The Guardian 21 May, 2008
Rallies to save mining town
Peter Mac
No development project in NSW more effectively demonstrates the row over the Iemma government’s new planning laws than the proposal to massively enlarge the Catherine Hill Bay township.
The tiny village lies near the coast, just north of Newcastle. It consists of some 250 picturesque timber houses, which were constructed late in the nineteenth and early in the twentieth centuries, mostly to provide accommodation for miners employed at the nearby colliery.
Catherine Hill Bay has been continuously occupied, but little development has occurred since the original construction. As a result, it is a beautifully preserved example of an early coastal settlement. It was placed on the National Trust’s Register of places of exceptional cultural significance in 1983.
The extremely beautiful surrounding bushland, and the adjacent Moonee Beach also provide a habitat for native fauna. Such sanctuaries are becoming increasingly rare on the NSW coast, especially since the spread of massive new coastal developments.
Getting the golden eggs
A few years ago a company known as the Rose Property Group proposed to construct a huge new development alongside the town. Their proposal involved some about 100 new medium density dwellings, five storey buildings on the southern headland overlooking (and dominating) the town, and a huge new licensed club. If implemented, the proposal would swell the town’s population from 250 to at least 3,000 residents, and would undoubtedly set the scene for the progressive removal of the tiny cottages in favour of more intensive residential use.
The mining company, Coal & Allied, which ceased mining operations in the Bay in 2002, gave an undertaking to return its area of operations to a natural condition. However, it now plans to build some 300 houses in the town.
The two proposals, which would have effectively swamped the village and ruined its small and exquisite character, aroused instant objections from Catherine Hill Bay residents, the National Trust, and concerned citizens, who held a protest rally last February.
The State Department of Planning concluded that no development should take place, and this position was reiterated by the National Trust. The Lake Macquarie Council rejected the proposal as being against the public interest and contrary to 13 local, regional and state planning instruments.
A specially appointed three-member Independent Hearing and Assessment Panel subsequently rejected the proposal on the grounds that it did not meet the government’s own development guidelines.
In what has now become an established practice for developers, the Rose Property Group donated significant funds (in their case $143,000) to the NSW Branch of the Labor Party between 2005 and 2007.
Last September the company submitted an amended proposal, but the Assessment Panel once again found that the proposal was unacceptable because of its visibility, the size of its commercial buildings, the bushfire risk, the height and density of the homes and public access to beaches. The panel concluded that the proposal should be subject to extensive modifications if the company wished to proceed.
However, this time the Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, decided to keep the Panel’s report under wraps. It was only discovered, in a pile of 50 boxes of correspondents, by residents who had demanded to see documents relating to the development.
The Catherine Hill Bay development illustrates beautifully how big business tends to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Rose Property and Coal & Allied both wish to reap maximum benefit from the towns attractiveness, but the very things that make the village attractive, i.e. its smallness and quaintness, would be ruined by the massive development.
This is well illustrated by the statement of Bryan Rose, Managing Director of Rose Property, who commented proudly: "We want to have a world-class development there, and we are using the best planners and the best landscapers in the country." He added truculently: "It’s been a very difficult time for us, and we have had various meetings with the locals and we have changed our plans to accommodate them."
A test case
Under proposed new planning regulations, the Minister will have the power to override the Panel’s recommendations, and to allow either or both of the two proposals to proceed.
The community group Friends of Catherine Hill have stated: "If the developer wins, the community loses. A unique and special part of NSW which survives because of three decades of accumulative protections in state and local planning instruments, would be overthrown to enrich a few."
A huge array of organisations have gathered together in opposition to the proposal, and to the new planning laws. The government has also suffered a humiliating and politically damaging defeat at the Labor Party’s state conference earlier this month with regard to the privatisation of the states electricity system, and the sensational revelations about donations to political parties, particularly the ALP, by developers and others wishing to gain approval for controversial proposals.
The public will doubtless watch the outcome of the Catherine Hill Bay saga with great interest. NSW Premier Morris Iemma is heading for rock bottom popularity, and that doubtlessly reflects the status of the NSW Labor government. And there’s the rub. It’s not only the future of Catherine Hill Bay that’s at stake, its also the future of the government.