7 story apartment building built inches from single story wwII house

[Demovictory9]

Australia's real-life The Castle: Inside couple's David and Goliath battle after HUGE unit block is built just centimetres from their lifelong home - as they turn down $1.2m offer from developers and house starts to crumble

An elderly couple's say their home has become completely unlivable after construction work next door

Adelaide, 76, and Giuseppe Garofano, 84, immigrated to Australia in the 1950s following World War II

A seven-storey apartment block has been built just metres from their front door

The huge wall now directly faces the Garofanos yard and has cast a shadow over their heritage home

The Garofano family say they've been misled by Vortex Construction and have had no support from council

view from inside:






https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9396233/Elderly-Sydney-couple-shattered-construction-company-build-seven-storey-wall-doorstep.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

Pictured: The Garofanos federation Hurstville home before Vortex demolished the house next door and built the apartment block at the center of an ugly dispute

[Xavier Breath]

1. 'Vortex" seems like an apt name for that outfit. n/t

[krispos42]

2. The Wikipedia article on "spite houses" is interesting and occasionally amusing

They cover the people that bought a couple of house across from the Westboro Baptist Church (the "God Hates Figs" people, if you know what I mean) and painted them Gay Pride and Transgender Pride colors.

[marble falls]

3. They turned down US$1.2M for that house? Even AU$1.2 is worth US$900,000 or so.

[Hekate]

4. Location, location, location. We have no idea what buying another house would cost where they live.

This is sad.

[marble falls]

5. Renting a house that valuable must be outrageous. What I get from the article is both sides ...

... were to some degree of nonoperative.

[meadowlander]

13. In their late 70s/early 80s they should have taken the money.

How much longer are they going to be able to keep climbing the stairs into that place?

$1.2 million would get you a nicer modern wheelchair accessible place, even in Sydney. I know it doesn't have the same sentimental value for them but this was the inevitable consequence of them turning down the offer.

They're obviously in a medium density residential zone and there's no way that's a listed heritage building.

If we want to deal with climate change by having more people walking to work/the shops then this is what it looks like.

[Totally Tunsie]

6. Vera Coking went against tRump in a similar situation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Coking

In 1993, Donald Trump bought several lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, intending to build a parking lot designed for limousines.[4] Coking, who had lived in her house at that time for 32 years, refused to sell. As a result, the city condemned her house, using the power of eminent domain. She was offered $251,000,[5] a quarter of what she was offered by Guccione 10 years earlier.

snip

Coking remained in her house until 2010, when she moved to a retirement home in the San Francisco Bay Area near her daughter and grandchildren.

Property records show that on June 2, 2010, Coking transferred ownership of the house to her daughter, who put it on the market in 2011 with an initial asking price of $5 million.[1][8] By September 2013 the price had been reduced to $1 million.[9]

The property was finally sold for $583,000 in an auction on July 31, 2014.[10] The buyer was Carl Icahn, who held the debt on Trump Entertainment, owner of Trump Plaza. He subsequently demolished the house on November 19, 2014.[

Coking house at 127 S Columbia Pl, between the steel framework of the planned Penthouse Casino; photographed by Jack Boucher for Historic American Buildings Survey, c.1991

[Raine]

7. I thought they only did things like that in the good ole USA

it's just awful that something like that is allowed.

[luckone]

8. they don't even live there it's a rental property and they were offered 1.2 mill for that place

I can see why the council didn’t want to hear it

[SMC22307]

9. Disgusting. And it looks like they tore down a perfectly lovely home next door...

to put up a hideous apartment building. Sigh.

[Demovictory9]

10. its an extremely ugly apartment building

[Totally Tunsie]

11. They've also been encroached at the rear of their property.

There goes the neighborhood.

[Demovictory9]

12. big time! No privacy in that backyard

[BumRushDaShow]

14. ...