A MILLION tonnes of dumped materials are being dug up, compacted and contoured for a new housing estate near Greenhills Beach at Cronulla.
Much of the material is shale, excavated from Westfield Miranda during an expansion in the 1980s.
A fleet of excavators and 40-tonne dump trucks are working on the former sandmining site behind Cronulla High School, which Breen Property is developing into Shearwater Landing estate.
Chief executive Tom Breen said stage one involved "the total rehabilitation and re-engineering" of the land to produce "gently sloping contours".
"After sand extraction from the site ceased in the mid-1980s, the then management of the company introduced some hundreds of thousands of tonnes of excavated shale on to the site," he said.
"The majority of this was trucked in from the Westfield Miranda Fair expansion that was under way at the time.
"Other inert building demolition and excavated materials were also deposited on the site in the 1980s."
Mr Breen said, during the past decade, the 13-hectare site had been extensively drilled and tested so the company fully understood what was required for residential subdivision to proceed.
The site was being excavated down to the underlying native sand, he said.
Material was assessed and unsuitable matter removed before it was compacted and contoured "under constant supervision of independent geotechnical engineers".
Mr Breen said more than 500,000 tonnes had been processed so far, with a similar quantity to follow.
160 NEW HOMES
Tom Breen said the estate would include 160 lots, one less than previously proposed, of which 27 would face the ocean and be priced above $1.5 million.
Sales of the first stage were expected to start early next year, with the second and third stages to follow later in the year through to 2016-17.
Mr Breen said more than 700 expressions of interest had been received.
Would you like to live in the new estate?