Is the NSW Dept. of Industry seeking to significantly expand the Port of Yamba?

This is the poster being distributed on behalf of the Berejiklian Government by the NSW Dept. of Industry – Lands, which is responsible for managing Crown lands in New South Wales.

The Department privately sought comment from other government agencies and industry sometime around September-October 2016, before it came north with a set agenda to conduct a brief workshop which it attempted to limit to a handful of local Clarence Valley commercial “stakeholders” in December 2016.

This is what was supposedly taken away from those private discussions and that workshop:

Yamba is a priority location under the NSW Freight and Ports Strategy, with the NSW Government’s desire to support efficiency, connectivity and growth of the freight transport network.

The Clarence River Way Master Plan developed by the Clarence Valley Council identifies the Council’s desire to promote Yamba as the gateway port to the Clarence.

To achieve this, the Masterplan outlines twelve actions that include the promotion and development of port facilities, maintaining the port as a deepwater anchorage and working port, developing the port for the mini cruise market, expanding the shipbuilding and repair facilities, and the inclusion of mixed use commercial and retail opportunities.

The NSW Government has recently funded and/or identified a number of priority projects including the pontoon at Ford Park, River Street, Yamba Bay boat ramp carpark improvements, the Hickey Island boat ramp carpark upgrade, access improvements for the Clarence River Canoe and Kayak Trail, location for sewage pump-out in the upper Clarence River and Yamba boating access improvements.

The Department of Industry - Lands are currently conducting works on the Clarence River southern breakwater, with works on the catwalks and revetment wall, as well as the Yamba access ways having been completed earlier in 2016.

Iluka is located on the NSW north coast along the Clarence River and is bounded by Queen Street and lluka Bay.

The Clarence River Way Master Plan developed by the Clarence Valley Council identifies Iluka as a river town that is a key tourism and service hub for the Clarence River with an upgrade to the public domain and setting the existing marina, and investigating opportunities for marina development deemed as important.

The NSW Government has recently funded and/or identified a number of priority projects, including the Crown Street Boat Ramp Jetty and the upgrade of the Spencer Street jetty.

Under the Coastal Infrastructure Program, the Department of Industry - Lands repaired the Clarence River Northern Breakwater. Additionally, there are works proposed for the finger jetties and refuelling jetty maintenance. [my highlighting]

Now it is asking for input from the community – presumably to gain some comment it can present as evidence that its entire agenda is supported locally.

This agenda misrepresents the Port of Yamba as "a priority location under the NSW Freight and Ports Strategy". It was only one of six ports and twenty-three coastal harbours included in that 236 page report published in 2013 and only rated a relatively brief mention.

It also misrepresents the 2009 Clarence River Way Master Plan which is heavily focussed on tourism expansion. The plan only allowing for limited expansion of existing industry.

Apart from a two sentence commitment to keep Yamba a "working port" with deepwater achorage it makes no mention of freight activity in any one of its 35 pages.

The former Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight certainly didn't view the port as urgently requiring a new strategic approach, however the new minister in this portfolio Nationals MP for Oxley Melinda Pavey may have a different perspective.

While eight of the nine current Clarence Valley councillors went to the the 2016 local government election stating that they were not in favour of a heavily industrialised mega port and so might in 2017 be reluctant to fully support the Department's future plans for the working port once these are revealed.

I suspect that Yamba has only come to the forefront after Liberal and Nationals politicians and public service mandarins in Farrer Place & Dangar began to look for regions outside of Sydney where an excuse might be created to convert Crown land into private title.

The current Dept. of Industry-Lands agenda includes what appears suspiciously like a fairly softly, softly approach to gain tacit community agreement for future industrialisation of the Clarence River estuary, including the sell-off, lease or transfer of vacant Crown lands for commercial development.

Additionally, the expansion of Goodwood Island port facilities - which was specifically excluded from the Department's workshop discussion - is apparently now on the table because the online survey canvasses opinion on port freight levels. 

