Group claims price too low
SAVE Surfers Paradise claims council is intending to sell the Bruce Bishop car park and Surfers Paradise Transit Centre at 30 per cent of its replacement cost.
The lobby group has been under pressure from Mayor Tom Tate to release its valuation on the car park, which councillors have voted to sell for $48 million.
Save Surfers Paradise secretary Deborah Kelly yesterday responded by calling a media conference to explain its stance.
Using 2015 parking planning methodology developed by the council, the group considered the existing 980 spaces underground at the higher cost of $75,000 each and the aboveground 560 spaces at $32,000 each. The total construction cost for those spaces excluding the cost of the land was $91 million, Save Surfers Paradise said.
The group then completed a valuation using the developer contribution cost where council places a charge on a developer who does not want to provide the number of car parks required under the City Plan.
The developer can apply for a relaxation on the site and obtains that in exchange for a financial contribution.
Save Surfers Paradise, after applying the levy for the total 1640 parking spaces, maintain the total replacement cost for the site including the land but not the transit centre was $137 million.
“Rather than this deal being a win-win for ratepayers as the CEO (Dale Dickson) claims, it looks like the buyers Care Parking and Far East Consortium are getting a huge free kick,” Ms Kelly said.
Mr Dickson has previously revealed two separate independent valuation reports were undertaken to establish a fair sale price.
“The Transit Centre site has a total area of 18085sq m, which indicates a fair sale price based on independent valuations available would be in the order of $47.3m to $49.7m,” he said.
Mayor Tom Tate yesterday dismissed claims by the group, saying “anything other than a formal valuation is a nonsense”.
“It is dishonest for anyone to try to peddle a valuation based on a site with no restrictions. I challenge them to show a formal valuation, by a registered valuer, as we have done,” he said. “Our sale terms compel the new owner to retain 640 public car parks, 100 community car parks, all leases and sub leases at the Transit Centre, and retain open space as part of the sale contract.
“Those restrictions rightly impact on the price a party is willing to pay. This is not a greenfield site and the price agreed to with Care Park is right in the middle of the two formal valuations we had done — and released publicly.
“I’m disappointed that this group, with no apparent legal standing and having lost their Supreme Court action last week, is desperately trying to peddle mistruths.’’