THE owners of the Huntlee property development near Branxton held a ceremony on Tuesday morning to celebrate the formal opening of the $1.5 billion venture.
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Perth’s LWP Property Group is developing the project with its co-owner, the Kahlbetzer family’s Twynam Group.
Huntlee began life as Sweetwater, marketed from the late 1990s by its original developer, Duncan Hardie, who in 2005 envisaged a town of up to 50,000 people on the 2000 hectare site.
A decade later, the fully approved Huntlee has a projected population of up to 20,000, with a 200 hectare town centre surrounded on three sides by four separate villages comprising as many as 7500 homes by 2035.
The Huntlee site straddles the Cessnock and Singleton local government areas and the two mayors, Bob Pynsent and John Martin, were on hand for yesterday’s ceremony.
Cr Pynsent said he and other Cessnock councillors were in Perth last year and took the opportunity to look at LWP’s Ellenbrook development, about half an hour out of the city.
LWP managing director Danny Murphy said Ellenbrook was bigger than Huntlee, and one of three projects the company had in Perth.
Mr Murphy said 50 lots had already been sold in Huntlee’s first stage, which was selling for between $145,000 and $220,000 a block, with an average price of $170,000.
He said each of Huntlee’s four villages would have its own distinctive ‘‘feel’’, with LWP having covenants over the sorts of designs and colours that could be used in each part of the project.
He said the opening of the Hunter Expressway would be a major boost for Huntlee.
Negotiations were under way to bring a major supermarket chain, with schools, pre-schools, a library, TAFE, aged-care centres and youth centres also on the drawing board.
One of Huntlee’s directors, Richard K Hill, said bank financing for real estate projects remained difficult to obtain.
Representing the Kahlbetzers in their 50per cent holding, Mr Hill said Huntlee was being privately financed, meaning bank lending was not needed.
Mr Murphy said Huntlee would successfully manage its environmental responsibilities and deal with any mine subsidence and rehabilitation issues arising from the former Ayrfield colliery under the final stage of the project.
But Cessnock Greens councillor James Ryan said Huntlee would put thousands of people in an environmentally sensitive area with no local jobs and few facilities, making everyone reliant on the motor vehicle.
‘‘This all got its start because the previous owner bought the mine land cheaply,’’ Cr Ryan said.