This marches in step with the vested interests of a number of professional consultants, financial advisers, investment fund managers, property conveyancing law firms and property developers whose as representatives made appearances at the NSW Legislative Council Inquiry into Crown Land, with one Sydney-based group including a Yamba super port proposal in their wish list.

It is perhaps no accident that this current online consultation finishes early next month - the same month the Berejiklian Government is due to deliver its response to the parliamentary Crown lands inquiry report.

I note that on 8 September 2016 the Audit Office of New South Wales had this to say about the Dept. of Industry-Lands:

Decisions on sale and lease of Crown land are not transparent to the public and the Department has not provided consistent opportunities for the public and interested parties to participate in decisions about Crown land. Between 2012 and 2015, 97 per cent of leases and 50 per cent of sales were negotiated directly between the Department and an individual, without a public expression of interest process. The Department publishes limited information about decision-making processes, policies or plans for future sales and leases.

Proceed with caution if you participate in this online consultation, but do participate.

For the clean, green reputation of the Clarence Coast plays a large part in what attracts tourists to the Lower Clarence, helping keep local businesses open all year round and significantly contributing to our regional economy. 

It is also a healthy, minimally modified natural estuary environment which sustains the local commercial fishing fleet, places home-caught fish on our dinner plates and allows us such an enviable lifestyle. 

Remember, it has always been concerned local residents, community groups and traditional owners who have been at the forefront in protecting the environmental, aesthetic, cultural, social and sustainable economic values of the Clarence River and its estuary.

Comment and participation in the survey can be done at  yourportcrownland.engagementhq.com until 9 April 2017.

Yamba Bay Park safe - for now

Coastal development pressure is never ending in the NSW Northern Rivers region and this was just the latest example, in the small town of Yamba perched where the mighty Clarence River meets the Pacific Ocean.

Image from Clarence Valley Independent

This was the NSW Roads & Maritime Services (RMS)request received according to Clarence Valley Council Ordinary Monthly Meeting Minutes, 21 February 2017:

In a letter to Council from RMS received 2 December 2016 a potential site situated on Yamba Road, Yamba was identified by RMS as being suitable. The land situated to the north of Yamba Road is identified as Lot 7053 DP 1114190 and the landward portion of Lot 164 in DP 751395. The RMS objective is to construct a two storey operations facility to cater for up to fifteen staff from the three agencies. According to RMS the parcel of land would give the three on-water compliance agencies easy access to the water via the adjacent launching ramp and the RMS marina facility.

One of these lots is covered by Native Title and the other is the subject of an Aboriginal Land Claim.

It is a popular little park used by both locals and visitors and is part of the Yamba Road streetscape.

Council in the Chamber wisely decided against turning it into a state government agency office building:

COUNCIL RESOLUTION – 15.010/17

Williamson/Clancy

That Council not support the transfer of Lot 7053 DP 1114190 and part Lot 164 DP 751395 for the reasons

outlined in this report.

Voting recorded as follows:

For: Simmons, Kingsley, Clancy, Ellem, Novak, Williamson, Toms

Against: Baker

Hopefully Clarence Valley towns and villages will be able to defend all their green spaces as this set of Clarence Valley councillors scramble to find money to meet the $1.2 million project shortfall resulting from a badly planned remediation of the former Grafton depot site – costing to date an est. $6,976,72. Which represents an est. $2.5 million blowout of the remediation budget.

A problem created by the foolish former council initially agreeing to proceed based on a concept level plan only and despite the lack of sufficient information concerning potential costs associated with the Grafton Depot Rationalisation Project.

Not forgetting the need to make up additional $4.13 million cash flow shortfalls these councillors inherited and, in small part have helped exacerbate since their election.

"Blinky Bill" visits a couple of Iluka residents in February 2017

Delightful video and photograph of a koala in Spenser Street, Iluka NSW, by Lisa Shaw from the Green Room café at Iluka.

