Darwin Council pocketing $5300 a month for a perimeter fence around empty CBD block

A CBD landowner is being charged a whopping $5300 every month by City of Darwin. Find out why.

City of Darwin has been charging a business owner more than $5000 a month for costs associated with a perimeter fence.

Owners of the old China Town site at 68 Mitchell Street are being billed $5300 a month for the cost of a fence separating the public from the abandoned building site.

Council has been accused of being “pig-headed” and of scaring off development at the site.

Council confirmed the fee in a statement last week to the NT News.

The payment is a legacy charge first billed more than a decade ago when relations between the China Town site’s then owner Robert Magid and the council broke down.

Mr Magid has since sold the block to a Darwin businessman – but the $5300 fee still applies.

A council spokesman explained the monthly slug predated the site’s existing ownership.

“The hoarding around the lot encroaches onto a City of Darwin managed footpath and road reserve,” the spokesman said.

“The property owner pays a monthly permit fee of $5300.

“The hoarding permit pre-dates the current ownership.”

The council declined to answer a series of questions in relation to the site including when the fence fee was first activated and why.

Manly Wharf owner Robert Magid invested in Darwin’s China Town.

The China Town site has been a vexed issue for City of Darwin for more than 20 years.

High-profile former Lord Mayor George Brown announced at a media event in 2001 that a local consortium led by Leeon Properties had submitted a plan for a new China Town precinct in the heart of the CBD.

After years of delays the two locals joined with well-known Sydney developer Mr Magid but, after almost a decade only a massive hole in the ground and a multi-level carpark was built at the site.

As part of original contract there was a $500,000 non-completion clause that council legally claimed when the project did not proceed.

Mr Magid started legal proceedings to reclaim the $500,000 from Council and in 2017 Lord Mayor Katrina Fong Lim led a council delegation to Sydney and secured the $500,000.

The payment was intended to beautify China Town, but the NT News understands the money has not been spent.

City of Darwin eventually regained ownership of the site and last year it was sold for $3.75m to local businessman Simon Peters.

Olive Cook Pty Ltd on behalf of Mr Peters last month lodged an application with the Development Consent Authority to build a 14-storey commercial tower with three levels of basement parking.

The application is still to be heard by City of Darwin councillors.

A source close to the China Town development said the slug charged by council for the fence was a legacy of poor relations with Mr Magid and was an unfair penalty on Mr Peters.

The Mitchell Street entrance to Darwin’s proposed Chinatown

“There is no need for council to be slugging the new owner, who has shown a real desire to develop the site that has been a hole-in-the-ground for the best part of 20 years,” the source said.

“Council was given $500,000 by Magid as a penalty clause to spend money beautifying the China Town and that hasn’t been spent at China Town. Council should explain where that money has gone.

“I would have thought it would have been a priority of City of Darwin to develop that site after all this time.

“Charging $5000 a month for a fence is a distraction from ever getting development at that site.

“Council is being really pig-headed here.”