[thorn bird]

Airports - get 'em while they're hot.

Well, well, well, t'would seem the skullduggery rumours certainly have been germinating; for quite a while now the name Bob Ell has been whizzing about the Bankstown grapevine, story is said to emanate from BAL; -go figure .  So Just who is this Bob Ell??  Start with -THIS - from 2013.

"BRW Rich Lister Bob Ell is set to buy a prime industrial property in Sydney’s south-west as the market for A-grade industrial assets heats up. The 34-hectare site on the corner of Milperra Road and Henry Lawson Drive is near Bankstown airport and two kilometres from the M5 Motorway.

Ell’s company Leda Holdings now has a pipeline of industrial developments and investments of about $650 million. A Leda spokesman says demand is steady for prime industrial property along the M5 and M7 Motorways.

“Land in Sydney’s south-west and off that M5 corridor is not plentiful, there’s not a lot of land out there," the spokesman says. “Even in the Eastern Creek precinct the land is drying up. There’s not a shortage by a long shot but there’s certainly not going to be an oversupply in the future."

The purchase, for an estimated $25 million, hinges on a lengthy development approval process with the federal government, owing to the site’s proximity to Bankstown airport.

The purchase, for an estimated $25 million, hinges on a lengthy development approval process with the federal government, owing to the site’s proximity to Bankstown airport. Ell hopes to build an industrial park that will house a mix of large industrial users, retail showrooms and bulky goods centres".

Hmm?? $25 Mil for almost a quarter of the airport?? Cheap at half the price!! and you'll note, no mention that its actually "AIRPORT" land......

  More from The Monthly - HERE - 

In December 2005, when I was advising premier Iemma, I received a phone call from NSW ALP secretary Mark Arbib. Arbib told me that Bob Ell, of Leda Holdings, was a significant donor to Labor’s coffers and had a problem with his development proposal on the far-north coast. Arbib asked me to look into it. I reluctantly agreed to do so, but was startled when the very next day Ell rang me directly, having obtained my number from Arbib. Ell’s opening gambit was to declare that it was actually Arbib who wanted me to be informed about his issue. He clearly believed he had influence because of his generosity to Labor. I made no promises other than to review the case to ensure it was being handled properly.

Such behaviour was part of a pattern. For example, in his book The Fog on the Hill, Sartor recounts how Ell doggedly pursued a political campaign over five years to overturn a sound planning decision in the Illawarra region to his own advantage as a landowner. This was the culture inside which Obeid and Macdonald allegedly thrived, to the point that only voters could end the corruption at the core of NSW Labor, reducing the party to a parliamentary rump in 2011.

Well, well, well, a property developer and a political "DONOR" to boot.

And it would seem an environmental vandal as well.

Two years after the Tweed’s biggest developer admitted to ‘accidentally’ clearing a huge swathe of protected bushland in the Cudgen Nature Reserve next to its massive Kings Forest township development, the state government has moved again to prosecute the company.

The NSW environment department yesterday said proceedings in the longrunning case against a Leda Group company for damaging reserve land next to its subdivision for 4,500 homes on the Tweed coast in March 2011 had begun in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

In her speech to parliament on the 2011 incident, Ms Faehrmann said she noted that the former Labor government ‘also saw fit to approve the Kings Forest development despite the developer having a history of illegal vegetation clearing’.

‘On 9 November 2007 Gold Coast City Council secured orders in the Queensland Planning and Environment Court compelling companies owned by Bob Ell to revegetate land that had been illegally cleared in November and December 2006 at Pimpama, Queensland.
‘The court judged that Leda Developments Pty Ltd and Leda Developments No 2 Pty Ltd had cleared major portions of a holding of about 100 hectares without the relevant development permits from the council.

‘As well as the recorded conviction for illegal clearing, Bob Ell has a reputation for getting away with many other instances of native vegetation clearing and habitat destruction.

And a political "DONOR"

The property tycoon behind the Tweed’s two biggest ever housing developments tried to buy favours of the state government and the local shire council by making large donations to political parties and campaigns, the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney has been told.

Tom Molomby, SC, who is defending Tweed councillor Katie Milne in a defamation case brought against her by billionaire property developer Bob Ell, told the court last week the list of donations included $11,000 to former planning minister Frank Sartor in 2003, before he was in office.
The list also revealed that Mr Ell paid for several expensive dinners, costing between $2,000 to $5,000, with Mr Sartor when he was minister for planning as well as then premier Morris Iemma and ministers Joe Tripodi and David Campbell between 2003 and 2006.

Mr Ell’s Leda property group has state government approval for the development of the townships of Kings Forest on the Tweed coast and Cobaki near the NSW-Queensland border, both for around 10,000 homes.

