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[Jimmy-T]

‘Close to transport’ is a big selling point for many homes – but you can be too close.

Residents of one block of units in Sydney’s Surry Hills have discovered they are in the way of the proposed light rail from Central Station to Randwick.

Now there are all sorts of plans to avoid having to demolish Olivia Gardens, a block of 63 homes that sits ominously between the end of Devonshire St and Moore Park, the preferred route of the light rail.

Sydney City’s Cloverite MP Alex Greenwich has called for a tunnel under Surry Hills which will shorten journey times by five minutes.  It will also, of course, take longer to build and be a lot more expensive.

Other options include running the light rail down one or both of the laneways on either side of the Olivia Gardens block.  That said, the thought of trams rumbling past every five minutes may be enough to have most unit owners gladly grabbing a buy-out.

The prospect of having to negotiate with the 40 or so owners of neighbouring houses to remove a slice of their backyards will have Transport NSW’s pen-pushers anxiously chewing their pocket protectors.

But this is a unit block. Surely Transport NSW can just buy the whole building in one fell swoop? Actually no, they can’t.

Strata title extinguishment – agreement to sell your building for whatever reason – requires 100 percent of the owners to say yes.

So Transport NSW will have to deal with owners individually, just as if they were knocking down a street of 63 houses.

And according to the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation Act), individual owners can negotiate an agreed price or wait for a compulsory purchase at ‘market value’. Because it’s one out, all out, that’s 63 negotiations.

Proposed changes to strata law to allow a 90 percent or even 75 percent vote to allow strata owners to sell their building as a whole could get a hurry-up when Transport NSW realise it might be easier to go round the building than through it.

You’ll find a document produced to explain the compulsory purchase process for the North West Rail Link – different rail line but same  laws – HERE. If you’re interested, you’ll find the Just Terms Compensation legislation HERE. And you’ll find the original Herald story on Olivia Gardens HERE .

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