How a 20-year partnership that built Melbourne’s suburbs ended in scorched earth

The new estate gets its name from the original landowner, market gardener Graeme Marriott, who years ago struck a development deal with Villawood to turn his agricultural holding into a new neighbourhood.

In this dispute, Villawood alleges Johnson breached his obligations to the company’s other shareholders and directors by varying key documents relating to the development.

This included allegedly changing an agreement with Marriott so that a portion of his land was no longer included in the project and instead sold to Tjay Developments, a company associated with Johnson.

The court heard that Johnson owns 50 per cent of Tjay Developments through his private company. The other 50 per cent is owned by colourful development advisor John Woodman.

Woodman worked with some of property’s biggest land developers in Victoria, providing advice on master planned communities to clients like Villawood, Stockland, Australand and AV Jennings, as well as some of Melbourne’s richest private families.

But he is now fighting charges over more than $1.1 million in alleged secret payments, following a long-running IBAC corruption investigation into the Casey City Council.

The Tjay deal was struck more than a decade before there were any questions about Woodman’s conduct, and there is no suggestion the Marriott Waters transaction was involved in the IBAC probe.

If you think Villawood and Johnson had reached the end of their grievances with each other, you’d be wrong.

A third transaction is also in dispute, this time relating to a prime piece of land in Wollert, estimated to be worth $295 million.

That prime stretch of development land sits close to Villawood’s Rathdowne estate in the northern suburb that was acquired by Villawood’s partner Sandhurst Capital in 2020 for $65 million.

Elements of the case were recently outlined in a judgment by O’Callaghan regarding small changes to how the case had been put to the court.

Here, Villawood alleges Johnson acquired 10 per cent of the shares in the company that owns the Wollert property without properly informing the company.

Johnson has shot back, claiming there was an oral agreement for him to lay claim to the increased share of the property and his company had contributed close to $3 million as part of the development, while Sandhurst had paid $24.5 million.

According to the judgment, both sides agree that Johnson discussed his desire to increase his share of the project before any transaction took place, including with Sandhurst director and billionaire Dino Strano.

Johnson went ahead and acquired 10.65 per cent of the shares in the company that owned the property in 2021.

Sandhurst alleges it did not know about the change until 2024 and when it discovered Johnson had issued the shares it rescinded the offer and asked him to return the shares.

Despite having much to say about each other in court, both sides declined to comment when contacted by this masthead because litigation was ongoing.

All the cases – seven of them – continue.

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