It seems Andrew Winter and his team may have done too thorough a renovation in Wollongong, as the owners decided just before auction to withdraw the property from sale and move back in.

<img alt="newdapto" height="353" src="/images/stories/2013/02/newdapto.jpg" width="470" />

&quot;They did too good a job,&quot; says listing agent Michele Lay of Ray White of the Selling Houses Australia team. &quot;If you see it on Selling Houses Australia you&#39;ll see how beautifully it came up.&quot;

The episode featuring the Wollongong house aired on Wednesday, and the auction was supposed to take place in September last year. The house was on the market for some months last year, says Lay.&nbsp;

The marketing had said &quot;With a realistic vendor and all the hard work done for you; this house MUST BE SOLD&quot;.

A short walk to the Wollongong CBD, the three-bedroom cottage last sold for $185,000 in 1999 and was on the market briefly in 2006, according to RP Data. The Selling Houses Australia team added new&nbsp;paint throughout, new blinds, new doors, new light fittings, new taps and a revamped kitchen and outdoor entertainment area. Lay says it could have attracted a rental of up to $460 per week. In 2009 it was listed for rent for $400 per week.

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Lay&nbsp;was marketing the property with price hopes of $399,000 plus.

The median house price in Wollongong fell 9.9% in&nbsp;the past year but rose 10.5% in the past five years, according to RP Data.

For more about prices and yields in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urban.com.au/property-observer" target="_blank">Wollongong, see the&nbsp;RP Data suburb page.</a>

For real-life property lessons from reality TV shows, download our free eBook&nbsp;<a href="http://propertyobserver.com.au/ebooks/free-ebook-lessons-from-the-block-and-other-property-reality-television-shows" target="_blank">Lights, Camera, Auction!</a>

cknowlton-QnEa6ntUYP

Wollongong vendor decides to move back in after Andrew Winter's work is done

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{yoogallery src=[images/stories/november23breakingdawn]}

Cashed-up Twihards can stay in the house where Bella and Edward consummated their marriage for about $4,000 a night.

<img src="/images/stories/bellaedward1.jpg">

The six-bedroom, 1,022-square-metre house is in Mamangua Bay, between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The honeymoon scenes in Breaking Dawn: Part 1 were filmed at the house, called <a href="https://www.casaemparaty.com.br/en/default" target="_blank">Casa em Parat</a>y, in addition to a soundstage in the US. 

<img src="/images/stories/bellaedward2.jpg">

Casa em Paraty was designed by Thiago Bernardes and includes a 220-metre private beach and 700 square metres of verandas. It rents for R$7,000 a night, or about A$3,930.

Those on "Team Edward" will know that the vampire reduces the marital bed to splinters on the couple's wedding night, but as the bedroom scenes were not filmed at Casa em Paraty, the main bedroom is still intact. 

<h2>Recently listed properties:</h2>

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[smartcode_project:default project_id=24323]

[smartcode_project:default project_id=3459]
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Twilight Breaking Dawn honeymoon house available for rent for $4,000 per night

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Property group Peet has bought a half-stake in a $90 million mixed residential and commercial development in Flagstone City, in south-east Queensland, The Australian has reported. Industry super fund MTAA super sold the 50% share in the 1244-hectare Flagstone West development for $45 million. The development is next to an existing MTAA development in Flagstone East, which has infrastructure, services and about 3500 residents. When Flagstone West is completed it is expected to be worth $3.5 billion, and the area has been identified by the Queensland Government as an urban development area.
Eagle Street swoops away with architecture award One One One Eagle Street in Brisbane’s CBD has taken out the award for Australia’s best office architecture project at the Asia Pacific International Commercial Property Awards in Shanghai, according to The Australian. The 54-storey building, built by GPT Group for $630 million, is 40% leased, including a 10-year lease from accounting firm Ernst&amp;Young for the top five floors.
Suncorp’s shining HQ tender attracting plenty of bidders Insurance and banking company Suncorp is having no trouble finding a developer to build its flagship Brisbane office tower, with more than 25 bidders entering proposals. “We have already reduced the list and advised some of the developers that we will not progress to the next stage,” Suncorp executive general manager of real estate Peter Afflek told The Australian Financial Review. The Suncorp building, which will be between 27,000 and 30,000 square metres, will be the largest office building in Brisbane for several years and shows that developers are eager to get back into the market after years of falling commercial prices.
Gated community up for sale Ray White is selling a 39-lot gated community in Carbrook, south-east Queensland, on behalf of a mortgagee. The development, which is 30km from Brisbane CBD, had 95% of civil works completed. Ray White will auction the property at 11am on Wednesday, June 15.
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IN BRIEF: Peet invests $45 million in Queensland

