One DEFIANT family is refusing to give up their beloved home on five acres in order to fight the push for development.
The Zammit family are sitting on a £25million goldmine in Sydney but unlike their neighbours who let go long ago, they have told developers to keep on “dreaming”.
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The Ponds, a west Sydney suburb where new houses have been built in the last few years, is home to a large property of five bedrooms with sweeping 200-metre drive.
This desirable area, only 40 minutes from the center of the city, offers beautiful views over the Blue Mountains.
A home that looks out of place in a row of identical, stacked-up newbuilds. The garden is 1.99 ha and could hold over 50 matching homes.
When their neighbours chose to leave and sell to the developer, the Zammits hung on to a final holdout.
They refused to accept the offer of millions and stopped the developer from buying the last parcel.
“The fact that most people sold out years and years ago, these guys have held on. All credit to them,” local agent Taylor Bredin told7News.
“Depending on how far you push the development plan, you’d be able to push anywhere from 40 to 50 properties on something like this, and when subdivided, a 300 square metre block would get a million dollars.”
In short, the land could be worth over £25million, especially after ten years of their private rebellion.
It is the home that continues to be in the news for its David and Goliath style of fight against corporate developments.
Like the Zammits in Disney-Pizar’s “Up”, they went about their daily lives while construction clanged, boomed and shook all around them.
Diane Zammit spoke wistfully of a neighbourhood that used to be “farmland dotted with little red brick homes and cottages”.
“Every home was unique and there was so much space – but not any more. It’s just not the same,” she told the Daily Mail Australia.
They will still refuse any offer for their house and tell them “Tell’m they are dreaming”.
Even the newer residents of the neighbourhood appreciate Zammit’s commitment to stay put.
Locals told Mail: “I am very pleased they have refused to sell. It means that we now live in a much safer cul-de -sac for our children. And their large lawn right next to us gives the impression of having a lot more space.”
The houses next to us are too close for our neighbours to see. Thank you so much! They’re welcome to stay, I do hope.
Other women are suspected to be the inspiration for “Up” because they forced developers in Seattle to build an shopping center around their home.
In a beautiful story of defiance, Edith Macefield – who moved in with her mother in 1952 – refused to sell five decades later even when she was offered £770,000 and construction went ahead around her.
One brave lady has refused to sell the home she lived in more than 60 year.
She said, “We don’t really want to go.” She said.
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