Ken Nicholl from Iluka Landcare transferred this little koala to a koala food tree next door.

An Iluka resident tells me that this koala was approximately 1km from the proposed subdivision of Lot 99 Hickey Street, Iluka, a parcel of land which also reportedly contains koala food trees.

Koalas in Iluka on the NSW North Coast and coastal development pressure

Who would not get pleasure in seeing this healthy young Koala peering down at them from the foliage?

Photograph supplied by Gabrielle Barto

It was sighted in Paperbark and then later Flooded Gum in Sid and Eileen Gill Park in Elizabeth Street, Iluka all day on Wednesday, 8th February 2017 and is one of those koalas giving lie to the myth much favoured by developers that the local koala population is functionally extinct.

The amateur photographer on the spot, Ms. Barto stated: May be the same koala sighted in Elizabeth St. on 5th January. Both sightings are within 250 metres of Hickey St. Iluka D/A site. One of the criteria for assessing critical koala habitat  (E.P.B.C  Critical Koala Habitat assessment tool) is that one or more koalas are sighted within 2 kms. of the edge of impact area, in this case the Hickey St. (D/A) site, within the last 5 years.

Passions run deep in Iluka not only for koalas, but also more generally for protecting biodiversity for future generations.

Letter to the Editor in the Clarence Valley Independent on 8 February 2017:

Iluka DA - Have Your Say

15 January at 20:07 

Koala sighting again.

Intersection of Hogan street and Elizabeth streets 5th January 2017 around 9.30 am. (West of the 160 lot development proposal)

Thank you and great work Essential Energy. They got here pretty qiuckly and it was a great relocation to the relative safety of the bush across the road.

This situation came about because of a dog chasing the koala. Hopefully the koala headed back into the Bundjalung National Park (to the East of this location) and to relative safety.

This bush heading back to the national park is going to be largely cleared and broken up if the 160 lot subdivision gets approval. The re-submitted DA still does not include a continuous vegetation corridor for koalas to move in a east west or west east direction!

Koalas will become more vulnerable to dog attack and car strike unless the developer includes a realistic continuous vegetation corridor within the proposed development site.

Belatedly the NSW Coalition Government; is currently beginning the development of a whole of government koala strategy and asking for community feedback on planning issues and its Saving Our Species conservation strategy. At a federal level, the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy expired in 2014. Word is that a new strategy is in the pipeline but at the moment we’re flying blind.

The best way to protect koalas is a tried and tested one. The scientists that identified the crisis ecoregion problem also identified the solution: large, well-connected protected areas. Only by protecting and connecting remaining koala habitat can the government enact meaningful conservation. Everything else is tinkering round the edges.

And only by demonstrating that it can effectively protect koalas can we have any confidence that the government can protect the rest of Australia’s extraordinary wildlife that doesn’t share the koala’s high profile. [The Guardian, 16 January 2017]

On the other hand professional property developer, climate change sceptic and alternate Clarence Valley Council representative on the NSW Northern Joint Planning Panel, Cr. Andrew Baker, made this characteristically snide comment on Saturday, 11 February 2016 in an email he cc’d to North Coast Voices¹:

Thanks Gab for the copy

I hadn't appreciated the significance until your email.

It seems the only Koala sightings in the last 5 years have occurred at exactly the same time as Council is considering significant Iluka Development Applications.

I recall the identical occurrence as Council was about to consider the Anchorage Park expansion.

On the basis of your reports it seems development applications are proving extremely beneficial in attracting Koala to the area. Of course it might take a few more DA's to prove this obvious benefit but I expect this will now encourage further.

Of course I'm not suggesting the ability to encourage Koala is the only reason to support any development application - it will be just one of, if any, benefits to be considered along with disadvantages if any on a case-by-case basis.

Thank you for bringing this supporting information to our attention.

