Quarry house prices ready to hit the rocks

– Melissa Grant
A QUARRY proposed for Tonimbuk is already affecting real estate sales in the area.
Signs erected around the township expressing residents’ distaste of the plans are also sending a message to prospective property buyers.
Evan Broadbent, sales manager for Brian Souter Real Estate in Bunyip, said the agency struggled to sell a Tonimbuk property it had for more than two months.
“We just had a property out there and it was just so hard to move,” he said.
Another agent now has the property, but Mr Broadbent expected that future Tonimbuk properties would prove difficult to sell for his agency.
“At the moment, especially with all the boards out there, it would be a concern to anyone buying,” he said.
“It is, from a selling point of view, a big negative … people would use it as bargaining power.”
The Gazette last week revealed that Hanson, a world-leading heavy building materials company with an annual turnover of more than $9 billion, was putting together an application for a quarry in Sanders Road.
Residents opposed to the plans believe the quarry would see two million tonnes of granite extracted each year, resulting in noise and hundreds of daily truck movements.
They met last night to discuss the plans, concerned that Hanson could submit an application come January.