The PALM LAKE LUXURY RESORT

 In February 2023, the Palm Lake company started work to develop the large block of land on the western side of Orion Drive, at the street address now known as 2 Orion Drive.
It wasn't number 2 until Palm Lake started work there....number 2 was the first house further along Orion Drive, just past the existing Palm Lake Resort at 1 Orion Drive. That house had been number 2 ever since it was built, back in the 1990s.

No, it is now 2A, because somehow Palm Lake convinced the Clarence River Council to reallocate the number 2 to their new development, so whoever lives at 2A had to advise all their mail contacts that they'd "moved".
It must be nice to know how to pull strings.

Anyway, the location now known as 2 Orion Drive was where the original developer of the village in which we live had the facility for manufacturing and assembling the homes.
The “shed”, as it became known, sat there until 2019, when it was demolished, the land remaining bare until the site began to be filled and all the pipes, drains and conduits for telephones etc were put in place.

There was a lot of filling being trucked in daily and the height of the land was raised by a couple of metres, as can be seen by the wall in the following photos, and it lifted it well above any possibility of flooding….not that it ever flooded prior to that but under the Council’s new requirements, it had to be raised.

In March 2023 work picked up, with the laying of concrete for the internal roadways and the main entrance was started.
Within a couple of months a fence, complete with advertising, had been installed along the front boundary, a sales office was opened and work began on the Vantage Clubhouse – a structure of humongous size and which we locals dubbed “The Taj Mahal” as it was all white and very ornate.

Apparently the intention behind this luxury development was that there would be 70+ two-story villas constructed, each with an electric lift (elevator) and priced between $1.2 million and $1.7 million. Work would be done in three stages.
The Vantage Clubhouse would be completed, furnished and landscaped first and then used as an attraction for potential buyers. It features a theatre, a bar, a gym, a sauna, a pool and other up-market features designed to lure the wealthy downsizers.

At the time of writing (early December 2024), new construction has virtually stopped; we have learned that only twelve units have been sold; only one occupant has moved in (and that was back in April); the prices have been dropped dramatically; and that whilst Stage 2 will be completed, Stage 3 of the development has been “taken off the plan”, according to reliable sources.

Everyone you speak to about this project - both here in the original resort and also with any towns-people aware of the development - has the same opinion: whoever at the Palm Lake company made the decision to place a luxury resort in this spot needs counselling.

If you are of retirement age, why would you buy a two-story home with no external view, a flight of stairs to negotiate if the lift breaks down, and in a location exactly the same distance from everywhere as we are at 1 Orion Drive, and pay twice to three times as much as the cost of a villa here?

It will be interesting to see what happens as time passes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~