THE Minister for Housing's correspondence with a local resident contradicts his own department's plans
for a high-density social housing development in Ulladulla.
The Minister, David Borger, told a local resident offering land to the Department of Housing for sale that the Department's emphasis was on "de-concentrating clusters of public housing and not increasing density".
The embarassing correspondence was revealed by Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock at a public meeting on Monday afternoon and was greeted with scoffs of derision by the 70 people present.
The Department is pushing ahead with plans for two social housing developments in Ulladulla without consultation - one on the corner of St Vincent Street and North Street in Ulladulla and the other in South Street.
Despite Mr Borger's claims that the Department of Housing is focusing on decreased densities, the St Vincent Street proposal will see 18 residential units constructed on a relatively small parcel of land.
Details of the South Street project - and others like them - are being kept secret from the public.
Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock says her calls for urgent consultation have gone unanswered and local residents are yet to receive any response to their correspondence from the State Government.
Local resident Brian Koorey told Monday's meeting that the issue wasn't just about social housing.
He said there was plenty of room for social housing in Ulladulla and that it shouldn't be under one roof in a development that would be as attractive as a block of shipping containers.
Mr Koorey said the Department of Housing proposal flew in the face of modern practice as well as commonsense and that it was wrong to isolate people who need social housing.
He said he had no argument with the need for more social housing.
"It's about how they have been planned and how they are being pushed through," he told Monday afternoon's meeting.
He said the State Government may be in self-destruct mode and hell-bent on alienating itself from the public but Shoalhaven City Council and local residents shouldn't be stripped of their right to have a say.
Mr Koorey said a development proposal such as this from anyone else would have been subjected to normal council processes and further consultation.
He urged people to write to the Minister for Housing expressing their displeasure.
Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock said Ulladulla and its surrounding villages were unique and that it came as no surprise that people wanted to have a say on certain developments.
She agreed that a private developer would have to jump through "enormous barriers" to get a similar application through council with major studies on everything from traffic to overshadowing.
With this development, she said, "nothing like that has been done".
Mrs Hancock said people had been meeting in their "hundreds and thousands" across Australia protesting against social housing developments similar to those proposed for Ulladulla.
She accused the Federal Government of 'blackmailing' the State Government into spending stimulus funding and said the State Government's response had been to introduce a new planning policy allowing it to approve development without consent.
Mrs Hancock said similar concerns were being heard throughout the region.
In Bomaderry, she said, there was a proposal to build 42 double-story units on a block of land where there houses had only recently been three homes located.
Mrs Hancock said it wasn't about who would be going into the units but where the units would be located.
She said the development would add pressure to already-stretched resources and urged concerned residents to "get vocal".
"If you want a resolution you need to work hard," she advised.
"If you don't the Minister will think the people of Ulladulla don't care."
Jemma Tribe, representing Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash, also encouraged people to 'raise their voices'.
"We can let this set a precedent for the future," she said.
The meeting resolved to write to the Minister for Housing raising concerns over development without consent, over the unaesthetic design of the proposed development and the 'under one roof' social housing concept but also requesting a public briefing to inform the community and address residents' concerns.
Meanwhile, Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash has expressed concern that many of the projects will be undertaken by companies from outside the region.
"How the State Government can get away with this is beyond me," she said.
"First they make up their own rules to put up 'developments without consent' at their own leisure, then they leave council and the community out of the planning process before handing over any jobs involved to people outside the region," she said this week.
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