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Residential tenancy legislation The <a target="_blank" href="https://notes.nt.gov.au/dcm/legislat/legislat.nsf/d989974724db65b1482561cf0017cbd2/d51f653aa04ebbfc6925784d00004c80?OpenDocument" title="Residential Tenancies Act">Residential Tenancies Act 1999</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://notes.nt.gov.au/dcm/legislat/legislat.nsf/linkreference/residential%20tenancies%20regulations?opendocument" title="Residential Tenancies Regulations" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Residential Tenancies Regulation 1999</a> relate to residential tenancies in Northern Territory.
Further information for residential landlords The Northern Territory government’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nt.gov.au/justice/consaffairs/documents/GuideToRentingFeb2011.pdf" title="Guide to renting">guide to renting</a> is a useful guide for information about residential tenancy, and the government’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nt.gov.au/justice/consaffairs/res_tenancies.shtml" title="NT government website">residential tenancy website</a> can also be helpful.
Dispute resolution for residential tenancies The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nt.gov.au/justice/consaffairs/res_tenancies.shtml" title="Residential Tenancies Department">Residential Tenancies Department</a> within the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs  handles disputes relating to residential tenancies.
Further resources The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reint.com.au/" title="Real Estate Institute of Northern Territory">Real Estate Institute of Northern Territory</a>  and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ntd.net.au" title="National Tenancy Database">National Tenancy Database</a> are further resources.
Commercial tenancy legislation Commercial tenancies in Northern Territory are regulated by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.retaildevelopment.com.au/pdf/NT.pdf" title="Commercial Tenancies (Fair Dealings) Act">Commercial Tenancies (Fair Dealings) Act 2007</a>.
Dispute resolution for commercial tenancies The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nt.gov.au/justice/consaffairs/business_tenancies.shtml" title="Department of Consumer Affairs">Department of Consumer Affairs</a> handles disputes relating to commercial tenancies.
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Useful links for landlords in the Northern Territory

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As we look to what's ahead for 2012, Property Observer is republishing some of our most noteworthy stories of 2011.
 