Regards

Andrew Baker

The tenor of this comment throws into doubt Cr. Baker’s ability to act as an unbiased council alternate (if called upon) in relation to this particular development application when it is considered by the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel in March this year.

North Coast Voices was not alone in noticing this comment, as one other recipient of Baker's email made clear when he told the councilor: "I find your comments not only highly offensive, but, given your supposedly impartial decision-making role as Councillor, deeply disturbing."

To which the property developing Cr. Baker's insouciant reply (again cc'd to this blog) was; "It's unfortunate that you are disturbed and offended. Surely that's some personal issue that can't be blamed only on my willingness to state the obvious?

And people wonder why - when all the world loves koalas - they are fast disappearing from this state's coastal landscape?

Note:
When deciding to send his reply email as "Reply All", Cr. Baker made a conscious choice to also make his personal views known to council staff having some responsibility for and/or carriage of formal advice to Council-in-the-Chamber in relation to DA SUB2015/0034. Thus muddying the waters considerably, given it is a number of concerned residents' understanding that a final staff report and recommendation on the development application is yet to be delivered.

So who has a bad case of egg on face when it comes to an Iluka DA - The Daily Examiner or the NSW Nationals Member for Clarence?

On 13 January 2017 The Daily Examiner contained this little nugget of information on Page 3:

State Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis agreed there were plenty of good arguments to support their case, and said he wa “absolutely supportive” of their fight [for an ambulance station].

But he said it would be an uphill battle, partly due to the village’s small size.

Iluka has a population of about 2000 but it is growing, with planning for a 162 lot subdivision just finalised.

Planning for a 162 lot subdivision just finalised?

Seems either Chris Gulaptis is spinning the situation or the newspaper took its eyes off the ball.

Planning appears to be far from finalised.

This was on Page 31 of Clarence Valley Council’s Environment, Planning & Community Committee Meeting Business Paper of 14  February 2017:

SUB2015/0034 11/12/2015 297 162 lot Residential Subdivision and new roads

Hickey Street

ILUKA NSW 2466

Additional information received and unsatisfactory.

Further information has been requested 24/1/17 (flora and fauna, stormwater, sewer, cultural heritage)

In addition, the formal staff report to council is yet to be tabled and deliberations of the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel are not yet completed.

Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development warn that NSW North Coast in for a "right rogering" as Baird's proposed changes to NSW coastal planning legislation come into effect

Echo NetDaily, 19 January 2017:

The NSW coast is in for a ‘right rogering’ should the state government have its way and implement new coastal plans and policies, according to Dr Richard Gates from the Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development group.

Dr  Gates said the new planning instruments would suit big developers and give lots of discretionary legislative ‘wiggle room’ for local and state governments to do as they please with the coast.

‘If this stuff goes through you can expect a bulldozer in your backyard anytime soon and high density development,’ he said.

‘We are on our way to a new Gold Coast. I have already seen plans for major developments which are being held back until the new legislation goes through.’

Consultation on the draft Coastal Management State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) and draft maps of the coastal management areas that make up the coastal zone closes on 20 January 2017 (for more detail see: http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/CoastalReform ).

The community has an opportunity to have its say at: coastal@planning.nsw.gov.au

The new Coastal Management Act 2016, which is contingent on the mapping and other coastal planning instruments, was passed by Parliament on 31 May 2016 and will become operational following consultation on the draft Coastal Management SEPP government sources claim.

The new suite of instruments tears up former  NSW Coastal Policy and replaces three State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) with one.

Dr Gates said the problem was that the environmental maps on which the new instruments were based were not complete, do not exist, or are based on material that was defective when it was used back in the 1980s.

And property developers try to say that Iluka in the Clarence Valley NSW has no koala population

Clarence Valley Council, media release, 18 January 2017:

Koala avoids nasty shock

On the way to work one morning in early January, Iluka resident Mark Starkey was shocked to see a koala high up an electricity pole. Koalas usually prefer good quality habitat with plenty of their favourite food trees.

