It’s Sunday afternoon in Bourkelands and the suburb is lively, cars are filing in and out of the overstated entrance while kids roam the streets.
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A decade ago the southern Wagga suburb would have been a mixture of temporary fences, excavators and upturned brown dirt.
Walking home after a whirl at the basketball court, 16-year-old Andrew Wright said modern Bourkelands dwarfed its former self.
“There was nearly nothing here 10 years ago - now there’s houses all over,” he said. “It’s massive now compared to what it was.”
In coming months, Bourkelands - the city’s first master planned community - will shut its doors to new homes with the last stage offered up to market.
Stephanie Anderson, of MJM Consulting Engineers, the project planners, said it had been a “steady rise” to full capacity.
“It’s really crept up on us to be honest,” she said. “It’s always felt like a far off thing.”
Bourkelands’ rise from the ground in the early 90s was helped in part by defence personnel and first home buyers keen to snap up cheap land.
Ms Anderson said the suburb still attracted first home buyers, but was also snaring a share of “prestigious” buyers.
Over the final course of its subdivided life up to 50 new homes will be added, according to the sale plan.
It is likely growth will be underpinned by low interest rates and first home buyer grants.
According to population experts .id on behalf of council, the Bourkelands-Tatton area holds about 5000 residents.
With new homes going up in nearby Lloyd and expanding estates in the eastern and northern reaches of the city, new population growth is expected to come from these areas.
The latest figures show the city is expanding outwards at a rapid rate, with more than $46 million invested in small land parcels in the Wagga area from September to November last year.
Wagga property valuer Christopher Egan earlier this month said population growth in new estates was being driven by first home buyers as well as university students whose homes were built by parents as an investment.
According to the Domain Group, the median property price for a house in Bourkelands has grown to about $380,000.