Going to a debate about property bubbles is a bit like going to a debate about the existence of God. You know broadly what the arguments will be, but you want to know who is speaking and whether they have any new observations.
 And so it was that the Money Institute in Sydney hosted “The Property Bubble Debate: is it doom and gloom or safe as houses?”
 In the Christopher Hitchens role (there is no God) we had, inevitably, Professor Steven Keen, this country’s most high-profile property market iconoclast.
 As the joke goes, the good professor has managed to pick six of the last three downturns.
 Opposing him, in the Archbishop of Canterbury corner, there was a property developer called Dr Tony Hayek from Blue Wealth Property.
 In between, there were a handful of participants, the most informative of whom was Dr Shane Oliver, AMP’s chief economist.
 One problem with debating the merits of property is that it is such an emotive topic for Australians.
 With one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world, having your own home – at almost any price – is a cultural imperative against which it is almost impossible to rationally argue. It is also proof that economics is not always a rational science.
Hayek, the first speaker, said he wasn’t going to show any graphs or statistics, because that was the job of the other panellists.
However, he did show us photos of houses in Concord and Harris Park, NSW, that he said had gone up in value in the past few years.
 Fortunately, Keen had a slightly broader view. The University of Western Sydney academic said that conventional wisdom had it that “population pressures drive house prices, but that’s wrong. It is money pressure which drives house prices.”
 Australian banks have financed a bigger bubble here than in the US, he said.
“It’s the biggest debt-financed asset bubble in human history, and I’m afraid you ignore it to your peril.”
Oliver began his talk by saying that any negative remarks about the property markets didn’t apply to the northern beaches suburb of Avalon, NSW, because that was where he owned a house. In general, house prices were this country’s “Achilles Heel,” he observed. 
In 1987 the housing market soared following the sharemarket crash, and the Australian market recorded much bigger gains than the UK and the US. Although the Australian market is overvalued, the indications of a bubble were missing, he said.
Interestingly, buyer sentiment about property as an asset class has changed. In the mid-1990s approximately 50% of Australians surveyed on this topic thought that real estate was a better place for their savings than other asset classes, Oliver said. Now, only 15% are property true believers, and the rest think they would be better off putting money into bank deposits and paying off debts.
Housing affordability is a huge issue in this country, the economist said. To buy an average-priced house in Australia takes six times the annual disposable income, whereas in the US is just three times that figure.
For instance, the average house price is Sydney is $634,000 while in Los Anegles, which has similar household incomes, it is $346,000. The Perth average house costs $480,000 and Austin Texas, $189,000. Housing rental yields here were about 3% and commercial property about 8%, the economist said.
Oliver then analysed the issue of why Australian property was so much more expensive than its equivalent in the US.
The first reason was that Australians spend less on healthcare than Americans, which means that they have more money in their pockets to spend on housing. The other factors are a greater supply of credit here and an under-supply of housing.
Currently, there is a shortfall of 200,000 to 230,000 dwellings; we should be building 180,000 to 200,000 dwellings every year and we are building less than that, he said.
In conclusion, the economist said that the main risks for the property market were a large number of land releases by government, the collapse of the Chinese economy and a rise in interest rates. Housing affordability was “terrible” and auction clearance rates were trending low, he said.
“My summary would be that prices are overvalued. It’s not a bubble, but we are very vulnerable if anything goes wrong.”
After the presentation, on the way back to the office, I went into a shop to look at a $330 pair of shoes I had just purchased over the internet for $70, plus postage. As I can now buy everything I want with an iMac and a credit card, I wondered: what is the future of retailing property? Buy FedEx.
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Property high priests square off over housing bubble

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Residential tenancy legislation
Laws regarding residential tenancies in New South Wales are covered by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/maintop/view/inforce/act+42+2010+cd+0+N" title="New South Wales Residential Tenancies Act">Residential Tenancies Act 2010</a>  and by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/maintop/view/inforce/subordleg+664+2010+cd+0+N" title="New South Wales Residential Tenancies Regulations">Residential Tenancies Regulation</a> 2010. These laws came into effect in January 2011, and a Q&amp;A addressing some common concerns about them can be found <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rpemery.com.au/rental_agreement/new-tenancy-laws-NSW." title="New South Wales Residential Tenancies Act Q&amp;A">here</a>.
Further information for residential landlords The NSW state government has a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Tenants_and_home_owners/Being_a_landlord" title="New South Wales guide for landlords">guide for landlords</a> on its website.
Dispute resolution for residential tenancies Disputes regarding tenancy in New South Wales are handled by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cttt.nsw.gov.au/default.htm" title="New South Wales Consumer, Trader and TenancyTribunal">Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal</a>.
Further resources The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reinsw.com.au/" title="Real Estate Institute of New South Wales">Real Estate Institute of New South Wales</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.poansw.com.au" title="Property Owners Association of New South Wales">Property Owners Association of New South Wales</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.propertyoz.com.au/NSW/Division/Default.aspx" title="NSW division of Property Council of Australia">Property Council of Australia</a> and<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ntd.net.au/index" title="National Tenancy Database"> National Tenancy Database</a> are other resources that can be useful for landlords of residential properties.
Commercial tenancy legislation Owners of commercial properties in New South Wales can find information about retail tenancy on the NSW state government’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Businesses/Retail_tenancy" title="NSW commercial tenancies information">website </a>. Retail leases in the state are governed by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/maintop/view/inforce/act+46+1994+cd+0+N" title="NSW Retail Leases Act">Retail Leases Act of 1994</a>.
Dispute resolution for commercial tenancies Any disputes regarding retail tenancies must be mediated by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Businesses/Retail_tenancy/Resolving_retail_tenancy_disputes" title="NSW commercial tenancy dispute mediation">Office of Fair Trading</a> , but if this does not resolve the dispute, the matter can be escalated to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/adt/ll_adt.nsf/pages/adt_retail_leases_division" title="NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal">Administrative Decisions Tribunal</a>.
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Useful links for landlords in NSW

