The following letter was written as part of a ‘Community Consultation Process’ for the Rezoning of 350 Wirreandra Road Wamboin.
This land is a 700 acre rural property currently with a proposal to make into 48 properties opposite our property. This is not a NIMBY response. This is a Not Now Never response.
I include it here on my blog to draw a wider awareness of what is now more of an ‘issue to be addressed’, than a proposal.
Wirreandra Road Development Reflections.
Forget about density of the subdivision. This number of blocks proposed is clearly a random number to negotiate down. QPRC’s (Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council), commitment to lot sizes does not fit the vagaries of developers.
Forget about threat to amenity. The quality of Wamboin life is fixed by a sense of a quiet life in the hills and clouds above Canberra. There might be an appetite for housing blocks, but not so big that blocks further down Wirreandra Road are flying out of the agent’s hands. This development proposal sits outside the Wamboin community’s understanding of Wamboin. This proposed place is somewhere else.
The threat to the ground water that feeds The Yass River is real. The threat of contamination of that water by forty homes is real. The threat to the water table by sucking the water from under the ground when none is left on top to drain, is real.
200 metres downstream from development site
Just two hundred metres down the creek from the development site the land has been largely repaired from the devastation of sheep farming and pine forests upstream. The creek’s banks are restored. Native grasses grow abundantly.
That the source of the Yass River is further threatened by developers on such sensitive land is concerning. The Yass feeds in to the Murrumbidgee feeds into The Darling. We are thinking about the bigger picture more now than we did before. The time for greater sensitivity has arrived.
The creek’s banks next door to the development site are what they have always been. The water sits in clear pristine pools.
There is a dam on the development site. It is clearly of a size not approved by regulators. It is tucked inside the boundries of the block but it is too big to be hidden. Its draining would further restore more life to the river.
These current residents are happy enough here. This photo that was taken is in the middle of the development site. The kangaroos’ lives, and the lives of many of the animals that survive this ‘destroyed land’ are good.
Current residents
Yes. The land is full of weeds and rubble. The grass that grows has been turned over by pigs. The wattle that sprung up three years ago, to help re-establish normalcy has been levelled. This land’s ‘degradation’ is momentary and does not need to be ‘settled’, to be restored.
100 metres downstream from development site
Just one hundred metres down from the development site, this creek bed awaits its renewed life. Its body is perfect to fit the new dress.
Our commiserations with the developer are real. The prospect of not multiplying his investment one thousand per cent must hurt.
The reality is that this is not an investment site. It is a site for restoration, for taking a moment. It is an investment in the future, for finding a way to live here, safely and prosperously.
This land should be sold to a philanthropist for just one hundred per cent profit to the developer, who can pass it over for Indigenous custody, where over time it will sink back into the landscape it always was.
I will send these notes to council, as part of the consultation process. At the risk they may dissolve and disappear in such a context, I shall post them also on my blog where they will attract other attention.
One morning, next door.