GANDANGARA Local Aboriginal Land Council has a vision to create a vibrant new bushland community in Sydney’s south.

Over the next 15 to 20 years, selected areas of the Heathcote Ridge site will be transformed — providing much-needed housing, jobs, community facilities, schools, ovals and transport upgrades.

At the same time, 500 hectares of pristine bushland will be protected forever, providing ongoing public access to a magnificent conservation reserve larger than the nearby Georges River National Park.

Threatened plant and animal species will thrive here and native animals will use the wildlife corridor stretching through north, south and west of the site.

The illegal dumps of tyres, asbestos and car bodies outside the conservation reserve will be replaced by a community in keeping with its natural setting — a village in the trees.

It will be sustainable. Water and energy conservation will be priorities and a dependable public transport system, bike paths and walking tracks will encourage residents from their cars.

A range of housing types and price points will be available, allowing first home buyers and retirees a chance to remain living near family and friends in Sutherland Shire.

Children will attend Heathcote Ridge’s school during the week and play sport on the oval on the weekend. They will enjoy the playgrounds and discover nature on bushwalks through the conservation reserve.

Best-practice housing design will ensure a high level of bushfire protection, with 60-metre asset protection zones. A co-ordinated bushfire management strategy will be in place.

Many of the 62 percent of workers who travel outside the LGA for work will find jobs in the Heathcote Ridge employment hub – significantly cutting commuting time for many shire residents.

The hub will attract innovative, high tech, education- and research-based industries and help a range of businesses that wish to grow. Roads will be upgraded and the much-mooted transport link between Sutherland and Liverpool will cut more than seven kilometres off the round trip.

The project will raise funds to expand our existing programs in health, education, housing and employment that make real and lasting changes to the lives of Aboriginal people.

This is our vision for Heathcote Ridge.

Don’t underestimate our interest in making this project something Aboriginal people can be proud of. We are not your average developer. We have a long-term commitment to the site and will retain and manage the conservation reserve and employment lands.

Ultimately, we want to see Heathcote Ridge stand as testament to what Aboriginal people can deliver to the entire community.

Plants need protection

By Gary Schoer, secretary, Southern Sydney Branch, National Parks Association of NSW

FOR 30 years, NPA has enunciated many conservation reasons for conserving Menai West’s natural lands.

A groundswell by the community rejected early calls for urbanisation of the area. In 1992, NPA produced A Vision for the Future of the Remaining Natural Lands of Menai and Woronora.

Integral to this document was a recommendation for the government to add the (then) crown lands of Menai West to Georges River National Park to conserve known threatened plants — especially on ridges — to ensure the national park was sufficiently large to be viable in the long term and to keep wildlife corridors north-south and east-west fully intact.

The state government never fully investigated this proposal before the land was transferred to Gandangara.

The concept plan, as it stands, calls for near maximum development of the ridges, which successive councils, Bankstown Conservation Society and respected native plant experts, such as Alan Fairly, have documented as the most ecologically valuable parts of the area.

Barden Trig lands alone contain 180 different native plants, including several threatened species.

The NPA, through Gandangara’s Independent Reference Group, has already urged the land council to more fully pursue alternative ways to gain economic returns from these lands beyond urban development in this high conservation value area.

NPA’s position is that these lands should be purchased from Gandangara by the NSW government, with the support of the Commonwealth, at market rates.

NPA is heartened to hear from the reference group that [Gandangara] will give some consideration to a “management partner” and believes the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service would be the most appropriate partner.

If Gandangara chooses to retain ownership of the land, perhaps leaseback to the government to facilitate management could be explored. Other models worth pursuing might be for the Commonwealth government to create an Indigenous Protected Area over these lands and provide adequate funding to Gandangara to manage them for their environmental values and to restore degraded areas.

NPA has not yet received requested maps of distribution of threatened plants and floral and faunal reports to demonstrate how the decision to mainly include gullies as (inadequate) conservation lands was made. The assertion that the concept plan aimed to protect high conservation value land and threatened species needs to be supported by evidence.

A “conservation fact sheet” raises more questions than it answers. A win-win can be delivered as long as the land council is willing to look beyond urban development as a source of revenue.

Which position do you support?