Mr Molomby also told the court that in October 2005 Mr Ell donated $110,000 to the NSW Labor Party, prior to lodging the Kings Forest application with the state government, which gave him access to then premier Bob Carr and various ministers.

Two months later, in December 2005, Mr Ell sent Mr Sartor, then planning minister, a letter.
The court was told that other recipients of Mr Ell’s largesse included an election campaign under the banner ‘Tweed Directions’, which bankrolled a group of pro-development councillors in the council election of 2004 to the tune of $80,000.

Mr Molomby told Justice McCallum that the ‘vast bulk of donations’ to Tweed Directions was made by Ell’s company Leda Holdings Pty Ltd, which was involved in the two Tweed developments.

Mr Molomby also presented the court with a list of donations between October 2005 and December 2007 made by companies owned or co-owned by Mr Ell.

Here [Mr Ell] is, a month after his regional manager has written seeking to have his site declared state significant, saying he was “very surprised” to hear that the minister hadn’t already heard of his application,’ Mr Molomby told the court, according to the SMH report.

‘He then encloses documents directly to the minister… documents that formed part of the application. That’s part of the expectations that he had, having engaged in the donation activity, including $100,000.

Could he be also described as a Bully  - as well as

‘To give a flavour of his reputation, Anne Davies described Bob Ell as having a “reputation as a tough developer, unafraid of litigation” in an article headed “Development yields nothing but a crop of litigation” published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 8 November 2004. In the same article, Leda’s manager of residential development, Reg Van Rij, is quoted as saying that “Bob Ell has deep pockets, a stubborn personality and a litigious nature”.

‘Ell and Leda have sought to silence critics with threats of defamation. Leda recently supplied a 74 page dossier to local media with details of people they consider to be hurdles to their developments, including local ecologists and councillors.

‘The dossier has not been made public, other than by selected quotes in the Tweed Daily News of 27 October 2011. However, it is understood that some people have been targeted simply because they made submissions to public consultation processes.

‘Is this latest clearing a repeat offence? Is it an example of a developer clearing vegetation from public land with the highest level of conservation protection confident that it can persuade and intimidate the authorities into bestowing retrospective approval should they be challenged?
‘Is it another example of a developer treating the risk of litigation in Australia’s various land and environment courts as just another cost of doing business?

‘If it does transpire that this clearing is a repeat offence then the most severe penalty available should be imposed.

‘It should be a penalty that acts as a serious deterrent for a wealthy developer and not one that can be written off as just another cost of doing business.

Keeping good company !

PROPERTY developer Bob Ell is one of the many Sydney identities who had dealings with slain businessman Michael McGurk.

But unlike others, such as property developer Ron Medich, who had a falling out with McGurk - Mr Ell kept in contact with Mr McGurk until his last few days, even dining with him the day before he was murdered.

It was Mr Ell, a former carpenter turned billionaire property developer, who stepped forward to put up $100,000 bail in April as surety for Mr McGurk.

Mr Ell acted after Mr Medich withdrew his surety for Mr McGurk, whose charges of firebombing and assault were later dropped.

Mr Ell made it on to the BRW Rich List in 2006 with reported wealth of $1 billion and is the director of a slew of companies, the best-known being the Leda Group of companies.
The criminal courts where the surety was lodged are located at a different end of the Sydney CBD and not the place Mr Ell's lawyers usually frequent.

This is not to say Mr Ell's various property deals aren't controversial and don't end up in the civil courts. One of his employees at Leda was quoted in 2004 as saying: "Bob Ell has deep pockets and a stubborn personality."

Leda Developments was dragged into a NSW Supreme Court case when it was said to have bought a swathe of land on the NSW far north coast worth $25-$30 million for $8.7m in 2002 to help a Japanese company put the land out of reach of its creditors.

Rather vindictive sort of bloke it would seem from this piece:-

BILLIONAIRE developer Bob Ell brought a defamation case against Tweed Councillor Katie Milne "to rid himself of a pesky councillor by bankrupting her," the Sydney Supreme Court has heard.

Mr Ell claims he has been "gravely injured" by a letter penned by Ms Milne which linked him to murdered Sydney businessman Michael McGurk and made reference to his donations to politicians.

"One of his employees at Leda was quoted in 2004 as saying: "Bob Ell has deep pockets and a stubborn personality."

Leda Developments was dragged into a NSW Supreme Court case when it was said to have bought a swathe of land on the NSW far north coast worth $25-$30 million for $8.7m in 2002 to help a Japanese company put the land out of reach of its creditors".

But, then again, they do say "You can't believe what you read in the press"; don't they?...