Charlotte Varcoe
MORE than 88 parcels of land have been sold on the $55m Limestone Estate project which is expected to be completed in the next five to seven years.
The project – which is to be built on about an 80 acre block of land – will be home to more than 350 residential houses as well as five shops and four consultant rooms.
A childcare service is also expected to be built next to Suttontown Primary School.
The block is stationed alongside Pine Hall Avenue and Suttontown Road with 35 allotments estimated to be built before the end of the year.
Prices for the current allotments are between $155,000 and $185,000.
Project director and manager Pardeep Kumer said they had been working on the project since 2015 and received permission to build mid-2017.
“We have also been working on other aspects of the project,” Mr Kumer said.
“The Covid-19 pandemic really pushed us back, otherwise we would have launched the project in 2020.”
He said sales were launched in April of last year which included the sales of stage one and two.
Mr Kumer said he initially decided on beginning the project after living in Mount Gambier/Berrin himself and noticing the lack of affordable housing.
“There was a shortage of rentals and I even found it difficult to find one and I know post-Covid the living situation had gotten worse in the regions with rentals at an all time low,” he said.
“We need more land and more houses in the town to help the rental shortage and although we conceived this idea in 2016 and the plans were already on the cards, it was pushed back because of Covid lockdown but we thought post-covid was the best time to really push forward.”
He said now the pandemic was over it was time to “take the project more seriously” with more than 100 homes expected to be built before 2025.
“We are selling the allotments at the moment and they are all mixed sizes because people are looking for 500-600 square metre allotments because it is more affordable,” he said.
“We are happy with how it is all going so far with the development and the sales side.”
Mr Kumer said it had been difficult to secure the right tradespeople at the right time amid the skills shortage but the issue had since been rectified.
