NAVIRE was engaged by the City of Knox to provide independent development and property advice and assist the City in negotiations with the developer owner of Kingston Links, who was seeking a rezoning of the land to enable residential mixed-use development.
The task
The key objective for this project was for the City to achieve a significant level of contributions from the developer owner with respect to the provision of social housing and a number of other infrastructure items including a regional sporting complex and pavilion, footbridge, Men’s Shed and roadworks.
The responsibilities
The key responsibilities for this engagement included:
- undertaking market analysis and development feasibility analysis with respect to the developer owner’s proposal for the Kingston Links land so as to guide the City on the level and structuring of contributions it could seek from the developer owner while maintaining the commercial viability of the developer owner’s proposed project;
- liaising with Council executives regarding the negotiations and creating the City’s negotiation strategy
- assisting Council in negotiations with the developer owner and reaching agreement on both the Terms Sheet and the DCA / section 173 Agreement with the developer owner.
Where it’s at
A Terms Sheet with respect to the development contributions was agreed in June 2017 and the parties executed a Development Contributions Agreement (DCA) / section 173 Agreement in August 2017, at which time the City sought Ministerial authorisation for the exhibition of a Planning Scheme Amendment (C142) in relation to the Kingston Links land.
The Minister for Planning has approved Amendment C142 which incorporated the requirements of the section 173 Agreement. The Amendment was published in the Victoria Government Gazette on 11 October 2018 and has come into effect.