Chief Minister Andrew Barr recently announced that the ACT Government’s Buyback Program for houses affected by loose fill asbestos has passed the milestone of 100 homes owned by the ACT Government. The government now owns 104 homes.
“I remain confident that the current program is the fairest, most responsible and affordable response available to the ACT. It provides an option for homeowners to move on from a contaminated house, at full market value, and buy a comparable home. It will not fundamentally change.” Mr Barr commented.
The Chief Minister explained that more than 65 percent (or 681) homeowners have received an offer to purchase from the ACT Government and 470 of these homeowners have already accepted the offer. To date 869 of 1021 (or 85 percent) of homeowners have ‘opted in’ to the scheme to get valuations of their properties undertaken. Any homeowner interested in participating in the buyback scheme needs to ‘opt in’ by 30 June 2015.

The Chief Minister explained that the geographic spread of properties owned by the ACT Government includes:
• 15 = Central Canberra (Forrest, Ainslie, Downer, Griffith, Hackett, Narrabundah, O’Connor, Watson, Yarralumla)
• 19 = Tuggeranong (Kambah, Wanniassa)
• 32 = Belconnen (Aranda, Charnwood, Cook, Evatt, Flynn, Giralang, Higgins, Holt, Latham, Macgregor, Macquarie, Melba, Page, Scullin, Spence, Weetangera)
• 38 = Woden/Weston Creek (Chapman, Chifley, Curtin, Duffy, Farrer, Fisher, Garran, Holder, Hughes, Lyons, Mawson, Pearce, Rivett, Stirling, Torrens, Waramanga, Weston)