 into 3 land subdivision, however technically 4 x lots + an access easement could be achieved within the Council planning rules. We didn't see the 4 lot option as the most desirable for the market and instead opted to retain the existing house and create 2 x larger 600m2+ rear lots. Our plan is to renovate the front house at the end of the project to give it a much-needed facelift with a new kitchen, bathroom, polish up the existing floorboards and re-spray the external of the house.
Once we cleaned out the house and had it ready to lease, we had to attend to the over-grown rear of the property which was basically a jungle of trees and knee-height grass. To allow us to create 2 new rear lots on the property, we had to remove quite a number of the large trees across the middle and rear of the block (which were not protected nor inhabited). Our tree lopper had their work well and truly cut out for them with this project, and completed the site clear over 3 days as you can see below in the before and after photos. We opted to retain a number of mature trees at the rear of the property to maintain some tree cover for the rear neighbours.
Before
After
We lodged our DA with Council at the back end of March and then turned our attention to finding the next deal. We are currently responding to a number of council RFI elements to our subdivision plan, in particular our stormwater solution. We are working through a number of options at the moment to satisfy council requirements and we hope to be in a position to progress by the end of July. It is a very busy time at the moment for all involved in the property development and construction space and being able to progress updates through our consultants has been challenging due to workloads and availability. It has certainly tested our patience that is for sure, but we are almost there and hope to make progress on the Larbonya project in the coming months leading into the back half of 2022.
Proposed Subdivision Plan
Thanks for reading, we hope to have further updates on this project to share in the coming month as we move this one forward!
Chris and Jon.
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