Theo Maras’s ‘legacy’ development on Hutt St faces another challenge from high-profile neighbour

Two prominent Adelaide businessmen are at loggerheads over a $27m “legacy” development in Adelaide’s East End – with the latest legal challenge heading to SA’s highest court.

A battle over Theo Maras’s $27m “legacy” apartment development in the city will head to the Full Court of the Supreme Court with a high-profile neighbour appealing an earlier legal setback.

The development has now been on the cards for four years, first heading to the State Commission Assessment Panel in 2018, with that body approving it in January, 2020, before its approval was challenged by neighbour Ray Khabbaz.

Mr Khabbaz is well-known in Adelaide business circles, having co-founded Copperpot Dips, which he sold in 2007, before buying Australian Wholefoods.

He launched his first legal foray against the development the day after it was approved in 2020.

Mr Maras's proposed apartment project on the corner of Hutt St and Bartels Rd.

Mr Khabbaz lives next door to the planned project and argued the SCAP’s approval two years ago was invalid or unlawful, in part because the 53.9m design was more than double the recommended 22m maximum height for the site.

In approving the development, the SCAP said development guidelines had the scope to allow a building taller than 22m if its height “complements its context and anticipated city form, and embodies specified design and sustainability measures’’.

Panel documents from 2018 said there were buildings of a similar height, either completed or approved, in the wider East End precinct.

Businessman Ray Khabbaz.

Mr Khabbaz also argued former planning minister Stephan Knoll had erred in making interim changes to the Adelaide City Council development plan in June 2019 that allowed “over-height” buildings in circumstances where projects met benchmarks such as excellent design and sustainability measures.

Justice Greg Parker, in a ruling handed down in February this year, refused to quash the approval, dismissing all Mr Khabbaz’s grounds of appeal, opening the door for Mr Maras to build the project, which is a partnership with developer James Arsenikakis.

Mr Khabbaz’s lawyers have now lodged an appeal which will be heard by the Full Court of the Supreme Court, comprising three judges.

Property developer Theo Maras. Picture: Supplied

Mr Khabbaz declined to comment when contacted by The Advertiser, saying the matter was in the hands of his lawyers.

Mr Maras, whose family business has developed much of the East End, said Mr Khabbaz “has a got a right before the law” to appeal, and he was happy to have the legal process play out.

“It’s fair and proper to go through the process,’’ Mr Maras said.

The development, which Mr Maras has previously described as his “legacy” to the East End, would comprise 38 apartments across 16 storeys, and is situated on the southeastern corner of Hutt St and East Tce.

In a letter to the SCAP, Mr Khabbaz’s lawyers said he had lived at his East Tce residence for 11 years at the time, and that he and his wife were not opposed to the development of the site.

“They do, however, have concerns that the scale and intensity of the proposal is such that it will significantly impact upon and detrimentally alter the current high level of amenity that is enjoyed by them and their neighbours, and which makes this part of the city a desirable location for developments such as that proposed,” the letter states.