Point Piper: Millionaires squabble over fenced-in ‘eyesore’ public reserve
MILLIONAIRE luxury car importer Neville Crichton is in a spat with the local council and at least one of his neighbours over a public reserve. The businessman sealed off the park with a 1.8m high fence.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
IT is arguably Australia’s most exclusive neighbourhood, counting among its residents Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Aussie Home Loans founder John Symonds.
With unparalleled harbour views, Point Piper is also home to millionaire yachtie and luxury car importer Neville Crichton, who lives next door to “Aussie John”.
But Mr Crichton, who skippered Alfa Romeo to victory in the 2009 Sydney to Hobart, is in a spat with the local council and at least one neighbour over a public reserve in Wingadal Place.
To the 71-year-old, reputed to be worth more than $200 million, the 100sq m of council land next to his waterfront mansion in Sydney’s dress circle was a blight on the neighbourhood. Despite commanding knockout views of the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House, years of neglect had turned the site with million dollar harbour views into an unkempt eyesore.
So Mr Crichton decided to have it landscaped and sealed off with a 1.8m high fence.
Enter Woollahra Council and a concerned Point Piper resident who feared Mr Crichton’s “works” could result in high trees on the reserve that would blot out magnificent views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and city skyline.
The New Zealand-born businessman, who made his fortune importing luxury cars through his company Ateco, had an agreement with the council to landscape the reserve but went too far and also built the fence with a locked gate preventing public access.
Now in the face of council objections he has been ordered to tear down the illegal aluminium fence and let the public in.
Lawyers for neighbour Muriel Balkin, fearing her million dollar views could be compromised, have fired off a letter to the council demanding it make a new agreement that does not allow trees, plants or shrubs higher than 1m on the reserve.
Mr Crichton claimed the fence was a requirement of a $20 million public liability insurance policy after works left a steep, terraced slope on the site.
“All I wish to achieve is to tidy up my street and beautify the garden area,” he said.
“I must stress that I have no interest in this land or plans for it.”
Mr Crichton said the majority of his neighbours were in favour of the works but council officers noted the site now had a “hazardous” slope and said the fence was an “unacceptable alienation” of public land.
A spokeswoman said Mr Crichton had “agreed to engage landscape professionals to work with the council” on a new landscape plan for the reserve.
Alameddine associate, solicitor, shot in brazen attack
Two men, one with links to the Alameddine crime gang and the other a solicitor, are fighting for life after a gunman opened fire in Granville on Sunday night.
‘Playing politics with disaster:’ ABC forced to apologise to Nats MPs
The ABC has apologised to two Nationals MPs who reacted furiously after a journalist wrongly implied they had abandoned their electorates while “people are dying”.