City ruling answers investors’ prayers
Vindication: Dennis Colquitt and his wife Lorraine did not want to buy above a church. Photo: Anthony Johnson
One of Australia’s leading developers has lost a bitter war with investors after it attempted to alter the floor plan of their luxury apartment complex to house a religious movement founded and managed by its own chief executive.
Crown Group sold a vision of six-star living at its future $80 million Viking development in Sydney’s Green Square, using artists’ images depicting a Ferrari showroom occupying the ground-floor space. With the pledge from Crown that both bottom floors would be occupied by high-end retail, more than 75 per cent of the 114 luxury apartments were snapped up off the plan for between $475,000 and $1.3 million.
However, one of those investors chanced upon a revised development application, for the same address, on the City of Sydney council website. Under a drastic series of changes to the original plan, both the ground-floor and first-floor commercial tenancies were to be fitted out as a ”place of public worship”, including an adjoining conference centre and function space capable of hosting 300 people, from 7.30am until 10.30pm, seven days a week.
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