Thanks to Mark, the koala avoided serious injury. ‘I rang the energy company who temporarily disconnected the power and relocated the animal to nearby bushland’, he said.

Mark was just one of the residents in the areas of Iluka, Woombah and Ashby to receive a brochure from Council detailing ways to help koalas by protecting native bushland, containing dogs, and ways to recognise koala food trees. The brochure also asked residents to ring and report koala sightings. Mark then contacted Council with the details of the koala.

The biggest threats to koalas in our area are loss of food and shelter trees, vehicle strike and dog attacks. Even though there are 100’s of different types of Eucalypts, koalas tend to only eat one or a few species. So even a single tree in your backyard can be important to koalas and other wildlife.

There’s more information about koalas in the Clarence on our website www.clarence.nsw.gov.au (search ‘koala’).

If you’d like a copy of the brochure or if you’ve seen koalas in your area, please ring Council on 66430200.

Release ends.

The same koala on his way down the electricity pole

Koala in bushland at Frazer's Reef, Iluka, in May 2016 at 

https://www.facebook.com/Ilukadahaveyoursay/videos/1158769244173802/

Iluka Development Application No. SUB2015/0034: "The Bob Jelly Gazette" decides it always knew it would happen

In March 2016 the Ratepayers Association of Iluka Inc. published its regular newsletter in which its president, real estate agent Graeme Lynn, stated the following:

Eight months later and the story has changed – now we’re told there was always going to be a major revision of the development application:

As  for those ordinary people who “suddenly became town planners and without any knowledge were telling everyone the design was poor and needed redoing”.

Well it appears that the “experts” are not as disdainful as Bob Jelly & Co, because this turned up in one of the documents being submitted to the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel on behalf of the developer:

So   congratulations to all those locals at Iluka who took the photographs, did the geo-plotting and otherwise supplied information for the Thursday, 16 June 2016 blog post

A remnant Coastal Cypress Pine Forest in Iluka, New South Wales.

Clarence Valley Council announces Section 55 amendment to application for SUB2015/0034 a 162 lot subdivision at Lot 99 Hickey Street, Iluka

On 10 November 2016 Clarence Valley Council sent out by email a letter dated 7 November 2016 concerning a development application being determined by the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel:

Redesigned subdivision plan for 157 lot development:

NOTE: This is not the plan sent with the official notification email. This final plan was sent by a second email 4 days later - cutting the time in which a submission based on accurate information could be created by a total of 7 submission period days.

Previous subdivision plan for 162 lot development:

Note: Streetscape plantings are indicative only and were not part of the development application.

Amended DA documents can be viewed and download here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fo7a1wml2tak7xf/SUB2015-0034%20Amended%20Application%20Documents.pdf?dl=0

A brief history of the development application here.

Australia Infrastructure Development doesn't know its rivers

The Message from Iluka....

Clarence Valley Independent, June 2016:

Ed,

I read with some bewilderment that a “summit” had been held in Casino last week by AID (Australia Infrastructure Development) for the development of a mega port to accommodate massive ships in the Lower Clarence River.

Thought I’d Google here to see what is going on: www.aid-australia.com.au.

This proposal would completely destroy the lower Clarence.

It would appear to be a box ticking exercise as part of a formal application process to government.

Ticking the “community consultation” box.

Community consultation indeed!

This company has completely failed to consult the right communities.

Surely the business people and residents of Iluka, Yamba, Maclean, Grafton and all the smaller villages and islands along the river should have been the target audiences?

One would think the company’s “summit” might have been held in one of the fine clubs that are at Iluka, Yamba, or perhaps Maclean or Grafton, rather than Casino over 100kms away.

And hey, not even the right river! Casino is on the Richmond River. Go figure.

Perhaps AID just had some bad advice about matching the right town/s to the right river.

Or is this just being a tad sneaky? Trying to keep us all in the dark until the paperwork has been lodged.

