City of dreams

By Ed Merrison
THE building business is booming in Casey with new figures revealing first home-buyers are flocking to the municipality while building activity is keeping pace with rapid population growth.
Treasurer John Brumby this week welcomed figures showing that 7 per cent of Victoria’s First Home Bonus buyers had elected to make their homes in the City of Casey.
The bonus, set at $5000 when introduced in May 2004, was reduced to $3000 in January for 18 months.
Since its inception, it has been snapped up by more buyers in Casey than in any other municipality, with 4350 buyers taking advantage of the grant.
Casey mayor Kevin Bradford encouraged the Government to continue to offer the bonus which was giving first-home buyers access to the municipality’s wide-ranging attractions.
“It does afford young couples and first-home buyers an opportunity to enter into the property market and achieve the all-Australian dream. And the City of Casey is where dreams are made,” he said.
“This is an indication of how popular the City of Casey is and the numerous amount of attractions and diversity within the city such as the foothills, coastal villages and diverse residential areas we have.”
Narre Warren North MP Luke Donnellan said the south-eastern suburbs had experienced significant population growth with the Casey recording the second largest population increase of any local government area in the state in 2004-05.
Building approvals for the municipality point to a positive response to the growth with Mr Donnellan citing recent data showing that $653 million worth of building work was approved by the City of Casey in 2005-06.
The figures put Casey third in the state by value of building activity for the past financial year, with a 7.9 per cent increase since 2004-05.
Mr Donnellan said it was all good news for local residents.
“It points to continued strong economic activity in the building and property sector, good growth potential in terms of employment, good local opportunities for apprentices and reasonable, affordable housing for Casey, so positive signs overall,” he said.
Cr Bradford was also pleased with the trends.
“It is encouraging. It shows the importance of local government and the importance of getting the planning of these future areas correct in the first place and ensuring that every need of residents moving in are met,” he said.
However, Cr Bradford said the huge growth had highlighted the lack of town planners in local government, a concern needing urgent attention.
“We are working with Monash University Berwick Campus to start up an urban design planning course in our own back yard, which will hopefully go a long way to enabling planners to cope with such important issues,” he said.