It’s not grape news
Approval of an apartment complex at Carrara comes as a crushing blow for a leading wine family
TERRY Morris, Sirromet wine owner, and family don’t think it’s a corker idea but they haven’t been able to ‘plug’ it.
Six-level buildings housing 106 apartments are poised to spring up next to the three-mansion Morris riverfront compound at Carrara.
A Chinese family has the green light for the project and is set to demolish existing buildings on a 7800sq m site.
The property is one of several large parcels fronting the Nerang River and looking across to the Royal Pines golf course and Botanic Gardens.
They’re parcels that many people have eyed off over the years for their development potential, with one of them being wily former Sydney developer John Rowles.
Fourteen years ago the property veteran bought the home, which included a tennis court, on the eastern side of the almost-2ha, three-title Morris holding.
John lived there for several years and tried for some time to sell for a handsome price to a developer,.
Eventually, he opted for apartment living and sold the property to a member of the Guo family for $4.35 million, or $1 million more than he’d paid a decade earlier.
When the Guos, via QY Developments, last year flagged plans for 118 apartments on the land, in buildings of up to 10 levels, the Morris clan naturally was not elated.
Its members are used to single-level neighbours – the Casino Village caravan park is on their western boundary and was there when their land was bought.
Terry’s wife Lurleen, son Paul and daughter Nadine Delahunty, along with others, fired their objections to the QY plan into the city council. They raised issues such as flood hazards to neighbouring properties and shadow infringement, along with a fear that noise complaints about jetskis from residents in the mooted towers would see that stretch of the Nerang River “closed” as one of the last waterski areas in the city.
At the end of the day the Morris clan and other objectors had a wee win.
QY didn’t get a tick for 118 apartments in 10-level buildings – rather 106 apartments in six-floor buildings.
That approval no doubt has other owners on large lots along that stretch of the river sitting up and taking notice.
They include the International Buddhist Association, a company linked to WMS accountancy principal Aaron Lavell, and the owners of the Casino Village and River Gardens caravan parks.
Meanwhile, the QY development will include a helipad, one thing with which neighbour Terry Morris, who’s long acknowledged that the large riverfront lots were one day going to take higher-density living, will be familiar.
He’s been flying a helicopter for years and even has a pad at his home. The QY pad is likely to be rarely used – it can only be used for “emergency medical evacuations in times of extreme weather events”.
WHEN THE GUOS FLAGGED PLANS FOR 118 APARTMENTS ON THE LAND THE MORRIS CLAN NATURALLY WAS NOT ELATED