Kilometres of coastal land being ploughed up for millionaires' playgrounds - local communities ignor
Wednesday, 24 May 2000 10:00
"There is a mad rush on right now to subdivide, build out and generally develop all those areas of undeveloped coastal land that have so far escaped the bulldozer. Local communities are not being properly consulted, if at all. " said Total Enviornment Centre director Jeff Angel.
"In the worst hit areas - Tweed Shire in the north and Shoalhaven in the south - thousands of proposed housing, shopping and resort developments will devestate public and environmentally sensitive land. The State's Coast Protection Policy is being flouted" Mr Angel said.
Other areas under threat include resort and headland developments at Scotts Head, ribbon development in Eurobodalla, headland development near Port Macquarie - you name it - its happening," said Jeff Angel.
"Councils that are happy to do deals or secret handshakes with developers are rushing unsustainable overdevelopments through left, right and centre. Local communities don't know there will be massive increases in population, traffic and pollution. They are being disenfranchised," said Mr Angel
"Tweed Shire Council is currently rushing through a millionaire Gold Coast style concreting of an entire 7 km undeveloped beach and coastal lake. These developments are the first of a massive overkill of the area with thousands of units and housing, four huge resorts, absolute beachfront housing, a proposed airport runway extension from the Gold Coast, and a further residential and resort development around an adjoining lake for an extra 30,000 people" said MrAngel.
"To the south Shoalhaven Council has thousands of residential and resort developments proposed or recently approved around its beaches, bays, coastal lakes and catchments" he said.
"It comes down to whether NSW really wants to end up becoming an extension of the Gold Coast or whether we protect our remaining coastal areas by restricting appropriate development to within existing urban, cleared areas" said Mr Angel.
