Residents raise concerns with eco lodge safety, environmental impact

The eco lodge will comprise primitive camping on-site for a maximum of 30 guests, toilets, showers and camp kitchen facilities, and parking for 36 vehicles.

Stage two of the development will include a 12-room bunkhouse with shared amenities, dining, kitchen and laundry facilities, an outdoor kitchen, lounge and deck, and a function room catering for up to 60 guests.

Shoalhaven City Council gave conditional approval the development on Tuesday, January 30. 

Henry Musidlak, Simon Barton, Peter Winkler and Julie Budden are all opposed to the development and say more than “minor improvements” need to be made to Nerringillah Road, the only way into the eco lodge. 

The approval conditions require developer Tim Pembroke to consult with private landowners to upgrade the road, which is a right of way through private property. 

The private landowners must give consent to Mr Pembroke upgrading the road before he can meet council’s requirement of road widening and two passing bays. 

“The right of way issues are extremely important because, at the moment, the proposal is to only do minor upgrades on the right of way and it needs a major upgrade to fit in with council’s development control plans,” Mr Barton, who has lived on the road for 25 years, said. 

“If that happens, that will be a very expensive operation but it will be needed with the number of cars going down to the lodge even during stage one, which is the primitive tents. 

“If they did a major upgrade, they would have to get permission from all the benefited lots, so all the people who have to come down the right of way to get into their place, would need to give their signature, not just lot 7, which owns the right of way.

“That is why they want to keep it minor.” 

Mr Barton said the number of cars movements on the road were “six to 10 a day”. He said if the development went ahead, that would be “substantially increased”. 

“There is nothing to do on the block, anyone who comes down here will leave to go to the beach or the national park or get a coffee,” he said. 

“The block is landlocked, there is no access to the national park. 

“The creek does not give the lot access to the national park. It runs into the national park, but because it runs through other private lots, you can’t walk down the creek to the national park.” 

Mr Pembroke claimed he had been demonised by members of the community who were opposed to the development.

Mr Musidlak, who is a Manyana Rural Fire Brigade volunteer, was concerned about the increased fire risk posed by the development. 

“This is a landlocked area and they are proposing people come here from the city with probably very little experience with fire and managing fire,” he said. 

“One look around would have you easily persuaded that any fire that gets away down in the valley would head to Bendalong Road and the villages under any sort of normal wind pattern in the dry season. 

“Our chances of fighting a fire down here are minimal and bringing a truck down that road would endanger all the people on that truck. We wouldn’t do it.”

Mr Winkler, who lives next to the proposed development site, was worried about noise. 

However, Mr Pembroke has specified that up to 18 functions would be held per year, with a prohibition of amplified music on site.

“That means they are going to have weddings, for example, with only an acoustic guitar and a gum leaf. It is ludicrous,” Mr Winkler said. 

“Any little blaster, even a Bluetooth speaker has a little amplifier in it. Of course, they are going to have amplified music, saying they won’t is just smoke and mirrors.”