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Residential tenancy legislation In Western Australia, residential tenancies are subject to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:20853P/%24FILE/ResdntlTenanciesAct1987_04-h0-00.pdf?OpenElement" title="Residential Tenancies Act" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Residential Tenancies Act 1987</a> and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2007Q00141)" title="Residential Tenancies Regulations" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Residential Tenancies Regulations 1989</a>.
Further information for residential landlords The WA government has also produced an<a target="_blank" href="https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/consumerprotection/PDF/Publications/Renting_out_your_property_2010.pdf" title="Information brochure for landlords" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;"> information brochure for landlords</a>.
Dispute resolution for residential tenancies <a target="_blank" href="https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/ConsumerProtection/" title="Department of Consumer Protection" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">The Department of Commerce and Consumer Protection </a>hears disputes relating to residential tenancies.
Further resources <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reiwa.com.au" title="Real Estate Institute of Western Australia" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia</a>, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.po.asn.au/" title="Property Owners Association of Western Australia" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Property Owners Association of Western Australia</a>, Property Council of Australia and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ntd.net.au/" title="National Tenancy Database" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">National Tenancy Database</a> may be useful for landlords in WA.
Commercial tenancy legislation Commercial tenancies are governed by the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:10384P/%24FILE/CommTenancyRetailshopsAgsAct1985_03-d0-02.pdf?OpenElement" title="Commercial Tenancy (Retail Shops) Act" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Commercial Tenancy (Retail Shops) Act 1985</a> and are regulated by the<a target="_blank" href="https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/consumerprotection/content/business/Commercial_tenancy/index.htm" title="Department of Commerce" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">Department of Commerce</a>.
Dispute resolution for commercial tenancies The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sat.justice.wa.gov.au/" title="South Australian Administrative Tribunal" style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: underline; color: #6888b1;">State Administrative Tribunal</a> is responsible for mediating and ruling on disputes related to commercial tenancies.
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Useful links for landlords in Western Australia

