Michael Goegan, middle, with Michelle Chick and Karlee Chapple from Ray White, at his Werribee property with a backyard bigger than the MCG playing surface. Picture: Brendan Beckett.
A Melbourne family is set for a staggering $18m windfall after listing a Werribee home with a backyard bigger than the MCG.
As the suburb developed around it, the Chirnside Ave property remained a hold out for the area’s market garden and farming past, and is believed to be the last one remaining there — though many farming families are still operating in neighbouring Werribee South.
The listing comes as Victoria’s Farming Federation is calling for the creation of an agricultural land commissioner, to set limits on which farms could be sold to developers — and which needed to be retained.
RELATED: Mickleham farm: humble farmers strike it rich with sale to developer
Descendants of Melbourne knight collect $100m+ for family farm
Nar Nar Goon cattle farmers to make $80m-plus in massive land sale
Without such a role, the trend is likely to increase as the Victorian government pursues a development agenda that prioritises new housing in established suburbs.
At a whopping 21,249 sqm in size, the Werribee block is 35 times the size of the typical 600 sqm home in the surrounding streets, and bigger than the about 2ha size of the MCG’s playing surface.
Michael Goegan’s parents, Joseph and Teresa, bought the Werribee plot of land, already operating as market garden under its previous owners, in the 1980s.
As a teenager, he completed a vegetable-growing apprenticeship under the tutelage of his father and they worked the land together, growing broccoli and other produce.
13 Chirnside Ave, Werribee, has been listed for sale with an $18m asking price.
The house is expected to be bulldozed to make way for development.
At the time, they also had another Werribee site where they cultivated greens to supply retailers including the Melbourne Market which moved from its West Melbourne base to Epping in 2015.
“We also used to supply Safeway, as it was known as at that time but is now Woolworths, with fancy lettuces,” Mr Goegan recalled.
But Mr Goegan said now was the right time to sell, with his mother keen to use the proceeds to help out her children and grandchildren.
He described the massive allotment as one of the last large subdivision sites in Werribee.
Ray White’s Michelle Chick is handling the sale alongside Karlee Chapple and said the property was beyond rare.
“In Werribee, I don’t think there’s anything else around in this size that is so close to town,” she said.
“I would say it will sell to a large builder that can do a whole lot of homes at once.”
The agent added that the house currently on the site could become an office for a developer, but would eventually be bulldozed.
The sprawling allotment is more than 2.1ha in size.
While it was once used as a market garden, the land has been unused for a number of years.
Analysis by researchers at project marketing and development firm Oliver Hume suggests the Wyndham Planning Scheme would tolerate an average of up to 30 homes per hectare if close enough to transport and key amenities, or between 42 and 63 new houses on the property.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Brett Hosking said the unseen trade off from old farm sites being sold off around major city centres was a growing disconnect between urban populations and the land that brings them their food.
Mr Hosking said it had now reached a point where they were calling for an agricultural land commissioner, to begin setting limits on which farms could be sold to developers.
“We do need to look at when we do allow development and what are we giving up,” he said.
Mr Hosking added that Victorian farm land accounted for only about 3 per cent of the nation’s agricultural space, but produced 25 per cent of its food and fibre.
He added that there was another concern that with so many of the farms near Melbourne now extremely valuable as a development location, a single severe fire, flood, drought or other shock to agriculture could convince a significant number of operators to simply sell up.
In 2014, a mix of family and friends who owned a substantial piece of farm land outside Sunbury sold up. Ive, Nick, Roko, Stojka, Nick and Tony were all set for a windfall. Picture: Jay Town.
The Troutbeck brothers, Garry, Keith and Edward on their Mickleham farm, which they sold to developers. Picture: Alex Coppel.
Other big players in Melbourne’s west with market garden super blocks include the Fragapane family who have operated there since 1937, plus the Said family behind Fresh Select.
The Velisha family run Velisha Farms in Werribee South and have done so since 1949, while the Faranda family of Faranda Farms have been in the area for more than 50 years.
Urban Development Institute of Australia Victorian executive director Linda Allison said it would be interesting to see what type of housing might take shape at the Werribee site, particularly if it became more of a medium-density project.
NOTEABLE MELBOURNE FARM SALES
Melbourne farming families have been selling up consistently as the city expands,
Among the more notable ones have been the Wuchatsch family who signed an $80m deal for the Nar Nar Goon farm they’d been running cattle on in 2021.
They had previously listed for sale in 2003 for $265,000, not long after purchasing the 83ha site.
That same year the descendants of Sir Cecil Locker, a private secretary to former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, sold a 434ha Beveridge farm they had owned as a cattle and sheep farm for generations for about $100m.
In 2019, Mickleham farming brothers Garry, Keith and Edward Troutbeck sold an 8.8ha chunk of their family farm of the past 83 years to developers for a multimillion-dollar sum amid suggestions it could be worth as much as $50m.
Sir Cecil Looker Beveridge’s former Beveridge farm was sold by younger generations for about $100m.
There was even big money on the table in 2014, when a family and friends combination who had farmed a plot near Sunbury for 30 years sought $70m for the property they’d bought in the middle of nowhere for just $300,000.
John Culina represented his family and the other vendors in the sale of the land that spanned dozens of hectares, with some expected to head to Croatia with the windfall.
Melbourne’s elite have also cashed in on the boom with members of the Verrochi family, co-founders of Chemist Warehouse, part of a more than $60m sale of a Manor Lakes farm site in 2022.
After acquiring the land they sought development plans for the property before offering it for sale.
— additional reporting Nathan Mawby
Sign up to the Herald Sun Weekly Real Estate Update. Click here to get the latest Victorian property market news delivered direct to your inbox.
MORE: Huge change coming for Vic home seller privacy
AFL star Christian Salem sells Brighton East home for $2.175m
English (US) · 