Australia's most valuable land is Garden Island, say developers This must potentially be the most valuable land in the country. The chief of the Urban Taskforce developer lobby, Chris Johnson, was talking about Garden Island, which could have its navy base moved to Queensland if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd happens to win the election. Mr Johnson couldn't put a figure on how much the sale of the 27-hectare site would boost government coffers, except to say that it was ""prime waterfront"" when you considered the prices that property in places like nearby Darling Point fetch. Garden Island: worth a fortune to developers. However, developers and the National Trust could be on a collision course over Garden Island's future. Mr Johnson said 10,000 apartments could be built there, but the National Trust's conservation manager, Graham Quint, opposes another Barangaroo. "You wouldn't want to see it converted as Barangaroo has been into more and more high rise and casinos," Mr Quint said. You'd want to keep the island pretty intact and use the buildings sensitively, bearing in mind the historic value of each of the buildings. But developers and project marketers will have other ideas. Redevelopment of this site, coupled with the proposal to build high rise over railway lines near Central Station, could go a long way towards solving Sydney's housing crisis. CBRE chairman Justin Brown, who is selling the first 159 apartments at Barangaroo South this weekend, said Garden Island had the potential to be one of Australia's greatest mixed-use developments. "It's a world-class site and you would have strong interest from both local and international developers," he said. It has all the attributes in terms of location, waterfront aspect east, north and west, and heritage buildings. The adaptive re-use of that would be quite spectacular for Sydney. He predicted 15- to 18-storey towers against the rock face, which would cascade to waterfront parks. The taskforce's Mr Johnson agreed Garden Island was "an incredible site." "Going way back to Governor Macquarie's time, Francis Greenway proposed building a pyramid there," he said. And Paul Keating said Sydney should become the national capital, with Parliament House moved to Garden Island. He did not think either proposal would figure in any redevelopment of the naval base but said that along with a cruise ship terminal, there was great potential for between 5000 and 10,000 apartments and retail outlets. "It would be a lost opportunity in moving the navy out if we ended up with just the same buildings there, with a few community centres and a few art galleries," Mr Johnson said. I would have thought there could be 20-storey to 30-storey potential along there. It could be quite dramatic, carrying the buildings of Potts Point onto that peninsula. But he conceded: "I suspect, knowing Sydney, there will be a fair bit of community concern about anything that comes under the banner of high rise." Mr Quint tended to agree, saying Garden Island was "amazingly important" as a heritage site."There are rock carvings from the sailors of the Sirius in 1788 . . . so you don't get more important than that," he said, adding that these were among 15 sites on the island the trust had identified as worthy of preservation. These included houses, former barracks, workshops and a boat shed, most dating from the 1880s. Any new uses should be low scale and continue this aspect of the working harbour, such as a cruise ship terminal, and not be given over to residential towers. You can't give a blanket 'yes' or 'no' on things like that but we would have thought it was a much better site for tourism, entertainment, museums, parkland. We would regard [those sites] as nationally significant and I'm pretty sure most of it is on the relevant heritage register for the Department of Defence, except for the crane. Mr Quint said because the island was federally owned, the council and state government did not have a say in its future, "which is really sad as it's such an important part of Sydney." But if the navy did relocate it would most likely have to prepare a conservation management plan for the new owners. Mr Brown said rather than the heritage buildings being an obstacle to the island's redevelopment, it could enhance it. He envisaged a mix of apartments, shops, restaurants, offices and a boutique hotel. "You could actually take the heritage aspects and use that to real benefit in terms of the character and nature of the development," Mr Brown said. However, it could be a long wait for apartment buyers. If the button was pushed today, we wouldn't envisage anything built for quite some time - closer to 10 years than five.