Or worse still, trying to bluff us and the government that AID conducted extensive “community consultation”.

Either way, there will be huge opposition to this MEGA PORT proposal if it is ever considered.

Tony Belton, Iluka

The Message from Grafton....

The Daily Examiner, Letter to the Editor, 8 Jul 2016:

Ugly transformation

THE Yamba Port and Rail proposal first raised its ugly head three or four years ago, and now the promoters, Australian Infrastructure Developments, and Deakin Capital Pty Ltd, are ramping up the pressure, promoting their multi billion dollar, 36sqkm obscenity, which would completely transform the lower Clarence into an export port facility to rival Newcastle.

Gone would be the fishing, sugar and tourist industries that are the current economic drivers, replaced by heavy industry and its associated noise, air and water pollution, as huge freighters, tankers, and container ships, spewing their poisonous bilge sludge into the river as they go, replace the current pleasure craft and fishing vessels.

Gone would be the quiet relaxing retirement destination described in a series of Government development strategies over the past 20 years, as coastal villages of Iluka, and Harwood, along with communities on Palmers Island and elsewhere, are decimated to allow for the widening and dredging of the river estuary, to four times the current depth.

Gone would be the culturally significant Dirrangun Reef, sacred to the Yaegl people, as part of that massive dredging.

Gone would be the supposedly protected significant agricultural land on the delta, replaced by endless kilometres of wharfs and warehouses, and massive holding pens for the proposed live cattle export, their stench wafting over the urban centres of Yamba and Maclean.

And don't forget border security, with the proponents making provision for a naval base that, in the event of conflict, could see the area become an enemy target.

There are of course the obvious obstacles to such a scheme; the sacred reef, the unstable delta soils which will collapse into the river as a result of the dredging.

There are regular floods that will require mountains of fill to raise the entire project area above flood level, a barrier that is bound to divert those flood waters across Yamba, causing even worse flooding there.

Then there is the added problem of climate change and rising sea levels. Even a modest .75 of a metre within 80 years will see most of the land proposed for the industrial complex inundated at high tide, a situation that will worsen even further with the passage of time.

It's hard to take such a proposal seriously, but over the years we have heard reports that politicians, state and federal, various northern NSW councils, including some of our local councillors, meeting with the scheme's proponents. The Northern Star's report featuring a happy Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, with arms around the proponents smiling for the cameras, adds a worrying dimension to this abhorrent proposal.

It's time for our leaders to come clean, tell us exactly what has, and is still being discussed behind closed doors, and if this proposal is pie in the sky, then to inform the proponents of that fact, and tell them to back off and put their foreign investment into something useful, like renewable energy.

John Edwards, South Grafton

The Message from Yamba....

Keeping the pens steeled in Iluka

Clarence Valley Independent, letter to the Editor:

The author of this letter asked me to note that to be factually correct line fourteen should actually have read “28 of the 50 accompanying species that make up the endangered ecological community of which there now exists only 200 hectares in the whole of N.S.W.”

The hidden delights of an as yet undeveloped block of land at Iluka in the Clarence Valley

These are photographs supplied by an Iluka resident highlighting some of the biodiversity of a 19ha lot which is currently the subject of a 162 lot subdivision development application before the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel and Clarence Valley Council.

Rainbow bee-eaters (Merops ornatus) - listed as a Migratory species and a Marine species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Protected under JAMBA international treaty.

Native orchid

Flowering gum tree

Strangler fig

Coastal cypress pine (Callitris columellaris)

Part of the tree cover

Wallaby track

Coastal banksia (banksia integrifolia)

Red stinkhorn fungus (Phallus rubicundus)

Female koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) with joey

Banksia laden with cones

Native fungus

Young native staghorns, ferns and orchid plant attached to tree

Mature fern speciman

Wattle (Arcacia)

Native fungus

*

Young native staghorns, assorted ferns and mosses

River lily (Crinum pedunculatum)

Tree canopy