Spared by the fires, NSW’s south coast bushland now faces the bulldozers – The Guardian

Residents of a tiny community on the New South Wales south coast gathered at dawn on Tuesday as part of a last-ditch effort to prevent a small pocket of bushland that escaped the summer bushfires being bulldozed for a 20-hectare housing development.

Between 70% and 80% of bushland in the Shoalhaven council area was affected during the January fires. Now the local community at Manyana wants the state government to intervene to at least postpone the destruction of one of the few unburnt areas, with the chainsaws expected to start as early as Thursday.

Some bring their yoga mats for the daily protests and, spaced out, greet the dawn. Others arrive on bikes rugged up for a socially distanced protest.

The developer agreed to put it on hold for social and environmental healing, yet just three months later, in the midst of the pandemic, people losing their jobs, out of the blue he said he was starting next week, said Jorj Lowrey, a spokesperson for Manyana Matters.

This is the last thing this community needs, its just too much to put on peoples shoulders. They need time to deal with their post-traumatic stress disorders, to find employment and to deal with their mental health, she said.

Lowrey said the area was home to more than 84 species of birds including the endangered powerful owl, glossy-black cockatoo, and migratory species such as rufous fantails and black-faced monarchs, as well as greater gliders.

These are now under habitat stress due to the huge tracts of bushland that were ravaged by the Currowan fire, which burned 499,600 hectares and razed more than 300 homes during December and January.

Nearby Conjola national park has remained closed which means there has not yet been a stocktake of the wildlife and species loss due to the fires. Plans to have the issue debated in NSW parliament have stalled due to coronavirus.

We called for a moratorium on all land-clearing in bushfire-affected areas, Lowrey said. We put together a petition and it was tabled in parliament, but now its in limbo due to Covid-19.

The developer Ozy Homes had planned to start bulldozing in January.

It now intends to begin clearing work on stage 1, for 30 housing lots, but has agreed to pause the other stages for now. Ozy Homes declined to comment.

The planning and public spaces minister, Rob Stokes, has said he cannot issue a stop-work order without legislative change. But the Greens MP David Shoebridge said Stokes could immediately declare a new State Environmental Planning Policy (Sepp) covering bushfire-affected areas, which would allow him to protect them from land clearing while bushland recovered.

The only reason this development is pressing ahead is because they are worried about policy change, Shoebridge said. I am certain the planning minister is under pressure to act and he could, by issuing a Sepp.

Lowrey said the land clearing was causing particular angst for people who fought the fires.

They stopped it burning across Cunjurong Point road. They put their lives on the line to protect the houses and this piece of bush, she said.

On New Years Eve, the Currowan fire ripped through Conjola, then crossed the lake and headed north up Bendalong Mountain, cutting off the villages of Manyana and Bendalong for days. More areas were burned on 3 January.

The history of development at Manyana has been fraught. Three new housing estates were approved more than a decade ago, despite local protests over loss of coastal environments including wetlands.

But because of sluggish market conditions, they became what are known as zombie developments. The sites changed hands and enough work was done to keep the development approvals alive, but development itself was paused.

Lowrey argues that over the past decade environmental standards for new housing estates in coastal areas have become more stringent and appreciation of the value of the remaining natural environment has increased. Some developers, she says, have chosen to develop larger lots and keep more vegetation, rather than opting for the standard suburban configuration.

Cruelly, the fires also burned part of the other planned development site, Inyadda Drive the part of the site that is to be kept as an environmental zone. It largely spared the area to be cleared.

If the one thing we make happen out of this is that the law changes. You shouldnt be able to sit on a development application, Lowrey said.

People get left with an out-of-date style project thats no longer viable, when something much better could be done: larger blocks with dedicated green space on each lot.

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Spared by the fires, NSW's south coast bushland now faces the bulldozers - The Guardian