OWNERS STRANDED
FALLING PROPERTY VALUES IN PORT HINCHINBROOK ARE LEAVING ANXIOUS SELLERS WITH COSTLY OBLIGATIONS, WRITES REGIONAL EDITOR JOHN ANDERSEN
RETIRED mushroom farmers Ray and Ann Clark are patient, even though they have been kept in the dark about what is happening at Port Hinchinbrook.
Ray, 80, and Ann, 77, moved to Cardwell from their mushroom farm at Ebenezer in New South Wales’ Hawkesbury River area in 1989.
They bought their beachfront home looking out to Dunk and Hinchinbrook islands in 2001, just after Port Hinchinbrook opened as a commercial development.
They bought a house at Palm Cove north of Cairns afterwards and planned to move there in order to be closer to hospitals when they became older. That time has come, but they can’t make the move because there aren’t exactly armies of buyers lining up to buy real estate at Port Hinchinbrook.
Their plan was to sell the Port Hinchinbrook house and move to Palm Cove. Now, they are caught in a situation where they are unable to sell their home at Port Hinchinbrook and unable to make a permanent move.
The large four- bedroom, two- bathroom home with its expansive garden is physically demanding when it comes to keeping clean and maintaining. It is hard work keeping it going and the years are not getting any kinder, but they don’t have any other option but to stay and keep up with the maintenance until the tide turns at Port Hinchinbrook.
“We can’t just walk away from it. It would cost $ 15,000 a year just to leave the house sitting here if we moved to Palm Cove.
“As it is, we spend two weeks a month at Palm Cove. We will be in this situation forever if something doesn’t change here at Port Hinchinbrook,” Mr Clark said.
Mrs Clark said she and her husband still loved the Port Hinchinbrook community, even though differences of opinion had emerged over what was best for the development. In some cases, old friendships had been torn apart under the pressure of falling property values and uncertainty about the future.
Mrs Clark said houses now failed to attract a bid at auction. They were disappointed at what had befallen them, but remained cheerful and surprisingly candid about the position in which they found themselves.
They lamented the fact that things that helped cement the Port Hinchinbrook community like its film nights and regular residents’ soirees around the pool stopped years ago when divisions started to emerge and personalities clashed.
Mr Clarke said Port Hinchinbrook needed a buyer who could see its potential and who would invest in and maintain its infrastructure.
“The whole place is standing still; it’s in limbo. We need a buyer who can take it over,” he said.
He said that the marina, the heart and soul of the Port Hinchinbrook development, needed to be dredged.
Mr Clarke acknowledged that dredging would be a costly undertaking involving the removal and safe disposal of spoil.
The cyclone, the court challenges had all taken a toll. But it was the characters, some of them straight out of the white shoe brigade’s Central Casting who said they were going to turn Port Hinchinbrook into a worldclass destination, that took the biggest toll of all.
“We can’t leave here until we sell our house,” Mr Clark said.
WE CAN’T JUST WALK AWAY FROM IT. IT WOULD COST $ 15,000 A YEAR JUST TO LEAVE THE HOUSE SITTING HERE IF WE MOVED TO PALM COVE. PORT HINCHINBROOK’S RAY CLARK