Massive fine for illegal demolition of historic home by Natural Lifestyle Builders
A judge has lambasted a builder for demolishing a more than a century-old cottage in one of Brisbane’s more affluent suburbs.
A Brisbane judge has lashed a local builder for demolishing a historic century-old cottage to make way for a luxury modern home.
The cottage in up-market Paddington dated back to 1888 and was thought to be one of the oldest in the suburb.
Paddington, a stone’s throw away from Brisbane’s CBD, is known for its boutique shopping, restaurants and bars.
Development approval by Brisbane City council was given for a new residential building but with a catch – the existing cottage had to be retained as part of the project.
The four bedroom cottage sold for just over a million dollars in 2018 to William and Jacinta Keane.
Mr Keane is the co-owner of Natural Lifestyle Homes (NLH).
District Court judge David Kent in his judgement blasted the owners for bypassing council when they “simply reached its own decision to demolish (disassemble) the cottage and build a replica of it instead”.
The only parts of the cottage retained were an original door and a portion of two windows.
In its place a luxury new white home has been built, with the redevelopment thought to be worth over $2 million dollars.
Judge Kent ruled that Natural Lifestyle Homes (NLH) must pay a $100,000 fine after it pleading guilty to two charges related to carrying out a development without a permit.
Brisbane City Council had appealed against Chief Magistrate Janelle Brassington fining NLH a mere $20,000 in June.
“The actions which were taken had the effect of overturning the Council’s earlier refusal without recourse to the Council itself, or the Planned and Environment Court, rather the Council was in effect presented with a fait accompli,” Judge Kent wrote.
He warned imposing a small penalty ran the risk of “engendering developers to see such fines as simply a cost of doing business in the area.”
Judge Kent observed that the cottage was “explicitly protected by the statutory scheme” and by the conditions of the development approval which the owners “disregarded”.
According to the Courier Mail the construction of the new home by NLH was for Mr Keane and his wife who were intending to live there, and not for profit.