In Box Hill, the greenfield suburb on Sydney’s north-western urban fringe, the fingerprints of one of western Sydney’s most prolific and aggressive developers are everywhere: rows of identical townhouses and cemented driveways stand on streets which, just a few years ago, did not exist.
But a fenced-off street called Cosmos Way gives a hint of the astronomical ambitions never quite realised: a construction site where more homes were planned is abandoned and flooded.
On its fence hangs bright red hoarding for Bathla, the housing giant now in voluntary administration with more than $3 billion in debts.
Box Hill was the centre of Bathla’s growth plans: the company – or its hundreds of subsidiaries and associated entities – wanted to build more than 500 new homes across multiple sites in this suburb alone. Only some of these have been completed. Its falling into administration has left the future of this suburb, and future residents, uncertain.
The fallout from the administration of one of the state’s…