4 weeks ago
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February 3, 2026 — 5:00am
All the council wanted to do was build a drain.
At Grantham Farm, on the very edges of Sydney’s north-west suburban sprawl, land that was once a mix of shrubs and a small river was due to be transformed into sprawling streets of dark-roofed single-family homes.
With no natural drainage on the site (everything that was once grass was to be covered in cement), Blacktown City Council issued plans for the Edmund Street Regional Basin, a precinct that would eventually include open grass area, landscaping and a stormwater drainage line.
But as they began plans to compulsorily acquire the site, the council’s town planners soon discovered the owners of the property: Christine and Thomas Wenkart, the latter of whom is the wealthy owner of one of Australia’s largest private hospital chains. And Mr Wenkart had a penchant for a court case.
After more than eight years of disagreement, the battle between the Wenkarts and Blacktown Council culminated in a Land and Environment Court finding in December that forced the council to pay the couple more than $8.6 million for the land which the state’s valuer-general found in 2023 to be worth just over $5 million.
The judgment lays bare how wealthy landowners can leverage lengthy court processes to secure favourable valuations, and exposes tensions in the decades-long project to turn Sydney’s rural fringe into new low-density suburbs.
The suburb that came from a paddock
In 2018, before it was even formally identified as Grantham Farm, Blacktown City Council had big plans for the area around the Wenkarts’ property. The state’s 2010 rezoning of huge swaths of the region, which became known as the North West Growth Centre, led to much of the neighbouring properties, once paddocks, being eventually turned into suburban streets.
It was then that the council wrote to the Wenkarts to begin negotiations for acquiring their land. Under NSW legislation, councils can compulsorily take land from owners if they provide compensation under “just terms”. The council said in a statement that it offered the couple about $7.5 million.
In November 2020, the council issued a compulsory acquisition notice for the land. A month later, the Wenkarts issued a compensation claim to the council for $21.66 million.
By March the following year, the land had been acquired without an agreed value (negotiations over the value of land and acquisitions can take place on different timelines).
Despite the land having been taken, it took until February 2023 for the valuer-general, the NSW government agency responsible for land valuations, to value it at $5.05 million, with just over $86,000 for disturbances – $16 million less than the Wenkarts wanted.
Unhappy with the amount, the couple launched legal proceedings against the council in March 2023.
During the two-year court battle, expert witnesses were quizzed on flood risks and development potential. The key debate was messy: was the land less worth less to the Wenkarts, as the council submitted, because it had a drain on it? Or was the land’s valuation to be decided based on the zoning approvals at the time, not what the council had planned to put there? The court decided the latter.
There was also a significant discussion – that led to a separate court judgment entirely – about whether a valuation provided by the Wenkarts, that suggested the land was worth $12 million, was admissible at all: the valuer used the pronoun “we” despite being the report’s only listed author.
A spokesperson for the council said it believed its valuation methodology, which offered about $7.5 million, was fair, and that “given the passage of time, the court’s decision in 2025 of $8.6 million is reasonable”. The council will use money from developer contributions to pay the Wenkarts.
Thomas Wenkart, the first applicant in the case, is the owner of Leichhardt-based medical group Macquarie Health Corporation. The group is one of the country’s largest private hospital operators, running the Eastern Suburbs Private, the Manly Waters Private and Sydney Private hospitals.
