The Sydney developer, the failed airport towers and the $587,200 land-clearing fine

Even by the standard of utopian artists’ impressions, the plans for the patch of dirt and trees in Sydney’s deep south-west were extravagant: out of the shrubbery of 203 Greendale Road, Bringelly, would rise a World Trade Centre.

Not the one in New York, but a new version: minutes from the new Western Sydney International Airport, four high-rise buildings would form part of a mini-city replete with a hospital, university, international exhibition and convention centre, a start-up incubation hub and apartments.

But things have not gone as planned. Despite promising to open by 2026, the developer behind the plan, Aerotropolis Pty Ltd, collapsed into liquidation and was last week ordered to pay $587,200 plus costs after being found guilty of 20 offences of illegally clearing native vegetation in the area over four years.

Apart from dozens of hectares of trees being removed, the area where developer Jomon Varghese planned to establish a booming centre of global trade remains as he found it. The security credentials of his company’s website have expired, and the hospital he planned to work with collapsed in 2022.

Hectares of trees illegally removed

Between 2016 and 2020, Aerotropolis Pty Ltd cleared 36.8 hectares of land, according to findings of Justice John Robson in the Land and Environment Court in May.

Robson found Varghese’s primary concern “was to clear parts of the property to prepare it for a very large commercial development” known as a World Trade Centre, which, according to a 2018 news article, Varghese claimed would “create huge economic and employment growth in western Sydney”.

In 2018, according to evidence seen by the court, the group submitted an unsolicited proposal to the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet for a masterplanned town. Varghese met politicians and also contacted the Greater Sydney Commission and the Department of Planning about gaining approval for the site.

The company continued to clear land until August 2020, despite a Camden Council employee emailing on July 8 of that year to say: “You MUST … apply for and be granted permission prior to carrying out any clearing.”

Varghese hired a worker, Dean Amjah, to clear the land. In an interview with authorities, Amjah said Varghese instructed him to clear “everything”, including “massive trees”.

The trees removed were from the Cumberland Plain Woodland, which is defined as an “endangered ecological community”, also affecting the habitat of the Cumberland Plain land snail.

The case went ahead without any representation from Aerotropolis.

Varghese declined a request for an interview. In a series of text messages, he claimed another company, Ascent, owned the land and that his company was given an “oral direction” by the Rural Fire Service to clear some land for fire breaks, “preventing the farm from bushfires”.

Ascent did own the land, however, according to court findings and confirmed by ASIC documents, the ultimate holding company of Ascent was Aerotropolis Group, and Varghese was director of Ascent at the time the offences occurred. Ascent is now in external administration.

“The court case was unnecessary as the government regulator was aware that the company was subject to external [administration],” Varghese wrote. “I have no other comment to make.”

Ascent purchased the site for $5.2 million in 2014. In 2022, it was sold to brick manufacturing company Austral Bricks for $52.2 million, or 10 times the purchase price.

Less than two years later, Austral Bricks lodged a state-significant planning proposal to convert the site into a quarry. The application includes plans to restore approximately 74 hectares of Cumberland Plain Woodland, which the company described as “severely degraded”.

More plans ahead

Varghese has no public record of prior development experience. According to his LinkedIn profile, the 50-year-old has worked for a variety of Indian consultants and not-for-profits, a Florida marketing company and, in the two years before he launched Aerotropolis in 2014, led the office of a chief executive for an airport company operating between Bengaluru, New Delhi and Hyderabad.

Varghese is still planning to make his mark on the area. In 2024, KK Capital (another company he is listed as director of, alongside two others) lodged a state-significant development application to build eight residential blocks up to 12 storeys high on a Bradfield site that is now a single-storey home – despite the land being owned by someone else.

Designs for the project are yet to be seen, and Varghese said KK Capital did not plan to purchase the property.

The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.