Developer wants to build $79m housing subdivision at Claremont

A local developer has brought forward plans for a new $79 million residential subdivision at Claremont.

Anna McMahon and her husband Tony Ellis will soon be putting in a development application to develop a new residential neighbourhood on the site of the old Claremont Primary School.

IN the wake of the collapse of Cadbury’s $66 million factory upgrade, a local developer has brought forward plans for a new $79 million residential subdivision right next door.

Tas Developments, run by husband and wife team Tony Ellis and Anna McMahon, will lodge a development applic­ation with Glenorchy City Council next month for a “new neighbourhood” on the former Claremont Primary School site.

Waterside Parklands would house up to 450 people and more than half the Cadbury Rd site would be set aside for parklands and gardens, with a piazza, boulevard and fountains.

Set to be one of Hobart’s largest residential developments, Ms McMahon said the project, if approved, would be rolled out in seven stages over 11 years and create more than 100 jobs during construction.

“Cadbury’s terrible news has sent shockwaves through the local community and we’ve been inundated with calls from tradespeople desperately concerned about jobs,” Ms McMahon, a former WIN news-reader, said. “Clearly, we are not a tourism development — or an iconic project like Cadbury’s proposal — but at least our development will help ease some of the pain the local community is feeling by generating hundreds of desperately needed jobs.”

Cadbury last week withdrew its application for $16 million promised during the 2013 Federal election campaign.

The money would have gone towards a $66 million Claremont factory upgrade and visitor centre to be known as Chocolate World, which was expected to create 320 jobs and be a boon for Glenorchy.

Ms McMahon said the community should not let the Cadbury development go without a fight and the developer would also do everything possible to get the venture off the ground.

The first phase of the project will include the restoration of the heritage-listed 1924 Claremont Primary School building, which Tas Developments hopes to begin in May.

While specific details remain commercial in confid­ence, funding for the project is already locked in, Ms McMah­on said.

Pitched at the local owner-occupier market, an average two-bedroom home in the subdivision will cost around $395,000.

“After years of market research, we have great confid­ence in the Tasmanian property market,” Ms McMah­on said.

Glenorchy Mayor Kristie Johnston said while the project was still to come before council, it was the kind of development the council would be keen to see in the city as it used a vacant school site and was an infill development.

The Housing Industry Association’s executive director, Mr Rick Sassin, said an adaptive use of land and job creation would be welcomed with open arms.