The Weekly Review Moonee Valley: Clifton Hill: Linking Melbourne Authority payment offer ‘unfair’ Sue Hewitt. 18 November 2014
Howard and Gillian Tuxworth with Harry, 14, and Molly, 10. Photo: Paul Jeffers
A family whose house has been compulsorily acquired for the east-west link project says the $1.35 million offered is not enough to replace their Clifton Hill home.
Gillian Tuxworth said the amount offered would not allow her family to buy a comparable property in the suburb.
She said recent sales showed the money offered to them by the Linking Melbourne Authority was hundreds of thousands of dollars less than it cost to buy back into Clifton Hill.
Mrs Tuxworth, her husband Howard and children Harry and Molly spent the past eight years renovating a double-fronted, four-bedroom, Hawthorn brick house on Wellington Street.
“People think we have been offered huge money, and that is just not the case,” Mrs Tuxworth said. She said they had been offered $80,000 “pain and suffering” compensation – 6 per cent of the property value, not 40 per cent as others believed.
“We can’t afford to buy back into Clifton Hill and that’s unfair; it is not our fault and we believe the government should have erred on the side of generosity. But this offer is so far off being fair and reasonable.”
The state government acquired the Tuxworth’s house on October 16 and the family has until August to move.
Mrs Tuxworth said a three-bedroom house on a smaller block in Spensley Street, Clifton Hill had been quoted at $1.2 to $1.3 million but sold for $1.47 million – $122,000 more than their offer.
A four-bedroom house that could accommodate her family in Roseneath Street, Clifton Hill, sold for $2.16 million, she said. Jarrod McCabe of property advisers Wakelin said he was “not surprised” Mrs Tuxworth had been unable to find a comparable replacement property.
“They have a double-fronted, large home and it appears nicely renovated and it’s on a main road, which discounts the price [they have been offered],” he said.
“There are not a lot [of homes in this category] around in a small suburb like Clifton Hill.”