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It’s tax time again, when you need to go through the process of working out your taxable income and calculating your tax bill or a tax refund cheque you’re likely to receive. Here are some handy end-of-financial-year tips on maximising your tax benefits, and tax traps to avoid if you own an investment property.
At the outset it is best that you credit all rental income you receive to your personal cheque account, and all rental expenses should be paid by cheque. This will help you keep track of your income and expenses and quickly prepare your annual tax return. With respect to investment properties, keep all your rental statements, invoices and receipts to substantiate your rental income and tax deductions.
 Rental income
Rent is liable to tax when it’s paid or credited to your account. If you lease a property make sure you charge a commercial rate of rent. Otherwise the Tax Office could reduce or disallow all your rental deductions.
 What’s tax deductible?
Under Australian tax law you can claim as a tax deduction expenses you incur in deriving your rental income. This means there must be a relevant connection between the rent you receive and your rental deductions. The following types of expenses you’re likely to incur normally have that relevant connection.
<ul>
<li>Advertising costs to find a suitable tenant</li>
<li>Agent’s commission to collect the rent on your behalf</li>
<li>Capital works deductions (or building write-off deductions)</li>
<li>Depreciation of approved items that you can write off</li>
<li>Insurance on buildings that you lease</li>
<li>Interest on borrowings to purchase an investment property</li>
<li>Rates and land taxes</li>
<li>Repairs to your investment property</li>
<li>Security costs</li>
<li>Travel costs to inspect your investment property</li>
<li>Water and sewerage charges</li>
</ul>
 Common tax traps to avoid
Australia’s tax system operates on a self-assessment basis, and the Australian Taxation Office will ordinarily accept what you disclose in your tax return as true and correct. However, the Tax Office conducts routine tax audits and data-matching programs to keep you honest and to check that you’re not cooking the books. So it’s important that you comply with <country-region><place>Australia</place></country-region>’s complex tax laws. Stiff financial and criminal penalties may apply if you get it wrong or deliberately cheat the system (Not guilty, Your Honour!). The common mistakes associated with investment properties are listed here:
 Rental income
<ul>
<li>Not declaring all the rental income you receive, and more particularly not declaring rental income on holiday homes you lease during the financial year</li>
</ul>
Tax deductions
<ul>
<li>Overstating your rental expenses and claiming tax deductions for investment properties that are not genuinely available for rent</li>
<li>Claiming a tax deduction for expenses relating to the private use of a property such as a holiday home and your main residence</li>
<li>Incorrectly depreciating items that are not tax deductible</li>
<li>Incorrectly claiming borrowing costs. These expenses are deductible over the period of the loan or five years</li>
<li>Incorrectly claiming interest deductions in respect to loans that are partly investment-related and partly private. For example, you might lease a shop and reside at the back of the premises.</li>
<li>Incorrectly claiming travel expenses to inspect an investment property when the trip is also partly for private purposes. For example, if you reside in Hobart and you own an investment property in sunny Queensland, you might inspect it just when your footy team happens to be playing there.</li>
<li>Incorrectly claiming capital work deductions that exceed the construction expenditure</li>
<li>Claiming initial repairs as repairs and maintenance costs rather than including these costs as part of the property’s cost base. Initial repairs are repairs you make to a newly acquired investment property (for example, if you paint a property you recently purchased before leasing it)</li>
</ul>
Capital gains tax
<ul>
<li>Not declaring capital gains you make on sale of investment properties, holiday homes and vacant land you own</li>
<li>Incorrectly calculating the amount of capital gain or capital loss you make on sale</li>
<li>Incorrectly claiming a main residence exemption that’s not your fair dinkum place of residence</li>
</ul>
 Tax Office publications
To help you comply with Australia’s tax laws, the Tax Office has published numerous fact sheets and booklets, and they’re all free of charge (who said you can’t get blood from a stone?).
<ul>
<li>Deductions for prepaid expenses (NAT 4170)</li>
<li>Guide to depreciating assets (NAT 1996)</li>
<li>Personal investor’s guide to capital gains tax (NAT 4152)</li>
<li>Rental properties (NAT 1729)</li>
<li>Rental properties – avoiding common mistakes</li>
<li>Rental expenses – claiming capital works deductions (NAT 72840)</li>
<li>Rental properties – claiming legal expenses (NAT 71956)</li>
<li>Rental properties– claiming repairs and maintenance (NAT 72841)</li>
<li>Rental property deductions – know what you can claim 
<ul>
<li>Tax pack for individuals</li>
<li>Tax Pack Supplement for individuals with investments</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
 Jimmy B Prince is a tax specialist and author of <a title="Tax for Australians for Dummies and Property&amp;Taxation" href="https://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0730375528" target="_blank">Tax for Australians for Dummies and Property &amp; Taxation</a> (Wily Publishing Australia Pty Ltd)
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Landlords should take care not to get caught out by the taxman

