House, Land and The Area

The House
The house design was largely based on Galleria 210 from AV Jennings. It was changed slightly so that the master bedroom will not face directly to the street, but also to accommodate Ponds' Development Guideline.

The Land, The Ponds
The Ponds is being developed jointly by Landcom (a state government agency) and Australand. Some of the key dates are:

• April 2006: Development started
• 31 Mar 2007: First home sites (27 blocks) went on sale (Media release)
• 6 May 2009: 500 lots sold 
• 7 Oct 2009: 670 lots sold 
• 25 May 2010: 1000 lots sold (Media release)

First 500 blocks took 2 years and 2 months to sell, the 2nd 500 blocks took only 1 year! My block was purchased in Jan 2010 and was about 750th block sold. The estate, once completed, will have around 3200 new homes.

This is what it looked like about 1.5 years (photo published in Dec 2008.)

Some of the other articles interesting to read:

• How the west was renovated - National - smh.com.au
• Field of dreams - Real Estate - News - Rouse Hill Times
• New seniors living community planned for Sydney's northwest

The Area
The State Government has this Growth Centres concept, which will accommodate 181,000 new dwellings and land for employment for around 500,000 new residents over the next 25 to 30 years.

The North West Growth Centre is approximately 10,000 hectares – the size of Wellington, New Zealand.  It will be supported by a Major Centre at Rouse Hill and will contain about 70,000 new dwellings, made up of 16 ‘Precincts’.

The South West Growth Centre will be around the same size as Canberra. Comprising 18 Precincts, it is approximately 17,000 hectares and will focus on the Major Centre of Leppington, be serviced by the South West Rail Link and has capacity for around 110,000 new dwellings.

Source: Sydney's Growth Centres

Ponds is located in the North West Growth Centre, which is planned to have comprehensive infrastructure investment along with the progressive release of the lands, which will include schools, rail links, upgrade or new stations, shopping centres etc.

But just to keep things in perspective, the North West Rail Link, from Epping to Rouse Hill, was first proposed in 1998 and we all know where it is now.