A privately owned off-grid town in Victoria’s high country is up for sale for at least $6 million, upsetting its only residents and some locals from the surrounding area.
Licola, consisting of a caravan park, general store and petrol station and a popular stop for travellers to the Victorian alps, is owned by the Lions Club, which can no longer afford to run the town and has put it on the market for the first time since 1968.
The listing gives an asking price of $6-10 million, and calls the sale a “truly unique opportunity has emerged to acquire a fully operational township in one of Victoria’s most spectacular and secluded wilderness regions”.
The town is advertised as suitable for school and education providers – having previously been run as a camp for disadvantaged children – non-profits and charities, faith-based and cultural groups, and community organisations and member-based groups.
“This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity and is the only privately owned town in Victoria. Once sold, it is unlikely to appear again in a generation,” the listing states.
But Leanne O’Donnell, who ran the Licola Caravan Park & General Store until her lease expired on Saturday and was one of the town’s five residents, said the decision to sell had forced her and her teenage son to move into their caravan and left her devastated.
Ms O’Donnell told BBC News she spent her life savings on the business in 2022, that did not include the buildings, and believed her lease would be extended to a 15-year-term, only for the Lions Club to inform her last year the town was set to be sold.
“They told me that their business had been running at a loss for the last five or six years and I asked them, ‘so how can I help you?’,” Ms O’Donnell said.
“They turned around and said, unless you get a couple of million dollars, there’s nothing much you can do.
“I absolutely love this town… if it gets into the hands of a developer and turns into something that it’s not, it [will] just break my heart.”
She started a GoFundMe on January 19 to raise $8 million to buy the town, but donations have since been paused.
The decision has upset many locals and regular visitors, and the Lions Village Licola board said it was considering pulling its staff out of the town as they were receiving threats.
The Lions Club also said in a statement that the “decision to sell was not made lightly”, and was done in order to continue to Lions Village mission of supporting disadvantaged young people across the state.
Header image: The Licola Caravan park and General Store (Facebook). Cabins in Licola (Licola Wilderness Village, Google Maps).