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Hanging from a rock face 30 metres from the ground is not usually the time or place for thinking about your garden.
But for Phillip Johnson it was scaling the heights of the Grampians’ Mt Arapiles that inspired him to take a leap into the world of vertical gardens.
The daredevil-turned-horticulturalist has since taken his love for gardens to the most extreme and unlikely of places – the soaring wall of TRIO apartments in the Sydney suburb Camperdown.
Last month his 33-metre by five-metre vertical garden, which spans 12 storeys and includes 4,528 native plants, picked up the top gong for commercial landscaping at the Australian Landscape Excellence Awards.
<img src="/images/stories/trio.jpg" style="margin: 5px;">
The stunning design (pictured above), and Australia’s tallest living wall, was created in partnership with botanist Patrick Blanc, a flamboyant Frenchman whom Johnson describes as “the grandfather of green walls around the world”.
Their win was described as “pioneering” – a term Blanc knows well but one Johnson will have to get use to.
“It is still very early days in Australia,” he says. “The vertical garden movement is starting, but I say bring on the revolution.”
Johnson believes we are a good 10 years behind Japan and some cities in Europe and North America, which due to high-density living were more prone to greening up irregular spaces like walls and rooftops.
“In Japan idea of green walls is so evolved that they call them bio-lungs, which acknowledges the bio-diversity and the improved air quality they bring to the urban environment.”
Johnson says Australian developers and property investors need to understand that vertical gardens are more than just window and wall dressing.
“We all know what plants do for removing Co2, but these gardens also become living habitats attracting birds and butterflies to their buildings.
“They are also effective for insulating against heat and reducing city noise,” he says.
“Greening up our cities is in everyone’s interest, and contrary to what many people think, it doesn’t need to be complicated. If we use the right systems and have the proper level of maintenance, it can be achieved.
“And we need to show how landscapes like this can add value to property.”
Although it can be difficult and costly to install vertical gardens in existing buildings, the “revolution” depends on developers who see the benefits –but also the commercial viability – of including living green spaces in their new projects.
Frasers Property, the company behind Trio and the planned One Central Park apartments in inner Sydney, is one developer flying the green flag.
“We’ve looked carefully at the installation and operational costs of vertical gardens, and in our experience, they are no more costly to install than commonly used stone-clad facades, but they are clearly more appealing,” CEO Guy Pahor says.
“With respect to ongoing maintenance, when amortised across the 623 apartments at One Central Park, it will become a minor part of the overall building maintenance expense.”
<img src="/images/stories/onecentralpark.jpg" style="margin: 5px;">
The ambitious project (pictured above) led by celebrated architect Jean Nouvel and Patrick Blanc will incorporate 44,000 plants over 23 vertical panels (or 1,100 square metres) and seven linear kilometres of planter boxes containing an additional 150,000 plants.
The gardens are fed by an external hydroponic watering system using water collected from the site.
Pahor is convinced that “organic architecture is global and growing”, but other developers are less willing to meet the start-up and ongoing expenses.
At Hamton’s Eden development in the riverside Melbourne suburb of Abbottsford, installing permanent vertical and rooftop gardens was considered too costly, but also environmentally unsustainable.
“We worked with landscapers to create a look using creepers and planter boxes that softens the façade and blends in with the natural surrounds, but doesn’t require large amounts of water or energy-intensive lights to keep the plants alive,” Hamton managing director Steve Buxton says.
“This will ensure costs are kept down for residents.”
<img src="/images/stories/crystalgarden1.jpg">
A different approach is being taken by CK Designworks, which is designing the Crystal Gardens development in Russell Street (pictured above), in Melbourne’s CBD. The architect has designed the 35-storey building such that it will have a park every six storeys.
“Melbourne consistently rates as one of the world’s most liveable cities, partly due to its expansive parks and gardens, but developers should now look at rooftop gardens and high-rise parks as the next step in the greening of the world’s cities,” CK Designworks partner and project architect Robert Caulfield says.
<img src="/images/stories/skyparkanother.jpg">
Nearby at Melbourne’s Flagstaff Gardens, the planned SkyPark Tower hotel and apartments (pictured above) will include, as the name implies, an activity and fitness park high up on the 32nd floor.
The catch is that this park will be completely covered in synthetic grass and has no plants or vegetation.
Architect Billy Kavellaris, director of Kavellaris Urban Design, says vertical and rooftop gardens are often “good design initiatives”, but are not the only way to produce “good design outcomes”, particularly when it comes to engaging people in open spaces.
“They have become fashionable, but I am concerned they are often added on to justify the lack of other sustainability measures within the overall building or design,” he says.
“The SkyPark offers a critique on this discussion and is a good way to generate debate in the industry.”
<img style="outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; outline-color: initial; padding: 2px; border: 0px initial initial;" src="/images/stories/skypark.jpg">
SkyPark Tower includes a half basketball court, gym, barbecue area and a climbing wall (pictured above), which unlike Johnson’s preferred rock face, will be completely devoid of plants and grasses.
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Up in the air - it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a garden, as residential development goes green

