Canberra Airport owners to deliver 2000 dwellings in new suburb of Denman

The owners of Canberra Airport have been selected to develop about 2000 dwellings in the new suburb of Denman in Molonglo Valley.

The ACT government announced the successful tender for the first stage of the new suburb on Tuesday.

Capital Property Group will invest $241.3 million in the delivery of the valley’s third suburb.

It will be the first foray into residential development for the Snow family.

The Land Development Agency had shortlisted six developers to participate in a tender process after an expression-of-interest campaign for the 145-hectare site closed in April.

Capital Property Group managing director Stephen Byron said some single blocks would be auctioned in October and the first residents were expected to move into the suburb by Christmas next year.

He said the company would fast track the delivery of the suburb over three years rather than the usual six or seven.

“That will speed up the supply of land in Canberra, that will assist the affordability, but it will allow us to achieve the objectives and deliver the landscape amenity very well,” Mr Byron said.

“We don’t necessarily require any presales to fund the development; we have existing financial capacity to fund the whole of the civil works for stage 1B and we’re committed to doing just that.”

Capital Estate Development, which is part of the Capital Property Group, will invest $115.6 million in stage 1A and $125.7 million in stage 1B.

Mr Byron said a Canberra-based project team, led by Nick McDonald Crowley, had been selected to enable a seamless transition from the Land Development Agency.

He said the company would not be building houses itself but would instead release land to builders and had already initiated talks with local building companies.

“It’s obviously a huge responsibility to deliver this new exciting community,” Mr Byron said.

“It’s an opportunity to really create one of the best suburbs we’ve ever seen in Canberra.”

The Land Development Agency failed to sell the land two years ago at auction and decided in 2013 to develop the suburb itself.

But the agency changed its mind earlier this year and opted to put the land on the market following strong interest in Denman by the housing and construction industry.

Deputy chief minister Simon Corbell said the strong interest in the land showed the business community had great confidence in the city’s future.

“Clearly what we have seen is a very strong level of market interest and that’s a great outcome for the budget bottom line,” he said.

“That’s a great outcome for Canberrans in getting value for money from their land assets as well as delivering more homes at a time when we do need them – particularly in greenfields land supply,” he said.

The civil works for the first stage of Denman are well underway and are due for completion in April next year with 401 detached housing sites.

The civil works for stage 1b, which will be undertaken by Capital Estate Developments, will include the delivery of 600 detached housing sites and about 1000 medium to high density dwellings.

About 20 per cent of the dwellings will be earmarked for affordable housing and there will also be 72 public housing dwellings.

Denman Prospect will include a local centre and a school.