Why Hillscorp Developments unveiled first subdivision plans for Gympie

For almost 20 years Sunshine Coast developers Hillscorp developed subdivisions from the Gold Coast to Mackay and Roma without making a foothold in Gympie – that has now changed.

Hillscorp marketing manager Sharon Bowden and associate director Alan Wheeler have unveiled the company’s first plans for a subdivisino in Gympie, almost 20 years after the company started openin subdivisons acrposs the state.

Hillscorp Developments has been rolling out subdivisions across Queensland for 20 years - from the Gold Coast to Mackay to Roma - without setting foot in Gympie.

Until now.

The Sunshine Coast-based group is the driving force behind plans to open up 64 blocks at Fauna Rd in Victory Heights, with the proposal lodged with Gympie Regional Council last week.

Hillscorp associate director Alan Wheeler said this may be the first subdivision launched by the company in the region, but not the first time he had taken a close look at the area.

“Someone many years ago purchased a site for way more than it was worth and we were asked to actually come in,” Mr Wheeler said.

“I came looking just to purely see if I could help them out of a big hole; unfortunately I couldn’t.”

Interest remained but “quite frankly the Gympie land market was oversupplied during the last property cycle”.

“A year ago … a block of land wasn’t much more than what it cost you to develop it.”

“I just couldn’t make the numbers work.”

The proposed 64-lot subdivision will be Hillscorp’s first in Gympie, if given the green light by the council.

But the numbers do work with the Fauna Rd proposal.

Called Songbird, it will join an ever-lengthening list of projects, which includes 1300-lot development at Blacks Beach Breeze near Mackay, Bamboo Estate at Palmwoods, Essence Estate at Toowoomba, Nature’s Edge in Bahrs Scrub near Logan and Creekside Estate at Nambour.

The company was founded by brothers Phillip and Andrew Denton, but Mr Wheeler has been with them “pretty much from the beginning”.

Mr Wheeler, a former electrician who lives with his wife Linda at the Sunshine Coast, said he “was always interested in property development.”

“It’s the Australian dream to own your own home,” he said.

“(I like) meeting the people that buy the land, and … seeing their dreams become a reality.

“A lot of people don’t like development.

“But appropriate development in the right location is needed for the community.

Hillscorp's The Colleges development near Coomera.

“If you don’t have the right level of development coming in a timely manner then prices go up, and it prices out the people that most deserve to live in the community, that have perhaps lived here for years.

“They see it as being greedy – a lot of the costs of development are actually taken up by government fees and charges and in Gympie that probably represents about 40 per cent of the land costs, (like) GST and stamp duty and council fees and charges.”

Mr Wheeler pointed to one of the company’s projects in which three large fig trees were relocated to the middle of roundabouts in the subdivision “rather than turning them into mulch” at a cost of $140,000.

The company’s ability to develop and improve the environment was a point of pride.

“A local community group were testing the water quality of a creek that ran through our subdivision prior to the development. After the development, to their astonishment, the water quality improved because we managed it well,” Mr Wheeler said.

“(Development) does provide affordable housing (and) once upon a time to walk on that land would have been trespassing.

“Now (people are) walking in a beautiful landscaped environment that gives them footpaths.”

“There’s two sides to the coin.”