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A group of real estate agencies is preparing to limit the amount of data they provide advertising giant REA Group and its property site realestate.com.au in order to have more control over payment terms.
But real estate classifieds veteran and former REA Group chief executive Simon Baker has dismissed the plan as “noise”.
According to Real Estate Industry of Australia president David Airey, “Project Rebellion” is being headed up by various real estate groups including the Professionals and Ray White in order to reduce their costs for online listings.
“I think the agents are starting to feel like they’re giving away the farm. The information has been essentially enslaved by realestate.com.au and to a lesser extent Domain.com.au, but realestate.com.au has been the main one here,” Airey says.
“As a lot of the agents would say, they’ve enslaved the industry because you can’t do without them.”
Airey’s comments coincide with a report in The Australian Financial Review this morning which claims groups including LJ Hooker, Ray White, Raine &amp; Home and Century 21 are preparing to discuss how they can set up alternatives to REA Group.
Airey says a meeting set to take place in the next few weeks will see companies decide on their next course of action.
While real estate agents have long said they are unhappy with the high costs associated with putting data online through REA Group, alternative ventures to combat realestate.com.au have lacked momentum. Now, Airey says, that may change.
“The franchised groups and a few others are looking at restraining the flow of data. Agents will probably start to retain their own data and then release it to the institutes.
“You do have real estate institutes running web portals, information on sales, and so on. The aim is to start controlling their own data, and let’s say this is little footsteps of returning control to industry portals.”
This has happened before, however. Real estate companies have previously attempted to combat REA Group, but former chief executive Simon Baker says it’s incredibly difficult to do so.
“I would say the industry for many years has complained about pricing – it’s all too much, in their mind. But it’s okay to spend more than on print. So you always get this noise, and so I think it’s just that – noise.”
“You have to do a number of things here. You have to set up a website with an equivalent number of listings, because if you have less listings people aren’t going to visit your website.”
Then, he says, the site needs to create awareness, and then convince users they need to go to the new site instead of REA. Traffic is a huge issue, he says.  “Consumers need a reason to go from looking at REA to looking at your site.”
“Good luck at getting all those into place. You also have to get agents to stop dealing with REA. But you have to see a co-ordinated effort to change anything.”
Airey, however, remains positive.
“Previously when this has occurred everyone thinks, “Oh, it won’t happen.” But the biggest issue for agents is that their costs have blown out, and for the slightest thing you can be charged a large amount of money. Agents want more control.”
This article was originally published by <a href="https://www.smartcompany.com.au">SmartCompany.com.au</a>
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Cassidy Knowlton

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