Council and Electric Company Installations on Private Land

JohnSmith0701

Greetings and a happy festive season. 

My reason for this post. 

This refers to a commercial plot about 370m2.  It is  a busy city location and plan was to build 4 storey mix used commercial-residential unit.

 

Site was used historically for 3*48 billboards adverts. Title plan has an Easement clause dating back to 1970, with no “right to light, air or any other easements” with  Electric corporation at that time. Council search report indicated it is a private land. However, the council has still placed a lot of infrastructure such as cycle stands and advert boards and benches within the boundaries of the Title plan. It does not look like historically the council has treated it as private land.

 

 Currently there are 4 ground mounted transformers 230v installed on-site alongside extensive infrastructure laid by council (benches, cycle stands) within boundaries of the title plan.  Extensive buried networks of live cables make development very expensive and difficult. The cost of removing this public infrastructure from private land is prohibitive making development unsustainable.

Just wondering if there is a case to request council and Electric company to remove their infrastructure from land at their expense.  

There appears to be extensive use of tthis private land by various public agencies and cost of removing existing infrastructure is prohibitive and poses serious safety challenges  

 

Davesnave

JohnSmith0701 said:

Just wondering if there is a case to request council and Electric company to remove their infrastructure from land at their expense. 

There appears to be extensive use of this private land by various public agencies and cost of removing existing infrastructure is prohibitive and poses serious safety challenges 

It would be usual for any disadvantages, including public access, to be reflected in the price paid for the land.

Development requires an electricity supply, and the relocation of services is usually at a developer's expense, so why would that be inappropriate here?

anselld

If the easement already allows the electric transformers and cables then the Council element (benches and cycle racks) would be trivial in comparison.  With the easement in place it is going to be extremely difficult to remove any infrastructure which as stated above will be reflected in the land price.

AdrianC

JohnSmith0701 said:

Just wondering if there is a case to request council and Electric company to remove their infrastructure from land at their expense.  

So why did you buy this land, given what you know of it?

davidmcn

JohnSmith0701 said:

 the council has still placed a lot of infrastructure such as cycle stands and advert boards and benches within the boundaries of the Title plan

That would suggest to me that at least some of it is adopted highway. Isn't it? 
What role do you play in this scenario? 

JohnSmith0701

There is a clause of easement however, not specify that it is for electrical equipment. Vague statement, that "no right to light, air or any other easements". However, in case of easements, law suggests it should not be used excessively. 
Evidence of electrical transformers on one side became evident only after purchase. 
Council has confirmed it is not an adopted highway and private land. 

martindow

JohnSmith0701 said:

Evidence of electrical transformers on one side became evident only after purchase.

Did you view this plot?  No doubt photos could be taken so that they were not shown, but I'm sure the transformers weren't sneaked in last week.

AdrianC

JohnSmith0701 said:

Evidence of electrical transformers on one side became evident only after purchase. 

You didn't see them when you viewed before purchase?

ProDave

Can you think out of the box and a structure with minimal ground floor accommodation with most supported in pillars above the existing stuff?

As others said, what was there would have been obvious prior to purchase.  I assume it was cheap because of this?

martindow

ProDave said:

Can you think out of the box and a structure with minimal ground floor accommodation with most supported in pillars above the existing stuff?

As others said, what was there would have been obvious prior to purchase.  I assume it was cheap because of this?

I imagine there would be real problems tring to build over a transformer.  To start with the electricity company would need space to lift a transformer out with a crane if it needed replacing. 

blue_max_3

Can you charge rent for the land to the utility companies?