This was published 5 months ago
When Perth meets Peel: Rare waterfront landholding is new frontier of sprawl
A huge 591-hectare property an hours’ drive south of Perth has hit the market with potential to establish a new waterfront housing estate.
If developed, Point Grey would emerge as the new front of Perth’s urban sprawl with the city’s urban expansion already reaching Austin Lakes in South Yunderup and a number of new estates in Ravenswood.
A large property an hour south of Perth has hit the market with potential to establish a new waterfront housing estate.Credit: JLL
Masterplanned communities totalling around 3000 lots are already planned at Point Grey and Point Grey South.
JLL senior director of capital markets Sean Flynn said the land had been owned by Perth home builders and cattle graziers the Plunkett family for more than 50 years and was one of the largest landholdings fronting the Peel-Harvey Estuary.
He said it offered potential to establish a new housing estate and operate and expand the property’s existing cattle farming, tourism accommodation, and apiary enterprises.
“It’s not often we get the opportunity to market for sale such a rare and magnificent landholding,” he said.
“Point Grey South offers an incredible combination of attributes, from the undoubted future urban development potential to the very high-quality Angus cattle operation, and the fully restored 1850s Culjum House, which together should keep the ultimate buyer well and truly occupied.”
Fellow director Nigel Freshwater said Perth’s south-western corridor was one of the fastest growing urban expansion areas.
“The property technically sits within the Peel region, although it’s arguable that the rapid pace of urban expansion has seen this whole area become the quasi outer-urban fringe of the Perth metropolitan area,” he said.
More than 60 hectares of the site has been zoned for future urban development, with potential to deliver approximately 750 residential lots.
But Strategic Property Group managing director Trent Fleskens said while the land was located in a sensational location any future development faced many hurdles.
Could this parcel of land be a new waterfront housing estate?
“This region has historically been seen as the next frontier of bayside living in the Peel region,” he said.
“A handful of developers had big plans for the region 20 years ago, but it all seems to have been quashed by environmental and infrastructure limitations.
“Despite the Shire of Murray zoning a portion of the land on the northern portion of the Point as urban, I see it being unlikely, due to infrastructure and environmental limitations, that this area sees much change for quite a long time, if ever.
“No sewer, no underground power, no water, floodplains, bushfire risk, no sealed roads for kilometres, and some serious environmental hurdles to overcome.”
Core Land director Kane Malcomson said given the property’s immense size, five-kilometre estuary frontage,
and the booming WA economy and housing market, the property would be highly contested by Australian and international development groups, private investors and well-heeled farming families.
“This is one of the most dynamic englobo opportunities we’ve seen,” he said.