Letter to the Editor: ‘Vehement’ opposition to housing proposal

DEAR News Of The Area,

THE proposed gifting of Lot 1 Ferry Street, Urunga to the Waterfall Way Community Land Trust, (“Community invited to have a say on Urunga’s affordable housing proposal,” 27/3), if approved, would enable one of the most ill-conceived and destructive housing developments ever undertaken in Bellingen Shire.

No mention was made in your article of the vehement opposition to this proposal by local residents, ratepayers, and many others in Urunga.

The community feedback survey will ensure a big vote in favour of this project, as it is a Shire-wide survey, meaning that the community affected – the Urunga community – will be swamped by voters who know nothing of the multiple negative impacts of the scheme, and will vote for the popular cause of affordable housing.

The site-scenarios proposed by WWCLT would crowd six families into a multiple-occupancy communal grouping of pre-fabricated cabin-style dwellings, with outside car-parking, hard-up against the railway line, and susceptible to dangerous flooding in heavy rain.

Lot 1 is a landmark site on one of Urunga’s main entrances, boasting dozens of healthy trees including a group of magnificent, towering 80 year-old blackbutts, which together form a little park-like eco-system of naturalised local plants and animals, easily accessible from the footpath and unique in Urunga.

Despite denials from the developers, all the big trees and most of the others will have to go, with the consequent loss of the many environmental, social, and visual values this irreplaceable little asset provides for Urunga, now and into the future.

Bellingen Council is also well aware of the development of a 14-room boarding house immediately next door to Lot 1, and that the two developments combined would mean an influx of multiple dozens of people into a currently quiet area of settled family homes and narrow street and laneways, never designed for such a high density of population.

All the resulting human congestion would be funnelled into Ferry Street, a short already-busy street constrained by a dangerous hump and blind corners at each end.

No other proposals to address affordable housing in Bellingen other than the Land Trust option appear to have been investigated by Bellingen Council, and we see this as a blatant lack of ethical due-process.

The imposition of this experimental, untried housing project on a community who passionately rejects it, is a heavy-handed, dictatorial act by Bellingen councillors.

We are asking Council to pause proceedings until a proper and comprehensive overview of all the various options available to Council for alleviating housing stress is obtained, ones that do not cause such division and destruction.

Yours sincerely,
Peter DINGLE,
For the Friends of Ferry Street group.