The territory government has completed a Land Development Agency contract to buy rural land in West Belconnen for $4.6 million, a month after the now-defunct agency was officially disbanded.
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The block, Belconnen Rural Block 1600, is currently home to a horse agistment property, Pine Ridge, on Stockdill Drive in Holt, opposite the Magpies Golf Club.
But the purchase was only approved by the LDA's board in May, under the old agency's rules, with settlement a month after the new Suburban Land Agency took over its role in the suburbs.
It comes as the territory's Auditor-General is investigating several rural land purchases by the now-defunct LDA, as well as a controversial land swap deal between the government and the Tradies Group in Dickson.
Under the old rules, land acquisitions under $5 million only needed approval by the LDA board, but the LDA needed to advise the chief minister or the planning minister or both.
But it is unclear why the government allowed such contracts to be entered into so close to the new agencies taking over and months after committing at last year's election to abolish the LDA.
A government spokeswoman would say only that the LDA board made the decision under old framework and "under those arrangements ministerial approval was not required".
In the government's first quarterly report for Suburban Land Agency land purchases published last week, Suburban Development Minister Yvette Berry also publshed a valuation of the property and other documents associated with the purchase.
Such documents were not previously reported publicly by the now-defunct Land Development Agency.
The government sought a single Knight Frank valuation of the property, and this was completed in April.
It valued the block at $4.3 million, at a rate of $26,187 a hectare, with a wider valuation range of $3.9 million to $4.7 million excluding GST, while a valuation sought by the then-owners put the block at $4.7 million.
The government settled on a price of $4.6 million on July 31, a month after the Suburban Land Agency and the new City Renewal Authority came into effect.
Ms Berry told the Legislative Assembly the reports had been designed to create "an environment of clarity, openness and a mirroring of community expectations".
She said the government had identified blocks where contracts for purchase existed when the new agency began, and this block had been one of those, but referred all questions about the deal to the planning directorate.
"Madam Speaker, it is important to highlight that the assessment work and the subsequent valuation for this purchase of this block was carried out in April 2017 and was done so under the instruction of officers of the LDA," she said.
Despite pledges to create a new lands acquisition policy for both the Suburban Land Agency and the City Renewal Authority once they were established, almost four months later, that policy has not been published.
