The cost of Mr Fluffy demolitions across Canberra are falling, but it's not because the Asbestos Taskforce has taken shortcuts, head Andrew Kefford says.
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Up to eight demolitions of houses contaminated by loose-fill asbestos are taking place each week in the ACT.
The demolition program is three-quarters complete.
The first 43 homes were knocked down at a cost of $119,747 per house, taskforce figures revealed.
The subsequent 788 properties were razed, or are under contract for demolition, at an average cost of $89,424 per property.
The net cost of the scheme was revised down in the latest ACT budget to $307 million, excluding interest.
Mr Kefford said the demolition costs dwindled over the life of the program as theywere able to refine the process with each new demolition.
"What we've seen as the program has unfolded that the overall cost of the demolitions has decreased and that reflects not only the way we've approached the market in terms of the contracting, the benefits of scale that came from taking a program of 900 houses to the market for demolition, it also reflects the extent to which we have been able to develop and test and spread good practice amongst the contractors as the program has unfolded," Mr Kefford said.
Driveways, gardens and sheds have been left on some blocks where the house contaminated by loose-fill asbestos once stood.
Some saw this a barrier to the sale of the blocks, more than 80 of which failed to sell at auction.
But if this remnant of the owners who came before was an obstacle when the block went under the hammer, Mr Kefford was yet to hear of it.
"It's not necessary to clear the block to remove the asbestos properly," Mr Kefford said.
"What we're hearing from the agents, what we're hearing from the neighbours is there is a desire for us not to raze the blocks and clear them corner to corner."
He said many people buying Fluffy blocks saw the benefits of buying into an established area with an established garden.
"It's not a matter of not knocking down the garage to save costs per say, it's about this is an approved structure, it's not for us to determine how the new purchasers will use the infrastructure on the site and it's really about not incurring unnecessary costs to the community," Mr Kefford said.
"At the end of the day even with the reductions in the demolition costs and so on, each house we've sold, the average cost per house is $237,000 so in any part of this program, because we're more or less doing it 1000 times, every $1000 we spend is another $1 million that the community has to fund."
ACT Property Council head Adina Cirson also had not heard of driveways or garden sheds being a barrier to selling the block, and she predicted the blocks would be in hotter demand soon, given they were exempt from the incoming lease variation charge hike.
The 360 Fluffy blocks that have sold have gone for a total of $245 million. However it cost the government about $664 million to acquire the properties, so Mr Kefford stressed this was not a "money-making scheme".
Sixty-eight development applications have already been lodged for rebuilding on remediated Mr Fluffy blocks.
