JUST eight per cent of the Mary Valley families forced to sell their homes to the state government before the controversial Traveston Crossing Dam was scrapped have expressed an interest in buying their old properties back.
brisbanetimes.com. au has learned just over 40 of the 494 affected families have indicated they may re-buy their properties from the state government.
The government paid landowners $545 million at "above market rates" for the land to encourage landowners to sell their land and let the dam proceed.
Families need to confirm whether they want buy back their properties - at the same price at which they were sold - by May 31.
Save the Mary River Coordinating Group president Glenda Pickersgill said some properties were now worth less money, so families were reluctant to sign up to buying their homes back at higher prices.
"In some cases the houses have been removed, there are sheds that have been removed, fences removed," she said.
"In some cases the properties have deteriorated because they have been leased out.
"Some people had businesses going before they sold and now the business doesn't exist.
"But they are still asked to sign this piece of paper that says expression of interest to purchase back at the original price."
The state government bought the 494 Mary Valley properties to acquire 4000 hectares of land to build the $1.8 billion dam, before the federal government vetoed the project last year.
Last November, Premier Anna Bligh said the government would progressively sell the properties back to families, but are forcing residents to pay the price at which they sold their properties.
Ms Pickersgill said some families would wait, believing the government would be forced into a fire sale of cheaper properties to recoup their multi-million dollar land sales, while others would stay in their long-term 20-year leases.
"Others are saying as long as the government is going to honour the leases, it is better for us not to purchase back," she said.
The land is held by the fully state government-owned company, Queensland Water Infrastructure Pty Ltd.
A spokeswoman for Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the government always intended to sell the Mary Valley land gradually.
"The Government was always aware that the sale of the Traveston Dam land would need to occur over a number of years," the spokeswoman said.
The sale of the land is intended to help finance the first two of the four desalination plants planned for south-east Queensland, at Lytton and Marcoola by 2017.
Meanwhile, Shadow Infrastructure Minister David Gibson said some property owners were in a tax trap, because they had a two-year window to spend the money they had received to avoid paying capital gains tax.
Mr Gibson said he had spoken to one landowner this week.
"The government bought his property from him in March two years ago and he had two years by the Tax Office ruling to do something with that money and buy another property, or he would be hit with capital gains tax," he said
"What he has had to do - so he doesn't get hit with capital gains tax - is spend that money on another property, which he has done.
"But what that means is that probably is not going to be in position to buy his property back."
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