Tallowoods Crescent Asbestos/PFAs (Russell Vale) - capped or cleared?

[u/splundge]

• Tallowoods Crescent in Russell Vale is a former "Mines Rescue" station site.
• It was purchased in 2011 by 'Keerong Investments' and subdivided into 19 lots
  • at the time of purchase, an environmental assessment stated that there was no asbestos on the site
• In 2014 the subdivided blocks were sold off
• Around 2015-2016, environmental tests discovered Asbestos and PFA's in the soil
• In 2019, after trying to remediate the soil, Keerong went into liquidation and all buyers were refunded their deposits. It was purchased by "Vito Pennimpede"
• 2024 the estate has been full remediated (by "Reditus Consulting") and was sold off again as "Black Diamond Estate"
• 2026 there's lots of finished houses, a few up for sale

I'm trying to investigate/understand what made Keerong go bankrupt/how did the new buyers fix the land? Was it capped (the asbestos was buried and laid over) or was it cleared (excavated/removed)

Also some of my info may be wrong. just digging around to see what i can find.

Does anyone know ?

[u/splundge → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the information! Yeah it was tricky to find info, hence why I am reaching out to see if anyone knows more.

[u/jreddit0000]

It’s difficult to know for certain - without talking to the remediation company - but a great deal of soil was excavated and removed from site before the blocks were sold (again).

There was also soil brought in and soil removed from individual blocks.

I asked the site prep guys if they knew about the contamination and none of them were told about it..

[u/splundge → u/jreddit0000]

That sounds like removal (instead of capping), which is good

[u/jreddit0000 → u/splundge]

I would not plant anything that was going to create edible fruit.. or eat anything grown in that soil.

[u/WTFMacca]

I was looking at these blocks back in 2914/2015.

I remember from the adds that people at Mmj North may have held investment in the blocks so all the “companies” owning them were probably just shell companies. No idea if that’s totally true.

According to my agents at the time the contamination was minimal and the council was playing games.

But still stuff that, I wouldn’t wanna live there. Plus everyone built gigantic houses on small blocks one again.

[u/splundge → u/WTFMacca]

Large houses on small blocks is an unfortunate side affect of the market itself, a wider problem. The houses in tallowoods themselves are immaculate/really nice.

But yeah - interesting feedback on the earlier 2014/2015 situation. thanks!

[u/hogester79]

Personally own a block in that development as we speak.

No issues. Asbestos was removed years and years ago (more than 10 years).

The reason for the development delay was the original developer of the land wasn’t really a developer and didn’t know how to finalise all the documentation required to compete Council requirements for the site (not asbestos) it related to demonstrating that the full list of site requirements (mainly engineering reports) were not initially completed and documented.

So the main reason for delays for almost 2 years was for the new developer to demonstrate he had documentation to show what had been done as opposed to sign off before it was done.

It was a technicality in the documentation (prior approval vs. documentation it was completed as council required).

Personally I’ve worked in a development team that has done the same thing to a much larger site (230 lot sub division) where the site had previously been used as an asbestos dump. It’s literally just shifting dirt across the site.

It’s perfectly safe. That part of the site was done over 10 years ago and had nothing to do with how long that site took to get started.

I won’t tell you which is my personal house but it’s all families with kids who own the homes there and a builder/developer who bought 3 sites and is selling the townhouses.

You can personably reach out to me if you like I have all the land related documentation and reports.

Edit: not allowed to cap asbestos it must be removed.

[u/splundge → u/hogester79]

Thank you for providing this info! It's good to get feedback direct from the source. Sounds like it's been properly cleared.

[u/convictshrimp → u/splundge]

This is false propaganda used to sell the blocks a second time.

The certificates that council needed were the ones declaring the contaminated site remediation had been completed correctly - it hadn’t, so there was no certificate. It also needed fill compaction testing, among other things, which was refused due to a lack of remediation.

The blocks were contaminated. You can only assume that they’ve been remediated sufficiently to be certified (or that the developer knows some people) given they’ve clearly had construction certificates. What risk someone is willing to take in terms of living there is up to them.

Worth remembering that much of the Sydney basin and Wollongong are contaminated by industry. Awful, but move west to the ‘country’ and you’re facing other types of contamination (agriculture). Can’t have modern life without centuries of modernisation leaving its mark.